ПЕРШИЙ У КРИМУ ПАМ’ЯТНИЙ ЗНАК ЖЕРТВАМ ГОЛОДОМОРУ: ВІД ІДЕЇ ДО МІСЦЯ ПАМ'ЯТІ У СІМФЕРОПОЛІ

Abstract

The article highlights the history of the first memorial sign in Crimea to the victims of the Holodomor, which was installed in the form of an Orthodox cross in 2000 on the facade of the Cathedral of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Princes Volodymyr and Olga in Simferopol. The idea of its establishment belongs to the secretary of the Crimean Diocese of the UOC of the Kyiv Patriarchate Pavlо Kushch, who in 2000 was ordained a bishop under the name of Kliment. The nearly three-meter memorial sign in the form of a pedestal and a stele, on which an Orthodox cross entwined with vines and stones are carved, was made and presented to the bishop by Crimean Tatar sculptor and national movement activist Ilmi Ametov. The memorial cross has become a place of remembrance where, since 2000, members of the public have gathered every year to commemorate both the victims of the Holodomor and the people repressed and deported by the totalitarian communist regime. Before the occupation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, representatives of the Crimean Tatar people regularly participated in these events along with activists of the Ukrainian community of Crimea. In an abbreviated version, the ceremony honoring the victims of the genocide of the Ukrainian nation at the memorial in Simferopol continues to be held in the temporarily occupied Crimea, but its existence is threatened. As part of the general policy of discrimination against the Ukrainian community of Crimea, the Crimean Diocese of the UOC of the Kyiv Patriarchate, which since 2018 has become part of the autocephalous Ortodox Church of Ukraine is subject to systematic pressure. In particular, the occupiers have already taken part of the temples from it. In 2019, the illegitimate occupation "court" decided to vacate the premises of the OCU, where a memorial cross to the victims of the Holodomor was installed. As of 2022, the church continues to hold it, but if the church building is seized, the memorial will probably be dismantled, because Russia has declared itself the successor of the USSR and does not recognize the Holodomor as genocide of the Ukrainian nation.