Kalyna Kardash’s grandmother survived the Holodomor. The Ukrainian word for “murder by hunger” refers to the famine of 1932-33, where up to 10 million people starved as a result of Soviet policies.
Growing up with stories of the hunger, like when her grandmother traded a pair of gold earrings for a single apple, Kardash wanted to commemorate the tragedy. Over the weekend, the Ukrainian Students Club held a 24-hour famine to mark the 75th anniversary of the Ukrainian famine. The overnight event was the culmination of a week of activities, including photo exhibitions in Robarts Library and Sidney Smith Hall.
At the time, Ukraine was part of the U.S.S.R. (It became independent after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.) Dictator Joseph Stalin imposed agricultural collectivization in the Ukraine, referred to as the “breadbasket of the U.S.S.R.”
Stalin began to enforce large quotas of grain exportation, sometimes up to 50 per cent of the national supply. When quotas weren’t met, individual homes were raided and emptied of all food and produce. By August 1932, a law banned the sale of bread to peasants, who made up the majority of the population. As the nation grew hungrier and food became virtually unobtainable, police units were dispatched into the farmlands to control rebellions and forbid locals from leaving villages in search of food.
The result was mass starvation. Bodies lined roads, while mothers buried their own children. Desperation even led to cases of cannibalism. The tragedy remains little-known: international media remained silent while official Soviet censuses and documents hid population drops.
Historians say that Stalin, weary of nationalist and independence movements, started the famine intentionally to force peasants onto collective farms. In 2006, Ukraine’s parliament voted to declare the famine as an act of genocide and is lobbying the UN to bestow that recognition. Russia has denied that the famine was deliberate.
Canada officially recognized the famine as attempted genocide earlier this year.
“Food was used as a weapon,” said Kardash as participants prepared for a candlelit vigil. “It was a genocide because we [Ukrainians] were resisting Soviet policies such as collectivization.”
The push for UN recognition isn’t the only purpose behind the club’s 24-hour famine. “People need to know about genocide,” said Kardash, pointing out that comparable atrocities continue to happen today, and like the Holodomor in its time, they continue to be ignored.
