28.11.2007 Ukraine, Zaporizhia. Preparation for opening a monument to victims of the Holodomor.
Photo: Темпалова Марина
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A Better Reply
The dispute over the Holodomor is only a fragment of a major battle for history between Moscow and Kiev. This issue is much sharper than discussions about Mazepa and Poltava. You can still find witnesses of those events, and unexpectedly come across traces of the Holodomor. This summer my relative from the Poltava area started digging a well in his yard and dug out three children's skulls. Neither he nor his family admitted that there can be human remains in the yard, where hens peacefully wander. As a child, I heard several stories about rural cannibalism, when people lured children to their places with a sweet and ate them.
Although the Holodomor of the 1930s is a common tragedy for both Ukrainians and Russians, today they organize commemoration campaigns in Ukraine only. Not long ago, coming to my native village after a five-year break, I was surprised to find a small monument to victims of the Holodomor.
It is clear that erecting monuments to victims of a humanitarian catastrophe of the Soviet era, the Ukrainian Government perverts history in search of the sources of the Ukrainian identity and fundamental principles of its statehood. After all, admitting genocide in Ukraine, which is deliberate annihilation of the Ukrainian people, it will turn out that it was Ukrainians that committed the crime. Who were then those party activists in the Kharkiv and Poltava Regions? The Ukrainian political elite, which has to overcome a deep fissure today, regards the Holodomor as one of the few words, able to somehow unite the nation, except for, perhaps, Ukrainian communists. That is why sinking President Yushchenko catches at the straw of the Holodomor. Unfortunately, commemoration of victims appears to have much to do with political PR.
But could the Ukrainian Government hype this issue if Russia behaved a different way, if it had raised this question before President Yushchenko did it, if it had resolutely condemned the crimes of the Stalin regime? Why didn’t President Medvedev go to Kiev and use the chance to tell the truth and avert speculation?
Such things didn’t take place, which is in fact natural. Since the demise of the Soviet Union, Moscow has avoided articulating its attitude towards the Stalin era’s legacy. Apart from the Holodomor, it concerns Katyn, Belomorkanal and other tragedies. Meanwhile such a position is fraught with heavy costs: in a situation like this, the Russian government is perceived by many as the successor of the Stalin government.
So, instead of writing a reply to President Yushchenko, Dmitry Medvedev should consider erecting monuments to victims of starvation in the Volga area.
Sergey Strokan, columnist
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 17, 2008
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