aaus-list @ ukrainianstudies.org -- RE: [aaus-list] Re: [announce] Expert Scholar andHistorianJoins"HOLODOMOR" Documentary Feature Film Team]

[Daria Fedewytsch-Dickson <dsfd@unimelb.edu.au>]

Title: RE: [aaus-list] Re: [announce] Expert Scholar and HistorianJoins"HOLODOMOR" Documentary Feature Film Team]

Do we call the Kazakh dead in hte same famine also a genocide? Maybe

What about the forced and brutal deportation of over a quarter of the population of each of the Baltic states in June 1940? Culturally (and physically) these, too, could qualify. Seems there are too many potential genocides.

And why not "democide"? Certainly applicable and horrifying enough. W

e do not really know the Famine intent in the same was as we do know about Nazi racial policies. It certainly seems to the case that the Famine was a result of the Soviet state's reaction to the rural opposition to collectivization (as in Kazakhstan and among the Volga Germans. These, like the Roma in the holocaust, are often overlooked by Ukrainians although certainly the Kazakh death rate is comparable)

Yes, Ukrainian culture (and Jewish culture and that of many other Soviet ethnicities/religions)was attacked and its prominent figures arrested and killed but that is not the same event as the Famine. There is confusion here. Is the Famine the genocide? Or ALL persecution of Ukrainians genocide? Part of the same genocide? This is not a clear situation.

D.


-----Original Message-----
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Sent: Wed 1/30/2008 8:49 AM
To: aaus-list@ukrainianstudies.org
Subject: FW: [aaus-list] Re: [announce] Expert Scholar and HistorianJoins"HOLODOMOR" Documentary Feature Film Team]


> I do not think killing Russian intelligentsia (as intelligentsia) is
logically (or politically) inconsistent with killing Ukr intelligentsia
as Ukrainians.
> Genocide of Ukrainians could have included both killing of
intelligentsia and starvation of peasants, couldn't it?

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: aaus-list-bounces@ukrainianstudies.org
<aaus-list-bounces@ukrainianstudies.org>
> To: aaus-list@ukrainianstudies.org <aaus-list@ukrainianstudies.org>
> Sent: Mon Jan 28 13:28:52 2008
> Subject: [aaus-list] Re: [announce] Expert Scholar and Historian
Joins"HOLODOMOR" Documentary Feature Film Team]
>
> forwarded with permission,
>
> MP
> pyz@brama.com
>
>
> ---------------------------- Original Message
----------------------------
> Subject: RE: [aaus-list] Re: [announce] Expert Scholar and Historian
> Joins"HOLODOMOR" Documentary Feature Film Team
> From:    "Daria Fedewytsch-Dickson" <dsfd@unimelb.edu.au>
> Date:    Sun, January 27, 2008 11:26 pm
> To:      "Roman Serbyn" <serbyn.roman@videotron.ca>
> Cc:      pyziur@brama.com
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
>
>
> Dear all,
>
> I am not an academic with Holod expertise but as a critical reader
(and
> someone who works at the same University as Assoc Prof Stephen
Wheatcroft
> who is well known for his controversial Holod demographics)I feel
somewhat
> uncomfortable when people fall over themselves to insist the Holod was
> Genocide and if it doesn't quite fit, then the whole of the Terror
period
> is deemed part of this genocide.
>
> Roman Serbyn raises some interesting considerations: that ethnic
> Ukrainians who were not in the Ukrainian SSR in 1933 were not counted
as
> famine victims. There are some serious questions here. First, perhaps
in
> conditions of Terror (especially by 1937 when the famous census was
> taken)Ukrainians living in the Russian SFSR preferred to register as
> Russians out of fear? Second, if they were living outside the borders
of
> Ukraine maybe they actually survived the famine?
>
> Further to that census, we must recall that the demographic loss
figures
> in Ukraine reflected a loss in PROJECTED figures based on the
birth-death
> rates at the time of the previous census of 1928 . Therefore they do
not
> reflect loss of Ukrainians who were alive in 1928; they show that the
> "expected number of Ukrainians by 1937" as extrapolated from the 1928
> census was not reached. Of course, some of these figures were never
> reached because there was a massive death rate from famine (as well as
> mass deportations; executions and re-location as people sought to
escape
> the worsening conditions in Ukraine while it was still possible to get
> out) but they are not all famine deaths. They also include the
children
> which were not born because their potential parents died. This is not
the
> same as counting the actual dead and it must be made clear to
ourselves
> and to non-Ukrainians otherwise we will seem foolish and highly
> discredited in the extreme.
>
> Me also must not throw in the non-famine victims (e.g. the executed
> intelligenstia) "for good measure" in the Genocide "campaign". It
would
> help to expand our horizons to know that ALL the intelligentsia in the
> USSR: Russians, Georgians, Kazakhs, Jews and later the Baltic peoples
we
> ALL persecuted and murdered in vast numbers. Either we are talking
about
> the Holodomor itself (a discrete event like the Holocaust) or we are
> talking about all persecution of Ukrainians under Stalin. A very
different
> question though related. Stalin killed intelligentsias wherever he
found
> them (first of all among the old Bolsheviks) because he perceived them
as
> a threat. This is not the same as setting out to perpetrate genocide
among
> all the various Soviet peoples or some specific ones as Hitler did
> regarding the Jews and the Roma. The garment should not be stretched
to
> fit.
>
> My point is that the Famine deserves an enormous amount of additional
> study - especially now with so many archives accessible. But any
figures
> or interpretations or terminological positions at this point are
still,
> actually hasty. The Holodomor should be studied in its own terms not
with
> preconceptions and it should be studied with the general history of
the
> whole Soviet Union.
>
> Daria Fedewytsch-Dickson
> -----Original Message-----
>
>>
>> In my experience, it's not good politics to cite bad numbers.
>> The main consequence of the ten million figure is disbelief.
>> People who know little about Ukrainian history, which
>> as we all know is pretty much everyone, are
>> astonished to learn of the famine; and so they ask people who
>> might know (this has happened to me dozens of times)
>> whether the figure of ten million is correct.  When they hear
>> that it most likely is not, and that the range of credible
>> estimates of unnatural deaths within Soviet Ukraine in 1932-1933
>> is more like 2.6-5.5 million, they come away from the experience with
>> the sense that they have been misled, or worse.
>> Since their first contact with the famine involves something
>> false, they then may often wonder if the famine itself is
>> to be questioned.  It would be good politics, and surely
>> good professional ethics, to tell the story of the famine as
>> accurately as we can -- as scholars, journalists, film-makers, etc.
>> The harshness and cynicism of collectivization in 1930 and 1931, the
>> grim progress of special measures of repression in the Soviet
republic
>> of Ukraine in 1931 and 1932, and the horrors of death by
>> starvation in 1932 and 1933 deserve scholarly, credible, and
accessible
>> accounts.  Even if the lowest figures are accurate, we still
>> have before us a political atrocity on a scale that was,
>> until then, unknown. For a sample of recent discussions of the famine
>> that include estimates of total deaths, see: Jacques Vallin, et al.,
>> ?A new estimate of Ukrainian population losses during the crises of
>> the 1930s and 1940s,? Population Studies, 56 (2002), 249-264; Robert
>> Kusnierz, Ukraina w latach kolektywizacji i Wielkiego G?odu,
>> (Toru? 2005), the 12/2004 issue of Osteuropa, and of course
>> the works of Stanislav Kulchyts'kyi.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Timothy Snyder
>>
>> Professor of History
>> Yale University
>>
>> Quoting Max Pyziur <pyz@brama.com>:
>>
>>>> The number of ten million Holodomor victims rests on sound
historical and
>>>
>>> If it is sound and historical, then there certainly must be a
definitive
>>> study. Care to cite it?
>>>
>>>> political judgment, and Mr. Pyziur is wrong in questioning it. Only
the
>>>
>>> "Political"? No question that it serves someone's political needs.
>>>
>>>> Good Lord knows the exact number of victims, and He has not helped
the
>>>> Ukrainians by calling to His throne Jack Palance, who would have
been the
>>>> ideal narrator for the projected documentary "HOLODOMOR: Ukraine's
>>>> Genocide of 1932-33." A knowledgeable human source would have been
TIME's
>>>> "Person of the Year for 2007," but he is not talking, for obvious
reasons
>>>> (once a Stalinist, always a Stalinist!). The recent brilliant work
by
>>>> Roman Serbyn has proved that Stalin did indeed commit genocide
against
> the
>>>> Ukrainian people as such, and Taras Hunczak has a long record of
>>>> presenting controversial subjects both cogently and persuasively.
>>>>
>>>> Some political judgment is also involved.  A canonical figure
simply had
>>>> to be established; and Yushchenko's ten million is a reasonable one
> (as is
>>>
>>> This is intellectually lazy. At worst, dishonest.
>>>
>>> Max Pyziur
>>> pyz@brama.com
>>>
>>>> the figure of six million for the Shoah-Holocaust and 1.5 million
for the
>>>> Armenian genocide). Kravchuk's figure of five million was much too
low;
>>>> and Kuchma's span from seven to ten million was a disaster for
public
>>>> documentation and presentation.
>>>>
>>>> To end on a personal note, as does Mr. Pyziur: CONTINUED
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>>
>>
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