The Holodomor in Collective Memory

Abstract

This paper concerns the role of genocide in collective memory and its function for national identity-building in post-Soviet Ukraine. Known as the Holodomor, Ukraine’s famine of 1932-33 has become an important part of the country’s national history. Upon gaining independence in 1991, the Ukrainian government set out to build and affirm a national identity distinct from Russia, grounded in Ukraine’s unique history and national myths. The claim to have undergone genocide as a nation in the Holodomor comprised part of this state-building project, though whether this claim is appropriate under international law has long been disputed. This paper examines the ways in which the Holodomor-as-genocide thesis was embedded in Ukrainian national identity, particularly under the administration of Viktor Yushchenko. Through the creation of new institutions, campaigns, and laws, the Ukrainian government sought to have the Holodomor recognized as genocide at the international and domestic levels, and to make its sacred commemoration a cornerstone of Ukrainian society. This narrative was deployed to unite the nation under a shared history of suffering that effaced politically inexpedient realities, such as cases of complicity in the Holodomor and the Shoah by Ukrainian elites. Narratives assigning blame to Ukrainian Jews and Russians alike delineated a narrow conception of the true Ukrainian nation to the exclusion of the alleged perpetrators. Further, it served to distance Ukraine from Russia by emphasizing the consequences of Soviet colonialism and the importance of Ukrainian collective memory as a matter of political sovereignty and cultural emancipation.