Holodomor denial

Holodomor denial refers to the action of saying that the Holodomor did not happen, or was not as bad as it was.[1][2] The Holodomor was a man-made famine caused by Joseph Stalin's policies, in which around 7,000,000 people died.[1][2] Jurij Dobczansky, a senior Library of Congress cataloging specialist,[3] said:[4]

“ Holodomor denial [...] consists of especially vitriolic anti-Western and anti-Ukrainian tirades [...] accusations of foreign influence and Nazi sympathies, or ulterior motives. ”

Examples

Since the 1930s, many Western scholars have denied the Holodomor for different reasons. The denial is typically associated with communist sympathies, which prevent them from recognizing Ukrainians as equal humans.[5][6] Holodomor denial is considered racist and dehumanizing.[5][6]

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union's regime is said to have denied the Holodomor throughout its existence.[7] It is also said to have never commemorated the Holocaust.

“ The Soviet system never commemorated the Holocaust. One reason for this is that once you define and identify one genocide, you can recognize other genocidal crimes. The Soviet empire didn’t want us to learn our history. Decades of Soviet education and censorship ensured that even after the USSR collapsed, many in Lviv[a] failed to realise the striking proximity of the Holocaust. ”

—Victoria Amelina[8]

Walter Duranty

In the 1930s, while millions of Ukrainians starved to death, a Moscow-based New York Times journalist named Walter Duranty wrote a series of articles denying the Holodomor and praising Stalin. The articles ironically won Duranty the 1932 Pulitzer Prize, which caused controversies in the following decades. In 2003, the New York Times and Pulitzer Prize board reviewed Duranty's articles separately, yet declined to withdraw his prize.[9][10]

Oksana Piaseckyj, a Ukrainian-American activist who fled to the United States as a child in 1950, referred to Walter Duranty as "the personification of evil in journalism."[11] The controversy about Duranty is the biggest scandal in the history of the New York Times.[12]

Responses

Ukraine

Ukraine passed the Law on the Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine in 2006 to ban Holodomor denial.[13] This law recognized Holodomor denial as an insult to the victims' memories and a humiliation of Ukrainians' dignity.[13]

Germany

In November 2022, Germany recognized the Holodomor as a genocide.[14] It also banned the approval, denial, and "gross trivialization" of genocides or war crimes.[15] They added this law in the new paragraph 5 of section 130 of the German Penal Code ‒ the Strafgesetzbuch.[16][15]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Lviv is now part of Ukraine; it was formerly part of Poland.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1
    • Applebaum, Anne (September 16, 2024). "Holodomor | Facts, Definition, & Death Toll". Britannica. Retrieved October 30, 2024. Holodomor, man-made famine that convulsed the Soviet republic of Ukraine from 1932 to 1933, peaking in the late spring of 1933.
    • "Holodomor (Ukrainian Genocide)". The Genocide Education Project. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
    • "Common Lies about the Holodomor". Ukraïner. November 1, 2020. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
    • "Why Did So Many Ukrainians Die in the Soviet Great Famine?". Kellogg Insight. October 1, 2022. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
    • "Ukraine: This 96-year-old survived Soviet Holodomor famine". DW News. November 24, 2023. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 * "Worldwide Recognition of the Holodomor as Genocide". Holodomor Museum. November 24, 2007. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
  3. ↑ Maloney, Wendi (December 7, 2022). "Jurij Dobczansky: Working with Libraries in Ukraine During War". Library of Congress. Retrieved March 16, 2025.
  4. ↑ Dobczansky, Jurij (2009). "Affirmation and Denial: Holodomor-related Resources Recently Acquired by the Library of Congress". Holodomor Studies. 1 (2 [Summer-Autumn 2009]): 155–164. Archived from the original on 2024-08-19. Retrieved 2025-03-16.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1
  7. ↑
  8. ↑ Nothing bad has ever happened: a tale of two genocides, the Holocaust and the Holodomor by Victoria Amelina (May 19 2022 - 06:03) The Irish Times.
  9. ↑ "Statement on Walter Duranty's 1932 Prize". The Pulitzer Prizes. November 21, 2003. Retrieved November 4, 2024.
  10. ↑ "New York Times Statement About 1932 Pulitzer Prize Awarded to Walter Duranty". The New York Times. Retrieved November 4, 2024.
  11. ↑ "'The New York Times' can't shake the cloud over a 90-year-old Pulitzer Prize". NPR. May 8, 2022. Retrieved November 4, 2024.
  12. ↑
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Про Голодомор 1932-1933 років в Україні [On the Holodomor of 1932–1933 in Ukraine]. Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (in Ukrainian). Retrieved 2022-12-13.
  14. ↑ Sitnikova, Iryna (2022-11-30). Німеччина визнала Голодомор геноцидом українського народу [Germany recognized the Holodomor with the genocide of the Ukrainian people]. Hromadske. Retrieved 30 November 2022.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 "Germany criminalizes denying war crimes, genocide". DW. 2022-11-25. Retrieved 2022-12-13.
  16. ↑ "Germany seeks to declare Ukraine's Holodomor a genocide". DW. 2022-11-25. Retrieved 2022-12-13.
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