Marko Zalizniak, an amateur photographer from Donbas, is one of the few who managed to capture the period of collectivization and the Holodomor on film. The lens of his camera saw how rural families were dekulakized, how they fought against religion and destroyed churches, and what the rural life of the time was like. The special value of Zalizniak’s photos is that the author left detailed descriptions of most of them, and, in addition, he kept diary entries in which he openly shared what he had experienced and seen.
April 10 marked the 130th anniversary of Marko Zalizniak’s birth. During the week – from April 10 to 15 – the Holodomor Museum published his photographs and told about interesting and dramatic stories related to them. We suggest you learn a selection of published stories.
The story of how Marko became interested in photography
A picture of a windmill and a story about life in a Donetsk village at the beginning of the 20th century
Dekulakization in 1929 in Zalizniak’s photo
Dekulakization in 1930. Photo with transportation of an unassembled barn
Photo of the daughter, Nataliia Zalizniak, holding bread baked in 1933 from peeled, pounded corn cobs and rotten potatoes
The dekulakization of the Duhelnyi family from Romanivskyi village in the Donetsk region. One of the most famous photos of Zalizniak
