Журнал Viche 2006 №24

№24, 2006

1932–1933: ethnic cleaning in Ukraine

The starvation in Ukraine of 1932–1933 years was named the “so called starvation” by the MFA of Russia. Russians try to represent the tragedy as the banal phenomenon. Because not only Ukrainians but also other people of the Union suffered. Favorable view-point. One can not hide the crime. One can not wipe memory out. The past gets out like a spike of an awl. The successor of the USSR can only refuse to take responsibilities. There is nothing to whine about in Ukraine, everybody felt bad. But did everybody?

“The consequence of the present day misfortune in Ukraine will be Russian colonization of this country that will cause change of its ethnographic character. In the future and, probably, in the nearest future nobody will speak about Ukraine or about the Ukrainian people, and about the Ukrainian problem, because Ukraine will become de facto the territory with the mainly Russian population”.

(From the Sergio Gradenigo’s letter, Italian consul in Kharkiv, 1933 year).

Rodion HRABOVYCH