The migration of the Holodomor
The influence of the Ukrainian diaspora in the United States
on revising the historical narrative of the 1932-1933 famine.
Master thesis
Student: Annelieke de Natris, 11344598 Master : History 2016-2017
Abstract
Dit onderzoek zal stilstaan bij de invloed van de Oekraïense diaspora in de Verenigde Staten op de het historisch narratief van een hongersnood, de Holodomor. Tussen 1932-1933 werden verschillende regio’s van de Sovjet Unie getroffen door een omvangrijke hongersnood. Met name op het grondgebied van de Oekraïense Socialistische Sovjetrepubliek was de situatie ernstig en gedurende de periode werden miljoenen mensen het slachtoffer van de hongersnood. Schattingen met betrekking tot het aantal slachtoffers lopen sterk uiteen, tussen 2.5 en 15
miljoen, door een gebrek aan en falsificatie van documenten. De hongersnood was decennialang een staatsgeheim en het plaatsvinden van de hongersnood werd door het Sovjet regime ontkend, waardoor kennis over deze ramp voor de buitenwereld lange tijd nihil was. Hoewel bewustzijn omtrent de hongersnood in de afgelopen decennia aanzienlijk is toegenomen, is daarmee ook een intens debat ontstaan aangaande de eventuele genocidale aard van de hongersnood. De
hongersnood wordt door velen beschouwd als een doelgerichte en opzettelijke aanval van Stalin op Oekraïners en haar cultuur om hun tegenstand tegen het Sovjet regime te breken. Echter, deze genocide interpretatie is niet onomstreden en zorgt onder andere voor hedendaagse conflicten in de Oekraïense samenleving en tussen Rusland en Oekraïne.
De hedendaagse invloed en relevantie van de hongersnood en zijn genocide interpretatie maakt het een belangrijk onderwerp om te doorgronden. Dit onderzoek zal gericht zijn op het ontstaan van het genocide narratief en de rol die migratie van Oekraïners naar de Verenigde Staten hierbij gespeeld heeft. De Oekraïense diaspora in de Verenigde Staten is met name gevormd door drie golven van migratie. Tussen de migranten van deze verschillende golven waren de motivaties om Oekraïne te verlaten, ervaringen en de relatie met het moederland en de politieke en sociale achtergrond zeer uiteenlopend, waardoor er een zeer verdeelde en gefragmenteerde diaspora ontstond. Echter, binnen de diaspora groeide het verlangen naar een verenigde etnische
gemeenschap. Zoals uit dit onderzoek zal blijken heeft dit verlangen in combinatie met een het gebrek aan erkenning en kennis omtrent de hongersnood heeft een significante invloed gehad op de ontwikkeling van het genocide narratief.
Naast de ontwikkeling van het genocide narratief zal er ook worden stilgestaan bij de
verschillende methodes, die de Oekraïense diaspora heeft gebruikt om aandacht te generen voor een narratief dat inmiddels, mede dankzij hun inspanningen, wijdverspreid is. Ondanks het gebrek aan academische consensus omtrent het onderwerp krijgt het narratief in de V.S veel steun. Bovendien is er in Washington D.C., met toestemming van de Amerikaanse overheid, in 2015 een monument gerealiseerd, dat het genocide narratief propageert.
Aldus de Oekraïense diaspora heeft een significante invloed uitgeoefend op de interpretatie van de hongersnood als genocide en heeft daarmee de ontwikkeling van het historische narratief omtrent de hongersnood in grote mate kunnen beïnvloeden, in sommige gevallen meer dan academisch onderzoek.
Introduction 4
The continuing influence of the famine 5 The nature of the famine 8
The (ab)use of the Holodomor 11
The Soviet famine of 1932-1933 : the Holodomor 14
The Ukrainian nationality and struggle for independence 16 Stalin and Ukraine 17
The tipping mechanism 20
The Ukrainian Diaspora 24 Defining diaspora’s 24
The Ukrainian diaspora 27
The Ukrainian diaspora in the United States 28 The third wave of migration : displaced persons 30
The Ukrainian diaspora and the use of a historical trauma 35 Self-advocacy and ethnic organizations in the diaspora 36 Publications 40
The internet and social media47
The Holodomor monument in Washington D.C. 56 The theory of monuments and memorials 57
The political dimensions of monuments 59 The visual dimensions of monuments 60
The cautious recognition of the genocide. 62
Lobbying for a memorial 64
The design of the Holodomor monument 66
The future of the monument under threat 67
The monument as a political tool 68 The aesthetic dimension of the trauma. 71 Conclusion 75
Bibliography 78
Introduction
On the 28th of November 2006, the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, adopted ‘the law on the Holodomor1 in Ukraine in 1922-1933’. This law defined the events of the Holodomor as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people and stated that any denial could lead to legal prosecution2 The term Holodomor refers to a wide-spread famine which affected several Soviet regions in the period from 1932 until 1933. The famine was especially severe in Ukraine where an estimated 25.000 people were dying of starvation each day.3 However, it has been difficult to determine the exact number of deaths due to the lack and falsification of records. This has caused some researchers to estimate the number of total deaths around 2.5 million, while others believe there were at least 7.5 million victims. 4
Up until the early 1980s, the Soviet Union denied the existence of the famine. However, leading up to the 50th anniversary of the famine in 1983, the worldwide Ukrainian community
successfully spread knowledge and gained recognition for the famine, forcing the Soviet
government to admit the existence of the event. However, the veil of state secrecy was only truly lifted after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the famine gradually became one of the main pillars in the creation of a national identity in Ukraine. During the Soviet rule,
nationalist sentiments within Soviet republics were considered to be dangerous for the uniformity of the Soviet Union and were suppressed by the Soviet leadership.5 Hence, the Soviet
interpretation of culture and past was being emphasized and there was no room for the
development of a national history or identity. Consequently, after the Soviet rule came to an end, the new independent state of Ukraine had to rediscover its own national identity. History has always played an important part in the identity formation and self-legitimation for new nation-states and for Ukraine this has been proven not to be any different. Especially the famine of 1932-1933, and its emphasis on genocide became an important aspect of the new national history and identity.
1 Holdomor, term given to the wide-spread famine in Ukraine between 1932-1933. The term is derived from the Ukrainian words ‘holod’ meaning starvation and ‘moryty’, meaning to inflict death.
2 http://canada.mfa.gov.ua/en/ukraine-%D1%81%D0%B0/holodomor-remembrance/holodomor-remembrance-ukraine/holodomor-law-ukraine
3 Bohdan Klid & Alexander J. Motyl, The Holodomor reader, (Toronto, 2012) 33.
4 For example, Robert Conquest argues that the death toll was an estimated 5 million. (Harvest of Sorrow), 5 Robert Conquest, The harvest of Sorrow. Soviet collectivization and the Terror-Famine, (London, 1986), 31-33.
The continuing influence of the famine
Denouncing Soviet atrocities, such as the famine, and gaining recognition became important in the process of self-legitimation in Ukraine and in the creation of a national identity. However, the genocide interpretation has been condemned by Russia and this has caused tensions between the two states. Consequently, various Ukrainian leaders have taken different stances on the topic. While Viktor Yushchenko actively promoted the genocidal interpretation, his successor Viktor Yanukovych refused to acknowledge the famine as such, since he was closer aligned to Russia. As tensions between the two states have worsened, the current president Petro Poroshenko actively denounces actions of Russia, while often comparing Russia’s present aggression with atrocities of the Soviet regime such as the Holodomor. Additionally, the Holodomor not only causes tensions between different states and international relations, but it also causes ruptures within Ukraine. Due to its multi-ethnical nature, Ukrainian society has failed to unify itself and caused regions in Eastern Ukraine to align themselves more with Russia.
The already existing tensions between Russia and Ukraine have climaxed since 2014, when Russia annexed the Ukrainian territory of Crimea. Subsequently, the situation in the Eastern Ukrainian countryside has been unstable and the Russian influencethere has been increasing. This contributed to the, by Ukraine unrecognized, proclamation of small republics in Eastern Ukraine and results in a very unstable political situation and future for Ukraine.
Despite the problems the genocide narrative creates in Ukrainian society and international relations, it is broadly supported within Ukraine. Additionally, in countries that inhabit large Ukrainian communities, such as Canada and the United States, the genocide interpretation is gaining recognition and is accepted by the respective host societies. Furthermore, American politicians have used the narrative to voice criticism towards Russia and its contemporary violation of Ukrainian sovereignty.
While the genocide narrative has been controversial, the focus of this thesis will not be centered around determining the nature of the famine. Instead, I will focus on the influence of the
Ukrainian migrants in the United States and their role in instigating recognition for the
Holodomor and the subsequent development of the genocide narrative. Due to their migration and settlement in a society with a more positive social climate of empathy and recognition, the
Ukrainian diaspora was able to position itself into relative places of prominence and do significant work on instigating awareness of the famine and the development of the genocide narrative. Besides their substantial influence on the interpretation of history, the diasporic Ukrainians in the United States and Canada coined the term Holodomor in the 1980s, which is now widely used to refer to the famine. The term was derived from the Ukrainian words ‘holod’ meaning starvation or famine, and ‘morty’ meaning to inflict death. 6 As a result, their efforts have created more awareness for the famine as an act of genocide. Therefore, the research question of this thesis will be: How did the migration of Ukrainians to the United States
influence the interpretation of a historical narrative and how Ukrainians achieved to increase awareness and support for the interpretation of the famine as an act of genocide. Thus, my thesis
will focus on the influence of the Ukrainian diaspora in the United States and the way migration has had an influence on the development and spread of a historical narrative. Firstly, I will study the situation in Ukraine prior to and during the famine, explaining what led up to the famine and how the situation was handled by Soviet authorities in order to better comprehend how the genocide narrative later was developed, and which aspects of the famine where emphasized to support it. Secondly, I will focus on ‘the migration of trauma’, as defined by Anna Menyhért, and the Ukrainian diaspora. The concept of ‘the migration of trauma’ has been developed in the past years and focuses on the influence of migration on the development of historical and often unresolved trauma’s. It illustrates how a change in society and environment influences the trauma process and, in the case of the Ukrainian diaspora, the development of a historical narrative.7 Then, after having analyzed several diaspora theories, I will evaluate the Ukrainian diaspora in the United States and its lack of unity, which influenced the use of the famine memory and development of the genocide narrative.
The narrative has become important for the Ukrainian diaspora since narrative and traditions are important in the process of constructing a social group’s identity, considering that it provides the members with a sense of a community. Regardless of the size and complexity of a social group, the group needs to construct and maintain an identity that unifies its members. The traditions, symbols and historical narratives, which are necessary to bind members together, form the collective memory of a social group. Maurice Halbwachs argues that individual memory 6 Valentina Kuryliw, The Holodomor, 1932-1933, A Ukrainian genocide, 1.
7 Anna Menyhért, ‘The image of the ‘maimed Hungary’ in 20th century cultural memory and the 21st century consequences of an unresolved collective trauma : the impact of the Treaty of Trianon.’ In : Environment, Space,
hardly ever exists independently, since it always represents a part of a wider collective
framework.8 A collective group does not possess memory, the memory in them does not exist a priori and by itself, but the same collective group determines the memory of its members. He further elaborates on his theory, claiming that the process of establishing a collective memory is actually a process of reconstructing the past and that events that are not considered to be
important for the members of a certain social group, are likely to be forgotten.9 Thus, collective memory has been influenced by the process of social modelling of the past into the socially and politically acceptable forms of the present and future, which makes collective memory a social determined phenomenon. As will be further elaborated on in this thesis, the memory of the famine became important for the unification of the Ukrainian community and the creation of a collective identity. Moreover, the fractured nature of the diaspora and the process of social modelling of the past influenced the genocide narrative.
Lastly, wo chapters will be devoted to the development of the genocide narrative and the process of preservation of collective memory through material performances, e.g. books,
museums and monuments. Thus, these chapters will explicate the methods used by the Ukrainian diaspora to advocate awareness for the genocide narrative in the American society. Firstly, I will analyze methods such as ethnic organizations, publications and the internet in raising awareness on the subject, secondly, one of the most important ways of expressing the genocide narrative will be analyzed, i.e. the construction of a monument in Washington D.C. The process towards the realization of a Holodomor monument in Washington D.C. will demonstrate that monuments are political instruments representing dominant discourses and selective historical narratives. Consequently, the realization of a monument implies that the Ukrainian diaspora has been able to alter and influence the historical narrative of the famine.
In order to investigate the influence of the Ukrainian diaspora on the historical narrative of the Holodomor I will study a wide-range of books, publications and websites, alongside a great extent of primary sources, such as eye-witness testimonies, newspapers and statements by politicians, governments and Ukrainian organizations.
Thus, with this thesis I will aim to demonstrate how the migration of Ukrainians and their trauma influenced the historical narrative of the Holodomor, which is still important in
8 M. Halbwachs, On collective memory, translated by Lewis A. Coser, (Chicago, 1992), 38. 9 Halbwachs, on collective memory, 182.
contemporary political relations, and how the diaspora has been able to influence the narrative and the public opinion in the United States to a greater extent than scholarly opinions. The nature of the famine
The amine had been a taboo subject in Soviet Ukraine for a long time.As Anna Menyhért explains :
Dictatorship does not encourage trauma-processing, it does not encourage speaking about defeat, loss, failure and responsibility that would induce trauma-processing after mourning; it blocks trauma-processing by pretending that traumas are non-existent via oppression, banning and tabooing in order to allow its ideology to settle into the lacunae created by silence.10
However, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the foundation of an independent Ukrainian state in the early 1990s put an end to the decades of silence. Following the recognition of the famine, several debates arose concerning aspects such as the scale of the famine. However, scholars mostly failed to agree on the nature of the famine. Especially when the formal definition of genocide is being taken into consideration it becomes increasingly difficult to determine whether or not the famine should be regarded as a genocide. The term genocide was coined after the Second World War in 1948 by Raphael Lemkin and was included in Article 2 of the United Nations Convention to prevent Genocide. The definition states:
Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.11
This definition has caused a debate among scholars with regard to the difficulty of determining the deliberate ‘intent to destroy’ in case of a famine.
In the mid 1980s, several decades after the famine had taken place, the first steps into research 10 Menyhért, ‘The image of the ‘maimed Hungary’ in 20th century cultural memory and the 21st century
consequences of an unresolved collective trauma: the impact of the Treaty of Trianon.’ , 81.
11 Convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide adopted by the general assembly of the United Nations on 9 December 1948, 280 https://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/unts/volume%2078/volume-78-i-1021-english.pdf
on the famine were being taken, which resulted in the publication of the first book length study by historian Robert Conquest. His book, The Harvest of Sorrow, was the result of years of extensive research on the famine. Besides describing the situation in Ukraine during the famine, he also sheds light on events leading up to the famine and the intricate relationship between Stalin and the Ukrainians. All of this led him to conclude that the famine was intentional and ‘man-made’. This conclusion was later backed by the US Commission on the Ukraine famine. The main goal of this commission was to conduct a study of the 1932-1933 Ukrainian famine and to expand the world’s knowledge of the famine.12 By 1987, the study was completed and its findings were presented to the U.S. Congress.13 One of the main statements of the Commission was that ‘therecould be no doubt about the fact that large numbers of inhabitants of the
Ukrainian USSR and North Caucasus territory starved to death in a man-made famine’ and ‘the famine was not, as often alleged, related to drought.’14 According to the study, the harvest was at least adequate and the famine resulted from the regime’s unrealistic grain quotas. Besides, the collectivization and unrealistic grain quotas occurred alongside an assault on Ukrainian
nationalism. The Soviet leaders were well aware of what was happening in Ukraine and refused to aid the starving citizens. Thus, despite having limited access to Soviet sources, both studies claimed that the Soviet government specifically targeted the Ukrainian people with a man-made artificial famine. These claims immediately caused a fierce debate in the scholarly world, which still has not reached a conclusion. Many scholars are reluctant to accept the claims of the famine being genocidal and ascribed it to other factors.
An important study that argues against the genocide claim is The Years of Hunger: Soviet
Agriculture 1931–33 by R.W. Davies and S. Wheatcroft. They argued that the famine was
complex and multi-causal and rejected the genocidal interpretation.
Ourstudy of the famine has led us to very different conclusions from Dr. Conquest’s. […] This leads him [Conquest] to the sweeping conclusion: ‘The main lesson seems to be that the
Communist ideology provided the motivation for an unprecedented massacre of men, women and children.’ We do not at all absolve Stalin from responsibility for the famine. His policies towards the peasants were ruthless and brutal. But the story which has emerged in this book is of a Soviet
12 James E. Mace (ed.), Investigation of the Ukrainian famine 1932-1933. Report to Congress. Commission on the
Ukrainian famine. (Washington, 1988) V. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt? id=umn.31951d00831044s;view=1up;seq=7
13 Ibid.
leadership which was struggling with a famine crisis which had been caused partly by their wrongheaded policies, but was unexpected and undesirable. The background to the famine is not simply that Soviet agricultural policies were derived from Bolshevik ideology, though ideology played its part. They were also shaped by the Russian pre-revolutionary past, the experiences of the civil war, the international situation, the intransigent circumstances of geography and the weather, and the modus operandi of the Soviet system as it was established under Stalin. They were formulated by men with little formal education and limited knowledge of agriculture. Above all, they were a consequence of the decision to industrialize this peasant country at breakneck speed.
So, according to their vision, the famine was a result of the ill-planned policy of collectivization and may be considered as a crime against Soviet people. It was however not a policy aimed at the extermination of the Ukrainian nation and its people.
This demonstrates that while the public and academic views are manifold, the differences in substantiation are minor, which raises the question of why defining the famine as an act of genocide remains relevant. As explained before, collective memory is influenced by the process of social modelling of the past into socially and politically forms of present and future. In the early 1980s, when the Ukrainian diaspora began emphasizing the genocidal nature of the famine, the term Holocaust and genocide were being popularized in American society through
documentaries and publications. Consequently, the term genocide quickly gained a strong moral power and as philosopher Berel Lang explains : ‘The term genocide has come to be used when all the other words of moral and political opprobrium fail, when the writer or speaker wished to indict a set of actions as extraordinary for their malevolence and heinousness.’15 Thus during the 1980s, the term genocide became an important issue in American society and understanding of the Holocaust was widening, while there was limited understanding of the Ukrainian famine. As a result, the collective memory of the famine needed to be developed to fit in the interests and concerns of the society of the time. Therefore, the strong moral power of the term genocide and the lack of awareness regarding the famine influenced the development of the genocide narrative. Besides the moral power of the term genocide, the ‘politics’ of victimhood, the means through which the historical experience of victimization can be put to use by various groups in the present, have also played a significant role in the development of the genocide narrative. In the 15Berel Lang, Act and idea in the Nazi genocide, (New York, 2003), 3.
case of the famine, this historical experience of victimization has been mainly important in the construction of an Ukrainian identity and to voice criticism towards Russia and their current aggression towards Ukraine.
To summarize, research and the historiography regarding the famine has undergone several developments. After the famine was finally acknowledged, an academic dissension arose which has caused a sharp division between scholars who acknowledge the famine as genocide and those who argue the opposite. There is no consensus among historians, neither about the scale nor about the origin of the famine. Despite the fact that this is an ongoing discussion, the
historiography has made another development. In recent years. research has focused on the link between the meaning of the famine and national identity construction in contemporary Ukraine and its influence on contemporary (political) issues and international relations.
The (ab)use of the Holodomor
My thesis focuses on the last development in the historiography regarding the use of the trauma in the formation of an identity. The use of the Holodomor in Ukraine for the creation of a
national identity was extensively researched by historian Georgii Kas’ianov. He believed that the Ukrainian political elite has been misusing the famine and unfairly tried to make Ukrainians the biggest victims in history. Even though this process was set in motion with the condemnation of the crimes of totalitarianism as an important aspect in the process of self-legitimation during the presidency of Leonid Kravchuck (1991-1994), the abuse of history reached its peak under the presidency of Viktor Yushchenko (2005-2010). 16 During this period the famine became the center of the politics of history. Yushchenko used the politics of history as an ideological foundation for nation building and the formation of a collective identity in Ukraine.17 For the formation of an identity in new nation-states, it isimportant to emphasize the uniqueness of certain achievements and of its sufferings. This way a nation-state distinguishes itself from other states and cultures. The Ukrainian political elite considered the experience of the famine as unique to the Ukrainian people and therefore it would be very suitable for the formation of a national identity and the restoration of unity.18
Leading up to the seventy-fifth commemoration of the famine in November 2008, the abuse of 16 Georgii Kas’ianov, ‘The Holodomor and the building of a nation’, Russian social science review, 52 (2011) 3, pp. 71-93, 76-77.
17 Ibid., 88. 18 Ibid., 76.
the past reached its peak. Yushchenko initiated a political and ideological campaign to interpret the famine as the greatest humanitarian catastrophe of the twentieth century.19 This campaign also resulted in the passing of the Holodomor law and defining the famine as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people, which emphasized the uniqueness of the tragedy and turned the famine into one of the most important symbols of the national history in Ukraine. The
interpretation of the Ukrainian national history Yushchenko presented was not generally accepted within Ukrainian society and even led to ruptures within Ukrainian society. The multi-ethnic nature of the state provided multiple conflicting claims of the past and memory, which created controversies with regard to the created national historical narrative. Additionally, during the elections of 2010, Yushchenko wasn’t re-elected. He was succeeded by his rival from the previous elections Viktor Yanukovych, who changed the course of the national identity policy and refused to recognize the Holodomor as genocide. Thus, besides the lack of academic consensus on the origin of the famine, the genocidal interpretation has also led to disagreement within Ukrainian politics.
However, before the famine and its genocide narrative became one of the focal points in the formation of a national identity in Ukraine, the narrative had been used to unify the Ukrainian community in the United States. In fact, when the famine was still a taboo in Ukraine, the migrants made substantial efforts to raise awareness on the subject in their host societies and consequently influenced the development of the narrative and its emphasis on genocide. Hence in the past decades, the efforts of the Ukrainian diaspora in the U.S. have created more
awareness for the famine as an act of genocide, despite the lack of consensus on academic level. This implies that the Ukrainian diaspora and their propagation on the issue of the famine has had a greater influence than established scholarship in changing the historical narrative, which makes the subject relevant to study. Moreover, the subject is still relevant in contemporary international relations and in the issues between Ukraine and Russia it is important to understand the origin of the narrative.
1. The Soviet famine of 1932-1933: the Holodomor
Afterthe death of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin in January 1924, a vicious internecine power struggle emerged. Difficulties already had been emerging within the party during the last years of Lenin’s life. In 1922 Lenin suffered several strokes which forced him into semi-retirement.20 In this period he was often visited by his General Secretary Joseph Stalin. However, during these 20 Institut Marksizma-Leninizma, Vladimir I. Lenin, A political biography. (New York 1943) 275.
last years, their relationship deteriorated and Lenin composed notes that were later incorporated into his testament. In these notes he stated : ‘Comrade Stalin, having become General Sec. of the party has concentrated boundless power in his hands and I am not sure that he will always use this power with sufficient caution.’21 And he later added ‘Stalin is too rude...I propose comrades find a way of shifting Stalin from his position as gensec.’22 Despite Lenin’s increasing criticism, the internecine power struggle was concluded in favor of Stalin in 1929.
After Stalin had established his power as leader of the Soviet Union, he rapidly made changes in the course the Union was heading. During Lenin’s leadership, the economy was under great pressure due to the Revolution and the resulting civil war. The burdened economy put the very survival of the revolution into question, which led Lenin to replace his existing economic policy of ‘war communism’ with the New Economic Policy in march 1921.23 Despite the fact that several sectors such as transport and heavy industry remained under state control, the policy restored considerable scope for private enterprise, especially in agriculture and retail sector.24 This economic liberalization measurement revitalized the economy and by 1927 the economy was restored to its pre-war levels.25
However, by the end of the 1920s discontent about the NEP was growing and led to
disillusionment with regard to the communist experiment. Stalin himself had severely criticized the policy and he aimed to erase all traces of capitalism that had entered the Soviet Union under the New Economic Policy. He wanted to transform the Soviet Union rapidly with sweeping measurements and radical policy. This five-year period, from 1928-1932, became known as the ‘Stalin Revolution’ or ‘the Revolution from Above’ and were characterized by rapid
industrialization and collectivization of agriculture.26
The first Five-Year plan called for transforming Soviet agriculture from predominantly individual farms into a system of large state collective farms.27 Formerly free peasants were forced to work on these collective farms and produce exclusively for the Soviet State. The Communist regime believed that collectivization would improve agricultural production, which would lead to the essential grain reserves. The increase of grain yield was of great importance to 21 Robert Service, Leni : A biography. (Cambridge 2000) 469.
22 Service, Lenin, 469.
23 T.F.X Noble, B. Strauss e.a., Western civilization. Beyond boundaries, (Boston, 2013) 734. 24 Noble, Western civilization, 734.
25 Robert Service, Stalin: A biography, 255. 26 Service, Stalin, 264.
the other part of the Five-Year plan, the rapid industrialization of the economy.28 In order to industrialize the economy, all industry and related services were nationalized and Stalin ordered the realization of thousands of new factories, which were provided with unrealistic production quotas.29 Consequently, this led to a growing number of industrial workers who needed to be fed, which contributed to increasing pressure on the agriculture and growing grain quotas.30 Besides the growing number of industrial workers that needed to be fed, the actual process of rapid industrialization also depended on the increase of grain yield. The profits of export of excess grain and other agriculture products would be invested in the industrialization of the Soviet Union.31 This meant that the collectivization and the set grain quotas were of great importance to Stalin and for the development of the Soviet Union, which caused the pressure on peasants and farmland to increase immensely.
Over time Stalin’s harsh policy and Five-Year plan caused serious problems. Due to the fact that the greatest share of investment was put into the heavy industry and the unrealistic production targets Stalin set, a widespread shortages of consumer goods occurred.32 The consequences of Stalin’s policy were even more severe for the agriculture sector. The existing pressure on peasants and farmland was intensified due to the global economic crisis between 1929 and 1933. In this period, the prices for industrial equipment fell worldwide and the Soviet foreign trade organizations purchased the available material at favorable prices.33 However, prices for grain and other agricultural products dropped even more sharply and due to the still pending foreign debts of the Tsar, nobody was willing to grant any long-term loans to the Soviet Union.34 Therefore it became necessary to sell even more grain to earn foreign currency for the payment of imported machinery. The grain procurement plans grew out of proportion and in order to raise the quantity of grain available for export, the state stripped the collective farms completely of their harvests. 35
28 Noble, Western civilization, 735.
29 David R. Shearer, ‘Stalinism 1928-1940.’ In: Ronald Grigor Suny (ed) The Cambridge history of Russia. Volume
3: The Twentieth century, 192-216, 193.
30 S. V. Kulchytskyi, ‘Holodomor in Ukraine 1932-1933 : An interpretation of facts.’ In: Christian Noack, Lindsay Janssen and Vincent Comerford (ed) Holodomor and Gorta mór. Histories, memories and representations of famine
in Ukraine and Ireland (London 2012), 19-35, 25.
31 Shearer, ‘Stalinism 1928-1940’, 197. 32 Ibid. 198.
33 Kulchytskyi, ‘Holodomor in Ukraine 1932-1933’, 25. 34 Ibid.
Stalin’s policy was implemented in all the Soviet regions and therefore the problems were extensive and were important in the causation of the famine. For the situation of Ukraine several additional factors played an important role in the development of the famine.
1.1 The Ukrainian nationality and struggle for independence
In March 1917, soon after the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, a Ukrainian Central Rada was formed by several Ukrainian parties. The Rada was headed by one of the most distinguished figures of the country, the historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky, a member of the Ukrainian party of Socialist Revolutionary.36 The Central Rada consisted of various political parties, such as Hrushevsky’s Socialist party, the Ukrainian Social Democratic Labor Party, representatives of the army, peasants and of several minorities like Poles and Jews.37 The Central Rada thus was a broad representation of the Ukrainian society.
In June the Central Rada issued an appeal for autonomy within the Russian federation and formed the first Ukrainian government. Although the Rada did not make specific claims for independence at first, it derived several concessions from the Russian Provisional Government.38 The Rada was broadly supported by the majority of the people and gained effective power at the expense of the Russian government. So when Lenin seized power in November, he was faced with a broadly supported and fairly independent Ukrainian government.
What followed was a chaotic period of (civil) warfare, revolution and political instability. Between 1917-1920, Ukraine was faced with three invasions of the Red Army and the
subsequent instalment of Soviet governments. Lenin failed to secure control with the first two Soviet Governments that were installed. These governments were unsuccessful in gaining broad support from the Ukrainian people and both were expelled by rival invading forces.39 Lenin greatly underestimated the question of nationality and the strong wish for independence in Ukraine. Moreover, the Ukrainian national movements were not willing to work together with the Bolsheviks and became a threat for the plans of Lenin to gain control over Ukraine. During the first two Soviet Governments, this led to the oppression of national movements and
Ukrainian nationality, which resulted in weak Soviet rule.40 By the third Soviet occupation, 36 I. Nahaievsʹkyĭ, History of Ukraine, (Philadelphia, 1962) 216.
37 Ibid. 38 Ibid, 217.
39 Robert Conquest, The harvest of sorrow, 42 40 Ibid, 42.
which was completed by March 1920, Lenin understood that suppressing the Ukrainian
nationality would unquestionably lead to weak Soviet rule and a continuous unstable situation. Ukraine had a long independent cultural tradition and Lenin understood that for the Soviet rule to succeed, he needed to accept this strong nationality.41
In the following decade, Ukraine maintained a considerable measure of cultural and linguistic freedom. Additionally, the governments in Ukraine continued to uphold a certain degree of independence from Moscow and were not forced to implement policy.42 However, the
relationship remained fragile and the Soviet regime failed to gain full control over the Ukrainian countryside. Within the Communist Party, the Ukrainian nationalism continued to be regarded as a liability to the unity of the USSR. 43 One of the party members who shared these believes regarding the situation in Ukraine was Stalin. Ergo, when he became leader of the Soviet Union, the independent position of Ukraine was immediately put under pressure and the relationship between Stalin and Ukraine deteriorated quickly.
1.2 Stalin and Ukraine
As mentioned before, Stalin parted from the New Economic Policy implemented by Lenin and replaced it with his own radical policy of Five-Year plans. Besides the aforementioned
motivations for the enforcement of these plans, Stalin was also being confronted with several problems and an increasingly difficult relationship with the Ukrainians in the years preceding the implementation of the plans.
One of the main problems Stalin faced in the period of 1927-1928, were shortages in harvest due to severe droughts in several Soviet regions, such as Ukraine.44 The meager grain harvest and difficulties in the supply system destabilized the food supply situation in the USSR and caused shortages in urban areas, which put industrialization under pressure.45 The problems in
agriculture caused frustration with Stalin and he tried to handle the problems with several policies. Firstly, he initiated a wide-spread state campaign promoting voluntary collectivization. Despite the intense campaign, collectivization was detested among peasants, which resulted in
41 Ibid.
42 Nahaievsʹkyĭ, History of Ukraine, 231 43 Ibid.
44 Shearer, ‘Stalinism 1928-1940’, 198.
only 5.6% of the Ukrainian households joining the state farms.46 These attempts to control the grain yield were deficient and did not help to solve the grain problems, which caused Stalin to convert to increasing seizure of grain from 1927 onwards. In order to effectively implement the policy of confiscating harvests, the Party relied continually on propaganda to reveal the supposed class enemy on the countryside, the Kulaks, who were held responsible for the failure of the agriculture. The term Kulak was the indication for high-income famers who had larger farms than most peasants. Thus, the Soviet regime regarded these rich exploiting peasants as a class enemy who caused the poverty of other peasants.47 During Stalin’s rule, Kulaks were accused of threatening the socialist agricultural sector by withholding grain from the state and of actively opposing and revolting against Soviet policy due to their wealthy position.48 Therefore, the Party blamed them for the failure of agriculture and the Communist subjugation of the countryside. However, in reality opposition was not confined to the alleged richer peasants, but was in fact wide-spread among the peasantry, which caused the situation on the countryside to remain complex.49 Regardless of the wide-spread opposition, the Party believed that if they controlled and suppressed the Kulaks, the remnants of a capitalist society, they could gain control over the country-side and the remaining peasants and consequently gain full control over the economy.50 These notions were cautiously put into practice in 1929 when the first Kulaks were being prosecuted and deported.51
However, the deportation of the Kulaks, the voluntary collectivization and the seizure of harvests did not adequately solve the problems, which caused Stalin to turn to harder policy in the form of the first Five-Year plan. The Party believed that poor and middle-class peasants could only be mobilized for collectivization if their ‘class enemy’, the Kulaks, were being destroyed and the inefficient capitalist way of farming was completely removed.52 Thus, the process of collectivization became closely related to the process of the liquidations of the Kulaks as a class, which became known as dekulakization. Official Party ruling on dekulakization came on the 30th of January 1930 and had significant consequences.53 Once characterized as a Kulak, 46 Magosci, A history of Ukraine, 592.
47 Shearer, ‘Stalinism 1928-1940’, 194. 48 Ibid.
49 Conquest, The harvest of sorrow, 115. 50 Ibid, 101.
51 Ibid.
52 Shearer, ‘Stalinism 1928-1940’, 194. 53 Conquest, The harvest of sorrow, 120.
peasants and their families were faced with forced evictions from their houses, deportations to Gulag camps, imprisonment or execution.54 By July 1930, 93.000 households had been the victim of the dekulakization campaign, which in reality was economically destructive, since it led to the liquidation of the most efficient producers in the countryside.
Ukrainedid not feel the effects of the dekulakization campaign, but was mainly affected by the process of accelerated and forced collectivization, which quickly led to massive upheavals and resistance. 55 Peasants were not willing to give up their free position and produce solely for the state. This caused countless of incidents, wide-spread anti-kolkhoz demonstrations and ‘terrorist acts’, such as babski bunty, women’s rebellions who rallied against collective farming since it deprived them from their animals, which they required for the production of milk for their children. 56 These forms of demonstrations were rather harmless in comparison to the wide-spread response of the peasantry to slaughter their cattle.57 The Party believed that in order to make everyone equal, property, thus cattle, ought to be taken away.58 The peasants responded with the slaughter of their cattle, which had massive economic consequences. In Ukraine, 63% of the pigs and 73% of the sheep and goats were slaughtered. 59
Ostensibly the collectivization had been a success and the Party had achieved their goals. In June 1929, 1.003.000 holdings were collective farms, in March 1930 14.264.300 were state property.60 However, the fierce resistance of the peasantry, the massive losses of cattle and the lack of adequate planning caused the policy to be a disaster and resulted in a disrupted
agriculture. The upheavals and problems forced Stalin on the 2nd of March 1930 to issue an article ‘dizzy for success’. In this article he proclaimed that the collectivization had been carried out with excessive zeal, leading to excesses that had to be corrected.61 Thus, Stalin had been fought to a standstill by the peasantry and had to put the limit the collectivization.
The Party temporary retreated from compulsory collectivization in 1930. The peasants had won, but their victory was bitter-sweet and at great cost. The improved kolkhoz model, the artel, was implemented and envisioned collectivized peasants to keep cattle and possessing a small plot of 54 Ibid, 120-121.
55 Kulchytskyi, ‘Holodomor in Ukraine 1932-1933’, 25. 56 Ibid.
57 Conquest, The harvest of sorrow, 158. 58 Ibid, 159.
59 Ibid. 60 Ibid.
land outside the state farm.62 At first this may seem as a an improvement to the kolkhoz system, however the private plot was to be taken away from peasants if they did not put in the necessary number of labor-days or withdrew from the kolkhoz altogether.63 Expulsions from collective farms became increasingly undesirable, since private arable land became harder to acquire. 64 Thus, the ‘limited’ collectivization allowed peasants to have own property and small plots of land. However, peasants still had to produce for the state and as stated previously, the grain quota’s set by Stalin grew out of proportion over the years, which caused enormous pressure on the peasants as well as on the arable land.
1.3 The tipping mechanism
The situation was still precarious and existing dissatisfaction was deepened due to the policy of the workday unit that was developed during the first phase of the Five-Year plan. According to the concept of a workday unit, the peasants on the state farms were given a kind of salary, mostly grain, in exchange for their labor on the farms.65 The grain procurement law that was passed in April 1930 prescribed the amount of grain a collective farmer had to deliver to the state. Between a quarter and a third of the total harvest was intended for the state, while the rest of the harvest was ought to be distributed among the peasants as salary.66 However, due to rapid
industrialization and the global economic crisis, grain procurement plans grew out of proportion and in an attempt to raise the quantity of grain available for export, the state stripped the
collective farms completely of their harvests.67
Consequently, the peasants were not granted compensation for their labor, which caused them to show little inclination to work seriously for the common good. Peasants did not bother to remove the weeds from the lands and started too late to reap the harvest seriously, reducing the amount of grain that was to be harvested.68 Thus, the decline in grain yield could be ascribed to the lack of material impetus for the collective farmers. However, to Stalin the decline in grain
62 Kulchytskyi, ‘Holodomor in Ukraine 1932-1933’, 25. 63 Conquest, The harvest of sorrow, 165.
64 Ibid.
65 Conquest, The harvest of sorrow, 177.
66 Kulchytskyi, ‘Holodomor in Ukraine 1932-1933’ 25. 67 Ibid.
yield only seemed explicable through organized sabotage and hiding of grain.69 His suspicions resulted in the passing of the decree ‘on the protection of the property of state enterprises,
kolkhozes and cooperatives, and strengthening of the public (socialist) property.’ With this
decree, that was signed on the 7th of August 1932, theft of collective property was sentenced with execution, or with imprisonment. 70
Despite the measurements that were taken, the economic crises in the Soviet Union worsened and the Party was forced to cut back on the military budget and on expenses for industrialization. Hence, the grain yield became of even greater importance to the Soviet economy and with each passing year, grain requisitions were becoming more and more severe. In the fall of 1932, this resulted in the establishment of extraordinary procurement commissions in the major grain-growing regions in order to tightly control the grain production.71 The commission in Ukraine was chaired by Vyacheslav Molotov, head of the USSR Council of People's Commissars (Radnarkom). Molotov took draconian measures by not only confiscating grain, but also meat and vegetables, which were confiscated by force and houses were completely searched for hidden foodstuffs.72 Many eyewitness accounts recall the confiscation of food and the brutal search for hidden foodstuffs, for example the following statements from Hanna Lukianivna Mykhalchuk who was resident of the village of Zalyvanshchyna, Kalynivka raion, Vinnytsia oblast.
Itbegan in the year 1932. A brigade was going around to all the homesteads and confiscating grain. It took everything away, even food standing in pots. They would also remove buried seed potatoes. The famine began. Already by the winter of 1932-33 people were dying [...] Harvest time came. People pressed out the ears and hide the grain in their shirts or bodices so that it wouldn’t be taken away from them. At home we quickly ground it in a hand-mill and boiled up a cauldron of soup. The children would eat it up, but they were weak from hunger and wanted more. They would scratch at the bottom of the cauldron. People ripped apart dead horses. They took sackcloth and carried the horsemeat home and eat it. Vegetable leaves and grass were used as food.73
69 Ibid.
70 Davies & Wheatcroft, The years of hunger, 165. 71 Kulchytskyi, ‘Holodomor in Ukraine 1932-1933, 26. 72 Kulchytskyi, ‘Holodomor in Ukraine 1932-1933’, 26.
73 Originally published in Holod 33: Narodna knyha-memorial (Famine 33: National Memorial Book), comp. Lidiia Kovalenko and Volodymyr Maniak. Kyiv: Radianskyi pysmennyk, 1991, p. 69
Thus, rapid introduction of the collectivization for the development of the industrialization, the unreasonable grain quota’s, declining harvests, and the measurement taken by the commission made an already bad situation worse, and by December 1931 several Ukrainian regions were confronted with a devastating famine.
When the famine was fully raging, decisions were made by the Party that worsened the situation. For instance, the Ukrainian border was completely closed off. According to official statements the borders were closed in order to prevent the spread of contagious diseases, which already had been spreading in the areas affected by the famine. However, by closing the border the Party also prevented starving peasants to look for foodstuffs across the border.74 Furthermore, the Soviet regime prohibited news of the famine from reaching the outside world, which
prevented foreign sources from providing aid to alleviate the famine.75
In response to pressure from the local authorities and peasants, the Party reluctantly made large, though insufficient, reductions in the planned grain procurements between August 1932 and January 1933, amounting to as much as 4 million tons. These reductions confronted the Party with considerable problems, which resulted in the reduction of the annual export plans.76 In spite of these reductions, the amount of grain available for internal use was still substantially less in 1932/33 than in the previous years and the Party initially decided that the grain should be distributed among towns and ruled that food aid would be made available for the countryside.77 In reality nearly 194.000 tons of food were issued for Ukraine and also reached the countryside.78 However, food aid was mainly distributed among people who were willing and able to
participate in the agricultural and confiscating campaigns and the available grain in Ukraine was not nearly sufficient to prevent further deaths.79
During the horrendous famine that raged in Ukraine in 1932-1933, millions of people died. Estimates vary greatly, anywhere from 2 million up to 12 million, mainly due to the lack of or falsified records. Undoubtedly, the situation in Ukraine was terrible during this period and highly traumatic for its survivors. Peasants had experienced violence, threats, vicious food confiscations and had been confronted with an immense amount of death. As the search for food 74 Mark B. Tauger, ‘The 1932 harvest and the famine of 1933’, In: Slavic Review, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Spring 1991), pp. 70-89, 87.
75 Conquest, The harvest of sorrow, 308.
76 Davies & Wheatcroft, The years of hunger, 440. 77 Ibid.
78 Ibid.
became increasingly hard, people resorted to desperate measures, eating anything they could find and even resorting to cannibalism.80 All these circumstances considered, the famine had been a very traumatic experience and the decades of state secrecy that followed preventedsurvivors to properly cope with it. The following chapters will analyze how these conditions had
consequences for the trauma and its development due to migration.
2. The Ukrainian Diaspora
The famine that caused millions of deaths in Ukraine was a traumatic event and has had excessive consequences, for instance on a demographic level. Even though the famine was traumatic to many, there was no official state recognition for several decades. Stalin did not want these disasters to be known in the world, because it would harm his reputation and that of communism in general.81 As a consequence, there was no official recognition of the famine and 80 Conquest, The harvest of sorrow, 257-258.
the veil of state secrecy caused the trauma to be suppressed. The Soviet leadership undertook extensive efforts to prevent the spread of any information about the famine by keeping state communication top secret.82 Due to the efforts of the Soviet leadership, awareness of the famine on international level was nil. However, in the past decades the diaspora has made significant efforts to raise awareness with regard to the famine and it became a focal point of the diaspora identity. This chapter will set out what preceded the creation of the genocide narrative by
describing the construction of the diaspora and the effects the migration of displaced persons had on the social organization of the diaspora and the narrative.
2.1 Defining diaspora’s
Due to decades of serious efforts, the diaspora of Ukraine has had significant influence on recognition of the famine and of its place in modern world politics. To comprehend the extent of the diaspora’s role on raising awareness and its influence on the creation of the genocide
narrative, it is imperative to understand the nature of the Ukrainian diaspora. Before exploring how the Ukrainian diaspora in the United States emerged and how it developed in the past decades, it is important to set out what defines a group of migrants as a diaspora and how the concept has been developed and used in the past decades.
The concept of diaspora is derived from the Greek terms speiro (to sow) and dia (over).83 The term was originally used to refer to the processes of migration and colonization. In the 1970s the term gained a narrower definition by referring to a forcible collective banishment and was mainly applied to the expulsion of the Jews from their homeland.84 Furthermore, in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, scholars in the area of African-American Studies began to refer increasingly to the African diaspora of the Black Atlantic85. The concept gained a more clear and coherent definition in the work of social scientist Robin Cohen. He was critical of the static terms in which ethnic relations theory conceptualized movement from and return to the homeland. Groups that have migrated display complex loyalties and emotional attachments to a homeland. He therefore suggests that terms like migration and settlement are too simplistic and he argues 82 Ibid.
83 R. Cohen, ‘Diaspora’, in: International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, (12-03-2015) pp. 353-356, 353.
84 R. Cohen, Global diasporas. An introduction, (Abingdon 2008) 1. 85 Cohen, Global diasporas, 1.
that the concept of diaspora is a better term to describe the state of these communities. In his typological approach to the concept, he distinguishes several features that a diaspora normally exhibits.86
Dispersal from an original homeland, often traumatically.
Alternatively, the expansion from homeland in search of work, in pursuit of trade or to further colonial ambitions.
A collective memory and myth about the homeland. An idealization of the supposed ancestral home.
The existence of a return movement. Groups within the diaspora community can exhibit a strong desire for the return to their ancestral homeland, which in some cases results in an actual return.
A strong ethnic group consciousness sustained over time.
A problematic relationship with host societies, due to a lack of acceptance, cultural and religious differences and discrimination.
A sense of solidarity with co-ethnic members in other societies.
The possibility of distinctive creative, enriching life in tolerant host countries.87
These features show that Cohen not only regards political persecution as basis for the diaspora condition, but he also considers the mass movement of people for economic reasons as a feature of the concept. Moreover, in his theory he distinguishes several types of diaspora groups mainly characterized by the motives of the migrants to leave their ancestral homeland. Firstly, he mentions the victim diaspora, which is formed as a result of traumatic events that occurred in their homeland and that resulted in large scale and wide-spread dispersal.88 The second type of diaspora Cohen describes is the imperial diaspora, which was formed out of colonial or military ambitions of world powers.89 Thirdly, labordiasporas consist of groups who move mainly in 86 Ibid, 161-162.
87 Ibid. 88 Ibid, 18. 89 Ibid.
search of wage labor.90 The fourth type is the trade diaspora, which consists of people who left their homelands to pursue opportunities as movers of goods and services in the emerging system of international trade. Lastly, Cohen developed the concept of cultural diaspora, which refers to the migration and settlement experiences of migrants of African descent from the Caribbean after the Second World War.91
Despite this clear display of features, some points of criticism have been voiced with regard to Cohen’s theory. Most critique on his conceptualization centers around the idea that those who use the term sometimes slip into a form of ethnic essentialism.92 Social scientist Floya Anthias argues that the notion of a diaspora tends to invoke the homeland as the essential ethnicity of individuals and collectivities. However, this is troublesome since ethnicity is regarded to be situational and socially negotiated in particular situations. The ethnicity that is developed in most diasporas is the result of the complex interaction of homeland cultures and identities and the cultures, identities and politics of host societies.93 This suggests that the identity of the diaspora is also a reflection of the new society the people have settled in and not just of the ethnicity of their homeland.94 Additionally, Cohen’s theory has been criticized for overstating the
homogeneity of a group. Diaspora, just like other forms of communities, contain social divisions and the social background of the emigrants may differ.95 This has also been the case for the Ukrainian diaspora in the United States, which has been shaped by differences, conflict, struggle and hostility between various groups of Ukrainians. The shaping of the Ukrainian community in the United Stated has been shaped by several clashes between socialists and nationalists,
Catholics and Orthodox, new-wave immigrants and longer settled members of the community.96 However, Cohen’s concept does not imply that a diaspora should display all the proposed aspects, which makes it, despite the criticism, an useful framework to determine whether or not a community of migrants should be regarded as a diaspora.
2.2 The Ukrainian diaspora
90 Ibid. 91 Ibid.
92 Floya Anthias, ‘Evaluating ‘Diaspora’ : Beyond ethnicity?’ in : Sociology, 32 (august 1998) 3, pp. 557-590, 569. 93 Anthias, ‘Evaluating Diaspora’, 569.
94 Ibid. 95 Ibid, 559.
Currently there is an extensive Ukrainian population living outside of Ukraine, which numbers around twenty million people worldwide. The Ukrainian diaspora, like many diaspora
populations of other backgrounds, have actively carried out their national identity and continued to stay involved in Ukrainian issues, such as the Holodomor. According to the Ukrainian World Congress, an organization representing interests of Ukrainians in the diaspora, the Ukrainians living abroad should be divided in two separate diasporas. The eastern diaspora, which consists of Ukrainians who live in various countries in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and a western diaspora, which consists of Ukrainians who live in North and South America, western Europe and Australia.97 The eastern diaspora consists of Ukrainian migrants that, for instance, were forced to move for economic and political reasons under the Soviet regime. 98 Moreover, in the first half of the previous century, the boundaries of Ukraine were redrawn various times due to war and revolution.99 Before World War I, Ukraine was divided between the Russian and the Austro-Hungarian empire, while during the interbellum Ukraine was divided among Soviet Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and several other Soviet republics.100 Due to these shifting borders in the 20th century, the Ukrainian ethnographic territory does not correspond to the present-day political borders of Ukraine. As a result, it has been difficult to determine
whether or not Ukrainian minorities ended up in an adjoining state due to state formation or were dispersed from their homeland, which would make them part of a diaspora.
In the case of the western diaspora, the largest diasporic communities were established in North America. In the United States there are an estimated 730.000 – 1.3 million of Ukrainians and in Canada around 1 million.101 These populations have been more politically active and influential than, for instance, Ukrainians in the eastern diaspora. In the case of Canada, a high percentage of Canadians are Ukrainian, which makes it easier to influence politics. In order to establish their political position, the Ukrainian-Canadians founded several organizations in the twentieth century. One of the most important and influential organizations for the Ukrainians in Canada is the, during the Second World War established, Ukrainian Canadian Congress.102 This
organization was established to coordinate and represent the interests of Ukrainian-Canadiansto 97 Satzewich, The Ukrainian diaspora, 9.
98 W. Isajiw, ‘The Ukrainian diaspora’ in: The call for the homeland: Diaspora, Nationalism, Past and Present edited by Allon Gal, Athena Leoussi, Athony Smith, (Leiden 2010) pp. 289-323, 292.
99 Cohen, Global diasporas. An introduction, 190-191. 100 Ibid.
101 Satzewich, The Ukrainian diaspora, 20. 102 Isajiw, ‘The Ukrainian diaspora’ , 295.
the Canadian government. Thus, the Ukrainians in Canada have been politically active for several decades and in doing so, influence multiple states.
Besides this influential Ukrainian community in Canada, the Ukrainian diaspora in the United States also has had a big influence on its host society. The development of the Ukrainian
diaspora in the United States, its organization and influence will be explained in greater detail in the following sections.
2.3 The Ukrainian diaspora in the United States
The history of the Ukrainian diaspora varies widely depending on where the Ukrainians moved. The establishment of the Ukrainian diaspora in the United States was largely formed by four separate waves of migration of which the last and current wave of migration started after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, and mainly consisted of educated Ukrainians unable to find work suitable of their educational level.103
The first wave of migration commenced around 1890. These first movements of Ukrainians at the end of the ninetieth century were mostly motivated by economic arguments. In this period, mostly workers and famers left their homeland of Ukraine. Due to their background most of the migrants settled in agricultural areas where they established farms or worked in industry.104 Thus, the first big wave of migration was motivated by seeking better economic opportunity and the hope for a better life.
Although the second wave of migration, which commenced in the wake of the First World War, circa 1920, was also partly motivated by economic aspects, this time political motives began to play a part as well. 105 Besides the disruptive events of the First World War, Ukraine especially suffered from the power struggle between 1917-1921. In this period, Ukraine was faced with severe fights between several political and military forces, such as the Ukrainian nationalists and the Bolsheviks.106 After years of fighting the Bolsheviks claimed the victory, which marked the end of the independent Ukrainian state and the beginning of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. 107 Even though the Ukrainian SSR was a sovereign Soviet state at first, it became part of the Soviet Union after 1922, which meant the end of their independent position. Thus, besides 103 Satzewich, The Ukrainian diaspora, 23.
104 Ibid, 26-27 105 Ibid, 47. 106 Ibid, 24. 107 Ibid, 49.
the group of economic migrants, these violent episodes and the incorporation into the Soviet Union led to the emergence of a new group of politically motivated refugees who fled to North and South America.
Despite sharing the same ethnicity and the experience of war and revolution the Ukrainian diaspora of this period in the United States displayed little uniformity and was highly fractured. Within the Ukrainian diaspora the political views, relationship with and idealization of the ancestral homeland differed between several fractions.108 On one side the revolution and the constitution of a socialist republic was what the leftists, socialists and communists in the diaspora had long wished for. Their return movement consisted of idealists who wished to help Soviet Ukraine to fully realize its potential as socialist society. Therefore, one of their main goals was to help protect Soviet Ukraine from attack by counter-revolutionary forces.109 However, on the other side, for the nationalists the establishment of the socialist republic was one of the traumatic circumstances which forced them into diaspora. Their involvement in Ukrainian issues focused on the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the realization of a truly independent
Ukrainian state.110 In the eyes of the nationalists, the Soviet regime was oppressing and posed a great threat to the Ukrainian language, culture and religion.
Hence, during the interwar years the diaspora was marked by deep divisions with regard to the ancestral homeland, the purpose of being in the diaspora and the understanding of developments in Soviet Ukraine. Yet, this situation was further complicated with the arrival of the third wave of migrants during and after the World War II.
2.4 The third wave of migration: displaced persons
During the first years of the Second World War, the Soviet Union ruled over Ukraine. Throughout this period the Ukrainian language, culture and identity were severely suppressed and Ukrainians who were being suspected of sympathizing with Ukrainian nationalism were arrested and deported. When the Nazi army made advancement on Ukrainian territory in 1941 and gained control over western Ukraine, anticipations of nationalists for an independent
Ukrainian state flourished.111 The Nazi’s needed Ukrainian territory for their Lebensraum policy as well as for the human and natural resources to support their war effort. Due to the
anti-108 Ibid, 85. 109 Ibid, 85. 110 Ibid, 84. 111 Ibid, 88.
communist sentiments of the Nazi’s, the nationalists were willing to fight alongside the Nazi’s and showed little hostility towards them.112 These attitudes quickly changed due to the policy and attitude of the Nazi’s towards Ukrainians. Within the Nazi racial theory, Ukrainians were
Untermenschen, for whom there was no future within the Third Reich. The Nazi regime in
Ukraine was ruthless, medical services were curtailed in order to preclude the necessary reproduction of inferior Ukrainians and city populations were starved in order to feed the German army.113
Due to the tremendous amount of human suffering, fighting and violence, the Second World War caused people to flee their homelands. A quarter-million of Ukrainians formed the third wave of migration who left Ukraine after the Second World War.114 This wave was made up of a combination of people who left Ukraine under different sets of circumstances, such as the 2.3 million Ukrainian Ostarbeiter who were forcibly recruited to work in Germany between 1941-1944, the Ukrainians who left Ukraine in the crossfire of the retreating German army and the advancing Soviet Army, and the controversial group of Ukrainians who had been members of the Waffen-SS 14th Grenadier Division, also known as the 1st Ukrainian division of the Ukrainian National Army.115 Consequently, at the end of World War II approximately 2.5 – 3 million Ukrainians were scattered around Europe. By 1947 this number had dropped to a quarter million of Ukrainians due to forced repatriation by the Soviet regime.116 Between 1945 and 1947, the British and American authorities helped the Soviets to arrange the return of 2 million Soviet citizens. After this period the British and American authorities became suspicious of Soviet intentions, which made them decide to stop supporting the repatriation.117 However, this did not put a halt to the policy and another three million Soviet citizens were forcibly repatriated. At first the Soviet Union put considerable effort in the propaganda to lure the refugees back. Despite the regime’s promises of secure jobs, housing and educational opportunities, the refugees generally refused to return to the Soviet Union. Eventually the Soviet repatriation efforts became violent, involved force and many who were repatriated were murdered or sent to concentration camps.118 Due to this situation, the American and British authorities decided to change their views on the 112 O. Subtelny, Ukraine, a history. (Toronto, 1988), 467.
113 Subtelny, Ukraine, 467. 114 Ibid.
115 Satzewich, The Ukrainian diaspora, 92-94. 116 Subtelny, Ukraine, 554-555.
117 Satzewich, The Ukrainian diaspora, 96. 118 Ibid, 97.
