HOLODOMOR – GENOCIDE

17 November 2023 year in the Chernihiv Historical Museum. VV. Tarnovsky to 90 anniversary of the greatest tragedy in Ukrainian history – the 1932-1933 famine-genocide, which was organized in Ukraine by the Moscow totalitarian regime, a commemorative event took place.

It was about the tragic events of the Holodomor in Chernihiv Oblast and the city of Chernihiv. In particular, readings of the signs of genocidal policy were outlined, which, according to the decrees from Moscow, the employees of the regional department of the DPU were conducted together with hundreds of thousands of connected activists, а саме: withdrawal of all food stocks from the peasants, запровадження режиму «чорних дошок» щодо селян та колгоспів, who did not fulfill the plans for the distribution of bread, ban on leaving Ukraine, prohibition of information about the Holodomor in Ukraine. The peculiarity of the famine in Chernihiv Oblast is a proven fact, what is collectivization here, disarmament, grain procurement and famine coincided completely in time. Another feature is a documented fact, that not only peasants were starving in Chernihiv Oblast, but also workers and employees - residents of the regional center, cities and towns of the region. This is explained by, that the region was not industrially developed, and therefore the governing bodies in the capital did not care even about the minimum supply of food to the population. In those hungry years, Chernihiv residents were locked behind closed distributors of consumer cooperative societies. In April 1933 року робітники Чернігова отримували по 300-400 g of bread per day for teachers 500 g, students of 200 g and a spoonful of rotten cabbage in the student cafeteria. This despite the fact that interruptions in the supply of bread were very frequent and the city remained without any supplies for several days. According to the recollections of the eyewitness M. Izbenka, which in winter 1932-1933 years was in Chernihiv: “There are people lying here and there on the sidewalks. Nobody cares whether those people are alive or dead. At night they disappeared somewhere".

So, in 1932–1933, the war against Ukrainians waged by the Russian occupation regime took the form of terror through hunger. Hunger killed not only millions of Ukrainian peasants, hundreds of people also died on the streets of Ukrainian cities.

Старший науковий співробітник музею

Світлана Сергєєва