Holodomor Remembrance

The Holodomor and the Fragility of Public Memory

Novelist Milan Kundera once wrote that “the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” After inflicting a man-made starvation and famine upon Ukraine that resulted in the death of 3-7 million Ukrainians, the Soviet Union suppressed memory of the genocide while declaring that the terror-famine constituted a naturally occurring “act of God.” Since independence, the memory of the Holodomor has been upheld as a powerful symbol by Ukrainians, while pro-Russian Ukrainian Presidents (Viktor Yanukovych) and the Russian occupation and invasion of Ukraine has fueled the distortion and suppression of this history. 

On November 18th, 2025 at the Haselwood Library there was a presentation by Historian Brandon Williams exploring the powerful history of this memory, and why its lessons serve as a stark reminder for any group subjected to marginalization or occupation.

In 1932-1933, in Ukraine, "the breadbasket of Europe," millions of farmers and rural villagers were killed in a man-made famine engineered by the Soviet government of Joseph Stalin.

Holodomor ("death inflicted by starvation") Remembrance is marked on the 4th Saturday of November.

Photo credit- CC BY 4.0