The Holodomor by Charles River Editors
The Holodomor by Charles River Editors – The History and Legacy of the Ukrainian Famine Engineered by the Soviet Union – is a short book that is well worth reading. It offers a good insight into Holodomor, but in a very short version, perfect for someone who wants a refresher or just to know what happened at that time. The book includes a few pictures which are evocative and necessary to better understand the subject.
Holodomor was a man-made genocide of Ukrainians in the early 1930s. The consensus now is that about 4 million people died in less than 2 years due to famine caused by soviet collectivization and political decisions. Some previous estimates reached as high as 10 million people.
While the topic and its repercussions are too wide to be covered in a book this short, there are enough details and very well and clearly presented to get a good picture of the events during the famine.
Political decisions taken after the war made it difficult to learn about Holodomor or death by hunger, while we know so much about Holocaust, albeit with some issues on that topic too. I think it is an important topic to learn about because, as always, this is not just Ukrainian history but it is world history and, thus, all our history.
The book is great to show in a clear way what happened in a concise manner. So do consider reading it if you are not familiar with Holodomor.
The Holodomor by Charles River Editors
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My rating: 5/5 Stars
Would I recommend it: yes
Published by: Independently published
Year it was published: 2020
Format: Paperback
Genre(s): Ukrainian history
Pages: 116
About the author: Charles River Editors is an independent publisher of thousands of ebooks on Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and Apple iBookstore & provider of original content for third parties.
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Probably showing my ignorance here, but would this be considered part of Stalin’s pogroms?
Kelly recently posted…The Sounds of ‘73
No, this was not related to the pogroms or Jews. After Lenin’s death, Stalin’s main focus was on industrial development which could have been obtained only with enough food, mainly grain, from places such as Ukraine, where the earth is very bountiful. In 1928-1929 the process of collectivisation started and the Ukrainian peasants were reluctant to give up their land and work in a collective. So, it was forcefully implemented. Many were transferred to the Gulag, many killed. They were forced to give grain to random quotas imposed from moscow, meaning they had to give including grain they would have kept for themselves and as seeds for the following year. In 1932 the famine started, when moscow asked for a “meat penalty” meaning the ones who would not give grain would have their livestock requisitioned. By the end of 1933 about 4 million Ukrainians died. Some russian peasants died as well and also peasants from Kazakhstan, but as a percentage of population, Ukraine was the most affected.
This is what I am going to study for my Master’s, Holodomor & British media/public discourse. It’s crazy to think that we have so many different names for genocide of one category of people or another. It’s even worse that genocide is still happening today, in different parts of the world.