Holodomor A genocide can occur in other ways where a person or a body of people act wrongful resulting in mass killing. An event that I chose to write through an image is called Holodomor. Holodomor started in 1932 and lasted until 1933 and about six million to seven million people died. During the year, the person who was in control of the country was Stalin because Ukraine was still under Soviet Union’s control. The people that died there was caused from starvation and left to rot since they were no longer needed as shown above. For me I remember the feelings this brought on when I reclaim seeing this again. The reasons that I chose this picture to portray this important moment were power, pity, and grief. The first reason that formed my collective memory about Holodomor was power. Power is the main component why leaders who have it start to abuse it. The excuse that goes along with it is usually the war that had occurred earlier. Since Ukraine was part of a union made by Russia, Russia felt like it had to show who was the boss and put the country back in place. The abuse was caused by Stalin not wanting to lose Ukraine but also because they needed the natural supplies. They figured they were doing nothing wrong and had the right to go into a different country with the power that a dictator holds. It is said that Stalin targeted specifically the Ukrainian people because they began to pose a serious threat to soviet’s union integrity and aspirations. Stalin wanted to annihilate the Ukrainian people that would go against his ideas and be their own country. People were arrested more often for speaking out against Stalin, hiding food, and sent to Siberia to work as a slave. Communist fanatics that helped Stalin ravaged and confisc... ... middle of paper ... ...y, and grief. This made me realize how significant it is because I am a Ukrainian too. I must have had a relative who is dead already that must have lived during that event. This made me explore more details of the close truth that is hidden behind the genocide of the 1930s in Ukraine. I recommend for others to read and learn of what has occurred when one country has and can control other countries beside it. Works Cited Lawriwsky, Michael. "GENOCIDE: Stalin's Ukrainian Holodomor." Article. News Weekly, 22 Dec. 2007. Web. 16 Jan. 2014. "Stalin." Remembering Holodomor. Word Press, n.d. Web. 16 Jan. 2014. "The Holodomor: Dictated by Communist Doctrine." History. The Ukrainian Week, 17 Dec. 2013. Web. 16 Jan. 2014. "Ukraine’s Enduring Holodomor Horror, When Millions Starved in the 1930s." RSS. Euro News, 22 Dec. 2013. Web. 16 Jan. 2014.
Tucker, Robert C. "The Mortal Danger". Course Reader for World Culture: Russia Since 1917. New York University, Spring 2001.
The Soviet system of forced labor camps was first established in 1919 under the Cheka; however, in the early 1930’s camps had reached outrageous numbers. In 1934 the Gulag had several million prisoners. The prisoners ranged from innocent pro-Bolsheviks to guilty Trotsky’s. Conditions were harsh, filthy, and prisoners received inadequate food rations and poor clothing. Over the period of the Stalin dictatorship many people experienced violations of their basic human rights, three in particular were Natasha Petrovskaya, Mikhail Belov, and Olga Andreyeva.
The use of mass terror was one of the most representative characteristics of the Stalinist regime. The Gulag embodied the constant and large scale use of fear by the Bolsheviks to administer the population. Varlam Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales and Fyodor Mochulsky’s Gulag Boss stood out by their treatment of the question. While relating the same events, namely the daily routine of an arctic Gulag, these two works dealt with this topic from two diametrically opposed perspectives. Indeed, Shalamov was a political prisoner for seventeen years while Mochulsky was a supervisor in the camp. Therefore, their experience of the Gulag diverged in nearly every aspect. Furthermore, Mochulsky and Shalamov pursued different designs. On the one hand, Shalamov attempts to depict the Gulag’s ability to dehumanize prisoners. On the other hand, Mochulsky wrote his book after the fall of the USSR. As a former guard, he attempted to justify his past behavior, not to say exonerate himself.
Holodomor is a Ukrainian word meaning “Genocide Famine” in English [holodomor.org]. The Holodomor ultimately began in 1928 when the then current leader of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin introduced a program which would lead to the collectivization of agriculture within the Soviet Union. In order to do this, farmers would have to give up privately owned farms, livestock and equipment. These farmers would have to join state owned collective farms as they would no longer have their own farms to run. These collective farms would need to produce large amounts of grain along with feeding their own workers. Ukrainian farmers refused to join these farms, as they considered it a returned to the serfdom of centuries past. In response, Stalin
Holodomor. During the occupation of Ukraine, Russia had a plan to destroy the Ukrainian nation
Overy, Richard. The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2004. Print.
Half a million died of hunger and disease throughout Eastern Europe, running from the fascists.
The Holocaust is considered the largest genocide of our entire world, killing more than 600,000,000 Jewish people during the years of 1933-1945. The memories and history that have filled our lives that occurred during the Holocaust are constantly remembered around the world. Many populations today “think” that constant reminders allow for us to become informed and help diminish the hatred for other races still today. These scholars believe that by remembering the Holocaust, you are able to become knowledgeable and learn how to help prevent this from happening again. Since the Holocaust in a sense impacted the entire human race and history of the world, there are traces of the Holocaust all across our culture today. As I continue to remember the victims of this tragic time period I think of all the ways that our world remembers the Holocaust in today’s society. Through spreading the word, works of media and memorials across the world, I am continually reminded of the tragedy that occurred.
The. Gunter, Michael M. Armenian History and the Question of Genocide. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Print. The.
When the term “gulag” is mentioned, an image of labor camps commonly comes to mind. While this is partly true, the actual term Gulag is an acronym which translates into “Main Camp Administration.” It was a Soviet institution opened during the Lenin era that controlled a network of labor camps aimed at demonstrating absolute control over Russia. Even though the Gulag system had been around since the 1920s, it only became a prominent part of Russian society during Stalin’s rule, when anybody who opposed him was sent to a prison camp or killed. At first, the Gulag was only a fraction of the penal system in Russia, but after the publication of The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in 1973, it came to represent the entire forced labor administration of the Soviet Union. Stalin’s Gulag resulted in anywhere from twenty to sixty million deaths; the exact number is unknown. In the camps, prisoners were subject to starvation, sickness, and hard labor in unfavorable weather conditions. As it happened, many of the construction projects in Russia were completed due to the work of Gulag prisoners. Yet, despite the fact that Stalin’s Gulag is one of the most gruesome genocides to ever occur, with a death rate higher than that of the Holocaust, it is also one of the most overlooked events in history.
- The meaning of Genocide, and the impact it has on a single person and society.
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Paradigms of Genocide: The Holocaust, The Armenian genocide, and Contemporary Mass Destructions, 156-168. Sage Publications Inc., 1996. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1048550
"Gulag: Soviet Forced Labor Camps and the Struggle for Freedom." Gulag: Soviet Forced Labor Camps and the Struggle for Freedom. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2014. .
Montefiore, Sebag. Stalin: the Court of the Red Tsar. New York, NY: Alfred a Knopf Inc, 2003. Print