Week 7 Notes

Week 7- Memory of the Holodomor in Ukraine

Mon 3/1 – Introduction to Memory of the Holodomor

Discussed: 

General Housekeeping:

  • paper due on Saturday the 6th
  • remember to sign up for student presentations: talk to Prof Shaya or Glenna to sign up (see course schedule to see what spots are available)

General Memory of the Holodomor (**content warning**):

  • Soviet-occupied Ukraine
  • 1932-1933: requisition of grain caused millions of starvation deaths
  • punishment of ‘kulacks’ or well-to-do peasants who were also killed or sent to gulags

Presentation by Colin and Dylan:

  • collectivization caused mass execution, expulsions, and starvation
  • Destruction of economic well being and national identity of Ukraine
  • memory of the Holodomor was suppressed at the time, both in the Soviet Union and in the West
  • efforts to memorialize came mainly from Ukrainian diaspora before 1990s
  • memorialization in Soviet Ukraine began in the 1980s- but was very limited
  • Architects of memorials were not able to express what the Holodomor meant to Ukrainians until after the Soviet Period
  • Les lieux de mémorie– Pierre Nora’s idea of places that hold memorial significance
  • Memorials show more of a longing to remember rather than to rectify the past
  • Religious symbols (crosses, 33, bells) are heavily used in these memorials
    • Holodomor was the loss of Ukrainian identity, of which religiosity was a large part
    • Ukrainians could only express their religiosity after Soviet occupation
  • Forgotten mass graves – memorials were built in public spaces because it is not known where the victims were buried
    • Was a result of a lack of time but led to a forgetfulness of mass death
  • sites of memory vs. non-sites of memory: places where we remember vs places where we have no way of knowing what transpired
  • How does the nature of this event impact how it is remembered? Their capacity to remember over time, the nature of the event (civil conflict rather than a war), etc.
  • What purpose does memory serve? is there a politics to memory?
    • Construction of national identity, politics between Russia and Ukraine can be traced back to this period
    • Used to form different political and national identities
    • Memory of the Holodomor was bound up in Ukrainian foreign policy
      • Policies of Presidents of Ukraine used the memory of the Holodomor for various political purposes

Wed 3/3

Discussed: 

Midterm reflections – how are we doing  with halfway of the semester?

  • Change in the discussion forum requirements – one post per week reflecting on class discussion, readings, or things in the news, etc.

Students’ ideas for paper #2

  • due this Saturday
  • make sure to include your own understanding and analysis- what is your interpretation of a scholarly source or a primary source?

Mr. Jones 

  •  Dir. Agnieska Holland, Poland, 2019
  • Tells the story of a journalist, Gareth Jones, who told the story of the Holodomor
    • Other journalists such as Walter Duranty downplayed the events
  • Who were the perpetrators?
    • the Soviet Union, Western journalists, villagers, guards
  • Gareth Jones’s portrayal- naive, resourceful, ambitious
  • contrast between the elites of the Soviet Union and the peasants
  • some sensationalism?
  • the depiction of Walter Duranty – the film indicted him not just because of his bad journalism, but also because of his sexuality

Primary Source: Photographs and testimonies  – Matthew

  • photographic evidence – photographic collection of Alexander Winerberger, 1932-1933
  • primary accounts of journalists and survivors
    • Arthur Koestler – The God that Failed

Mattingly and Perpetrators

  • how were perpetrators portrayed
    • oral testimony of survivors, Ukrainian novels
  • typology of perpetrators
    • komsomol, search brigades, KNS, teachers, field guards
  • portrayal of “the other” the Soviets vs the Ukrainians – is it that simple?
    • often with antisemitic overtones
  • gender and perpetration – were women rejecting traditional gender roles prompted to be cruel perpetrators?
  • literary portrayals of the Holodomor vs first-hand accounts
  • location: diaspora vs. Soviet Union vs. Ukrainian liturature

What do we take away from the memory of the Holodomor?

Up next… colonialism in France (WWII and colonialism, French Algerian War)