Holodomor denial
In political use, Holodomor denial means the act of saying that the Holodomor did not happen. Jurij Dobczansky, a senior cataloging specialist of the Library of Congress,[1] said:[2]
| “ | Holodomor denial [...] consists of especially vitriolic anti-Western and anti-Ukrainian tirades [...] accusations of foreign influence and Nazi sympathies, or ulterior motives. | ” |
Examples
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union is said to have denied the Holodomor:[3]
| “ | The Soviet system never commemorated the Holocaust. One reason for this is that once you define and identify one genocide, you can recognize other genocidal crimes. The Soviet empire didn’t want us to learn our history. Decades of Soviet education and censorship ensured that even after the USSR collapsed, many in Lviv failed to realise the striking proximity of the Holocaust. | ” |
—Victoria Amelina[4] | ||
In the 1930s, Moscow-based New York Times journalist Walter Duranty wrote articles denying the Holodomor. The articles won him the 1932 Pulitzer Prize, which caused controversies. In 2003, the Pulitzer Prize board reviewed Duranty's articles and refused to withdraw his prize.[5][6] Oksana Piaseckyj, a Ukrainian-American activist who fled to the United States as a child in 1950, called Walter Duranty as "the personification of evil in journalism."[7] The controversy about Duranty is a scandal in the newspaper's history.[8][9] News of the Holodomor reached the US in 1933.[10]
United States
The Yiddish-language Jewish Daily Forward reported the famine,[10] while Communist Party USA accused the The Forward of "spreading Nazi-inspired lies."[10]
Responses
Ukraine
Ukraine passed the Law on the Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine in 2006 to ban Holodomor denial.[11] This law recognized Holodomor denial as an insult to the victims' memories and a humiliation of Ukrainians' dignity.[11]
Germany
In November 2022, Germany recognized the Holodomor as a genocide.[12] It also banned the approval, denial, and "gross trivialization" of genocides or war crimes.[13] They added this law in the new paragraph 5 of section 130 of the German Penal Code ‒ the Strafgesetzbuch.[14][13]
Related pages
References
- ↑ Maloney, Wendi. Jurij Dobczansky: Working with Libraries in Ukraine During War. Library of Congress (December 7, 2022). Retrieved March 16, 2025.
- ↑ Dobczansky, Jurij. Affirmation and Denial: Holodomor-related Resources Recently Acquired by the Library of Congress. Holodomor Studies 1 (2 [Summer-Autumn 2009]) (2009). p. 155–164. Retrieved 2025-03-16.
- ↑ Conquest, Robert. The Dragons of Expectation. Reality and Delusion in the Course of History (2004)W. W. Norton and Company. p. 102. ISBN 0-393-05933-2.
- ↑ Nothing bad has ever happened: a tale of two genocides, the Holocaust and the Holodomor by Victoria Amelina (May 19 2022 - 06:03) The Irish Times.
- ↑ Statement on Walter Duranty's 1932 Prize. The Pulitzer Prizes (November 21, 2003). Retrieved November 4, 2024.
- ↑ "New York Times Statement About 1932 Pulitzer Prize Awarded to Walter Duranty". The New York Times. https://www.nytco.com/company/prizes-awards/new-york-times-statement-about-1932-pulitzer-prize-awarded-to-walter-duranty. Retrieved November 4, 2024.
- ↑ "'The New York Times' can't shake the cloud over a 90-year-old Pulitzer Prize". NPR. May 8, 2022. https://www.npr.org/2022/05/08/1097097620/new-york-times-pulitzer-ukraine-walter-duranty. Retrieved November 4, 2024.
- ↑ A Tale of Two Journalists: Walter Duranty and Gareth Jones. Holodomor Museum (March 29, 2022). Retrieved November 4, 2024.
- ↑ Tabarovsky, Izabella (October 23, 2020). "How ‘The New York Times’ Helped Hide Stalin’s Mass Murders in Ukraine". Tablet Magazine. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/walter-duranty-ukraine-new-york-times-mr-jones-agnieszka-holland. Retrieved November 4, 2024.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Prown, Henry H.. ‘Every rotten slander’: Holodomor denial and the origins of the American popular front. Politics, Religion & Ideology (March 2, 2025). doi:10.1080/21567689.2025.2470722. Retrieved March 16, 2025.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 No Title (in uk). Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Retrieved 2022-12-13.
- ↑ Sitnikova, Iryna. No Title. Hromadske (2022-11-30). Retrieved 30 November 2022.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Germany criminalizes denying war crimes, genocide (in en). DW (2022-11-25). Retrieved 2022-12-13.
- ↑ Germany seeks to declare Ukraine's Holodomor a genocide (in en). DW (2022-11-25). Retrieved 2022-12-13.