On 26–27 October, an international seminar titled ‘Uncovering Evidence: Forensic Archaeology and the Holodomor’ was held. During the seminar, experts from Ukraine and abroad worked on developing a practical, ethically and scientifically sound concept for forensic archaeological and anthropological investigations of mass graves of Holodomor victims.
The National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide was represented at the seminar by Deputy Director-General Hanna Sokyrina and Yulia Kotsur, Head of the Holodomor Oral History Department. International experts also took part: Dr Derek Congram, Co-Director of the Mershon Search Lab at the Mershon Centre for International Security Studies, Ohio State University, and Professor Lyubomyr Lutsiuk, Scientific and Academic Adviser at Cowater International, as well as representatives of ‘Dolia’, the Lviv Regional Council’s municipal enterprise responsible for locating the graves of participants in the national liberation struggle and victims of wars, deportations and political repression, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.
In her presentation ‘Between Oblivion and Recognition: The Hidden Truth about the Mass Graves of the Holodomor Victims’, the head of the Holodomor Oral History Department, Yuliia Kotsur, PhD in History, spoke about the historical context of mortality in 1932–1933 and the burial practices of the time, the available documentary evidence, and known and probable mass burial sites. She also outlined the features of the Geoinformation System of Mass Burial Sites, established by the museum in 2018.
During the seminar, the ethical aspects of such archaeological research and the difficulties that may arise in this context were discussed.
The meeting attendees agreed to continue consulting and sharing experiences.
The seminar took place as part of the project ‘Support for the National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide in Ukraine’, implemented by Cowater International in partnership with the Canada-Ukraine Foundation, with funding from Canada’s International Development – Global Affairs Canada.
Thank you to Andrii Lozynskyi for the photo.
