A lecture entitled “The Holodomor in the Donetsk Region: An Oral History of the Crime” was held.

On Saturday, 25 October, the Holodomor Museum hosted a lecture entitled “The Holodomor in the Donetsk Region: An Oral History of the Crime”, prepared and delivered by Anna Hedio, Head of the Department of Ukrainian History, Doctor of Historical Sciences, and Professor at the Borys Grinchenko Kyiv Metropolitan University. The event was part of the multimedia exhibition “The North Azovian Greeks: The Path of Identity.”

Oral history testimonies are an essential part of the puzzle in the overall picture of the Holodomor. After all, due to years of concealment and silence about the crime, the destruction of documents, mass lies and propaganda in the press, it is these testimonies that allow us to see a more complete picture of the genocide.

“In 2013, an interview was published with Sviatoslav Bliednov, who researched the Holodomor in the Donetsk region and participated in the creation of the National Book of Remembrance for the Holodomor Victims in the Donetsk Region, where he noted that after working on the volumes of the Book, at least 5,000 testimonies about the Holodomor remained unprocessed in the State Archives of the Donetsk region. And we understand that we will most likely never see them because they have been destroyed,” says Anna Hedio. She urged everyone present to look through their home archives, as they might contain memories of older relatives. Each of these memories is valuable and crucial to forming a complete picture of what happened in the Donetsk region in the early 1930s.

In her lecture, the historian analysed the differences between the course of the Holodomor in the Donetsk region, an industrial area, and other regions of Ukraine. She spoke about the transformation of rituals, survival, and cases of self-sacrifice and mutual aid. She separately emphasised the use of the “blackboards” regime, a repressive mechanism that did not exist in any other republic of the USSR except Ukraine and Kuban.

The lecturer emphasises that despite their isolation and lack of information, the Holodomor victims clearly understood that the famine was not a natural disaster, but a political tool deliberately planned by the authorities. The principal cause was the total confiscation of the harvest, compounded by violence and fear.

The speaker focused separately on the survival of ethnic communities in the Donetsk region, who, as representatives of the Ukrainian political nation, also fell victim to the Holodomor. The North Azovian Greeks are the third largest ethnic group in the Donetsk region, so holding the lecture as part of the multimedia exhibition ‘North Azovian Greeks: Paths of Identity’ had special significance. After all, the Holodomor in the North Azov settlements had a significant impact on the formation of the identity and self-awareness of entire generations of the North Azovian Greeks.

Ms Anna cited excerpts from her research based on residents’ oral testimonies in the villages of Starobesheve, Komar, Yalta, and Kostiantynopil: “Memories of the Holodomor in the villages of the North Azovian Greeks primarily contain evidence of the grain procurement process, the confiscation of all available grain from collective farmers and individual farmers during collectivisation. The vast majority of respondents point out that the authorities resorted to violent methods, disregarding the wishes and aspirations of the North Azovian Greek peasants.” To escape starvation, families left their villages and lost touch with their traditions and native languages while striving to survive in a new urban environment.

Ms Olena, a Greek woman from Mariupol, shared a touching story about her family’s history of dekulakisation and the Holodomor. Like her dekulakised grandfather many years ago, she also had to leave her home due to the occupation.

After the lecture, our guests had an opportunity to take a guided tour of the exhibition “The North Azovian Greeks: The Path of Identity,” led by Olha Tsuprykova, co-founder and chair of the NGO North Azovian Greeks.

Photos of the National Museum of the Holodomor Genocide and the NGO North Azovian Greeks.