- That there are two main competing models by which historians account for
the mass deaths of Ukrainians in the early 1930s:
Model (hypothesis) 1: that the loss of millions of Ukrainians by
famine resulting from a policy of enforced collectivization, closing of borders,
export of grain, etc (combined with natural circumstances), together with more
or less simultaneous acts directed at eliminating nationally-minded urban
intelligentsia in Ukraine, constituted an act of genocide against Ukrainians (as
defined by the UN Convention on the Prevention of Genocide);
Model (hypothesis) 2: that the above were separate events motivated by
independent policy goals, and thus do not constitute 'genocide' against a
people, but rather acts of mass murder directed against distinct sub-groups of
the population of the USSR.
- That uncertainty between the two positions results in part from a dearth
of evidence of intent (as compared, say, to the clear intent by Nazi
authorities of genocide against Jews);
- And that, therefore, more research is needed into Soviet archives to
determine the nature of the latter. Until the evidence of intent becomes more
conclusive, both hypotheses remain viable.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 9:01
PM
Subject: RE: [aaus-list] Re: [announce]
Expert Scholar andHistorianJoins"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-----
From: aaus-list-bounces@ukrainianstudies.org on behalf of
Sorokowski, Andrew (ENRD)
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
>>>>
_______________________________________________
>>>> aaus-list
mailing list
>>>>
aaus-list@ukrainianstudies.org
>>>> http://www.brama.com/mailman/listinfo/aaus-list
>>>>
>>>
>>>
_______________________________________________
>>> aaus-list
mailing list
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>>>
>>
>>
>>
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