The book "Gold - the state! Torgsin in Soviet Ukraine, 1931–1936»

27 November 2020 in Chernihiv Historical Museum named after VV. Tarnowski hosted a presentation of the monograph "Gold - the state! Torgsin in Soviet Ukraine, 1931–1936 ”senior researcher, Candidate of Historical Sciences Mykola Horokh. In this undoubtedly unique edition, it is the first in Ukraine on this issue, the history of the organization is covered, which became a powerful tool for pumping values ​​into the population in the name of forced military-industrial modernization of the USSR. Based on a wide range of archival documents, oral testimony, memoirs, research of Ukrainian and foreign scholars, the author recreated a dramatic picture of everyday life of Ukrainian society during the Holodomor.

Many families survived, in particular thanks to Torgsin. However, for life they had to pay a high price - to lose part of history, культури, national identity. The organization embodied all that was hostile, what socialism struggled with - market relations, legal circulation of foreign currency and jewelry, speculation, operation. In the pursuit of money for industrialization, the Stalinist government without hesitation established through Torgsin the sale of food at the highest export prices in exchange for gold, срібло, currency, other values. As the author noted, return from oblivion, understanding of Torgsin's history complements the picture of Stalin's policy of creating hunger as a component of genocide in Ukraine.

The book is aimed at a wide range of readers: as professional historians, and ordinary readers. It is generously illustrated with photographs, most of which are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. Each of its sections covers certain aspects of Torgsin's functioning - historical features of formation, regional specifics of trade network formation, professional and educational level, social origin of the Torgsin nomenclature, volumes of buying household gold, silver, precious stones, foreign currency.

The monograph was published as part of the research and publishing program of the Ukrainian Research and Education Center for the Study of the Holodomor. (HREC in Ukraine) with the organizational support of the Institute of History of Ukraine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Chernihiv Historical Museum. VV. Tarnowski and thanks to the grant program of the Scientific and Educational Consortium for the Study of the Holodomor (hrec) at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta.