A conference where the Ambassador of Ukraine asked the Czech Republic to recognize the Holodomor as genocide was held in Prague
On June 4, the Senate of the upper chamber of the Czech Parliament hosted the conference “Stalin’s Holodomor in Ukraine in 1932–1933: A Concealed War That Had to Eliminate the Ukrainian People,” where reports on the genocide of Ukrainians of Ukrainian and Czech historians were presented, the Embassy of Ukraine in the Czech Republic informs.
The conference was attended by Deputy Head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance Volodymyr Tylishchak and Director of the Branch State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine Andrii Kohut; from the Czech side there were historian of the Institute of International Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Charles University and researcher at the Institute for Modern History of the Czech Academy of Sciences Daniela Kolenowska, historian of Ukraine, researcher at the Institute of International Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Charles University Bohdan Zilynskyi and historian of Ukraine, scholar at the Institute for the study of totalitarian regimes David Svoboda.
The mechanism of the Holodomor (V. Tilishchak), its anti-Ukrainian character (D. Kolenovska) and genocidal nature (D. Svoboda) were discussed. The issues of representing the Holodomor in the world context (A. Kohut) and Czechoslovakia in particular (B. Zilynskyi) were also considered.
Ambassador of Ukraine to the Czech Republic Yevhen Perebyinis also made an official introductory speech. He spoke about the terrible consequences of the Holodomor for Ukraine and recalled that in 2007, the House of Representatives of the Czech Republic in its resolution condemned the Holodomor in Ukraine in 1932–1933 as a crime of the Stalinist regime against the Ukrainian nation. He asked the Senate and the House of Representatives of the Parliament of the Czech Republic to recognize the Holodomor of 1932–1933 in Ukraine as the genocide of the Ukrainian people.
“I am convinced that the Ukrainian diaspora, which is the largest minority in the Czech Republic, will appreciate such a step by the Czech high officials. The hybrid war which is still led by Russia against Ukraine did not arise today. The Kremlin has improved its methods and tools, but the goal remains the same – to destroy Ukraine, the Ukrainian language and the Ukrainian people. The Holodomor was one of the methods of the hybrid war of Moscow against Ukraine. Today’s war on the Donbas is a direct extension of the genocide. Donbas was one of the regions most affected by famine. And precisely in this region, instead of the Ukrainians executed by starvation, Moscow settled the representatives of the so-called “Russian world,” – noted Perebyinis.
The Deputy Chairman of the Chamber of Deputies Vojtech Pikala summed up the importance of the conference: “Today’s conference gives us an opportunity to think over all those who were under the pressure of dictatorial ideologies throughout history. The Holodomor in Ukraine was not spoken about for many years. Subordination of interests of one people to the interests of another and distortion of facts in favor of ideological crimes is, unfortunately, continuing today. I am glad that the Senate of the Czech Republic, a democratic country, has the opportunity to provide its citizens with true and factual information, which is the basis of a free civil society,” he said.