We invite you to the presentation of the collection about the Holodomor

On November 12, 2024, at 12:00 p.m., the Hall of Memory of the Holodomor Museum will host a presentation of the collection “Holodomor 1932-1933 in the Talalaivka district of Chernihiv region: Testimonies, Publications, Documents”. The compiler and author of the foreword is a candidate of historical sciences, Ivan Zabiyaka.

The publication is a kind of database about the Holodomor in the Talalaivka district of the Chernihiv region. The collection is based on the testimony of the Holodomor eyewitnesses, which were recorded in the settlements of the Talalaivka district in the 1990s and early 2000s. Today, various archives and institutions store the originals of these interviews. Thanks to the compiler’s herculean search effort, it was possible to concentrate them in one edition.

Ivan Zabiyaka analyzes and identifies mistakes made during the evidence-collection process. This experience will be valuable for future oral history research, such as gathering memories of the mass man-made famine of 1946-1947 or the current war.

“The collection provides an opportunity to reveal the regional aspects of the tragedy and to reconstruct the Holodomor history in the Talalaivka district on a micro-history level. Collected and organised testimonies will help supplement the data on the dead in the National Book of Memory of Holodomor Victims in the Chernihiv Region. This is crucial, because, regretfully, not all the victims’ names were documented and not all documents have survived to our time: they were purposefully destroyed by the communist regime in order to conceal the traces and extent of the genocide against Ukrainians. However, these names were preserved by human memory, those who survived the Holodomor… And it is thanks to such local studies that we establish the names of the victims and bring them back from oblivion. After all, each new name brings us closer to our common goal – to honour every individual who died from the Holodomor,” Yulia Kotsur, head of the Holodomor oral history department of the Holodomor Museum, emphasises.

Our speakers:

Ivan Zabiyaka, compiler of the collection, candidate of historical sciences;

Viktor Hudz, professor, doctor of historical sciences.

The moderator is Yulia Kotsur, head of the Holodomor oral history department of the National Museum of the Holodomor Genocide.

Folk group “Roksolaniia” will participate in the event.