In Ukraine and in Canada, the fourth Saturday in November is the official day of remembrance for the Holodomor. The Holodomor, a Ukrainian portmanteau for “death by starvation” or “terror famine,” refers to the Russian-engineered famine and genocide that killed millions of Ukrainians in 1932-33.
Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine this year, few Americans had heard of Ukraine. When I would tell others I was Ukrainian, it was almost universally met with bewilderment, so I don’t expect many in the U.S. to have heard of the Holodomor, either. The story should be told. It demonstrates the depth of evil historically perpetrated by Russia upon Ukraine and that the war by Russia on Ukraine began a very long time ago. Arguably, Russia has been waging war on Ukraine since Ukraine was forced into the Soviet Union in 1922.
In Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union, agriculture was collectivized, including my grandfather’s farm in western Ukraine, meaning the farms were confiscated by the state. The results were predictable, with a dramatic fall in farm production in the breadbasket of Eastern Europe. While under Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, Ukrainian nationalism had been acceptable. Lenin thought of nationalism as a tool to facilitate transformation from an agrarian state to the industrial and then the utopian communist state. Stalin, however, saw nationalism like religion, a threat to his absolute rule.
