ABOUT HISTORICAL MEMORY
BEING TURNED INSIDE OUT.
The postscript to "Holodomor" issue

Visiting of the place makes a painful impression. The famine of the beginning of 30s is presented as conscious annihilation of "Ukrainian nation" by colonists from the East, as if other nations of the USSR didn’t suffer from it. However, "the Orange" decided that the Ukrainian land is not enough for large-scale anti-Russian campaign. Their aim is to put a monument in the very birth-place of the idea of "anti-Ukrainian genocide" — in the USA.

Image of enemy creation

If in 70-80s of the previous century the problem of the Holodomor (famine in the Ukraine in 1932-33) was touched upon only by representatives of Ukrainian diaspora in the USA and Canada together with North American experts in rising capital for the USSR collapse, then in the 21 century due to the "orange" power the national tragedy was turned into pseudo-religious cult aiming at maximum division of two close nations. The former president Victor Juschtschenko seems to have done everything for the famine, having started in the beginning of the 30s and sweeping the major part of the USSR, to be seen as "the Ukrainian nation genocide", organized by mean-spirited "Moscow authorities". And of course, the first steps in the direction had been made before Juschtschenko came to power, in 1990s.

The first monument to the Holodomor was fixed up in the Ukraine in the USSR-period. In summer 1991 in Lubna, Poltava oblast "Monument sacred to the memory of Holodomor victims of 1932-33" was erected, blessed and solemnly opened by the President of the Spreme Soviet of the USSR Leonid Kravchuk, the Chairman of the Soviet of Nationalities of the USSR Boris Olijnyk and the Deputy Director of the Institute of Literature of Academy of Science of the USSR Nikolay Zhulinskij. In his speech on the opening of the memorial Leonid Kravchuk claimed that veneration of those who died because of the famine would be the basis of " real Ukrainian great power statehood".

The first memorial to the Holodomor victims in the Ukraine was erected on September, 11 1993 in Mikhaylovsky square in Kiev. The memorial depicted a crucified woman.

Since that time the number of monument fixed up overshot all normative. It seems they try to turn a state into a cemetery, burying both the friendship of two great nations and the future of the Ukraine. And it is clear because the great 52-million republic, the industrial base for high-technology production of the USSR with the developed resort infrastructure in 20 years turned into 46-million outsider state, which has lost its worked out potential. Air hub, Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk industry, Nikolaev’s shipbuilding, the Black Sea steam navigation, missile and defense production, agriculture — all on the wane. The new "power" for all these years have been using the heritage of the USSR (metallurgy, coal industry sector, electrical energy industry pipeline complex), creating nothing new and wasting the resources.

You needn’ be an expert in political science to understand that this the Holodomor hysteria had one certain reason and aim. It is easy to distract the attention of the population from the idea that the power is responsible for the fruit of its activity by creating the image of external enemy, who is to be blamed for all woes. Both in the past and in the present. And there is no better reason than the devastating famine of 1932-33.

Territory of fear

The decree on erecting "Memorial to the Holodomor victims" was signed in 2003 by the then president of the Ukraine Leonid Kuchma. At that time the issue concerning this tragedy was not political. The competition started on April, 7 2006 in the House of Artists, the result was presented by three projects of finalists. The jury, containing writers, artists, sculptors and power institution officials pointed Anatoly Gaidamaki and his creative team, including Nikolay Obezuk and Peter Drozdovsky, as a winner.

The erection started on November, 25 2006. It was followed by the snowball grove landed — each bush symbolized a certain population area suffered from the Famine. The first part of the Memorial was open on November, 22 2008, commemorating the 75th anniversary of the events and cost more than one billion UAH. Then the anniversary measures were taken there and the Memorial was closed to be reconstructed.

The first turn of the monument includes the central construction — the Memorial Candle, the Memorial Hall and the Wall Memory. The height of the central construction is 34 meters, it is presented by a polyhedral granitic candle, covered with crucifixes of various size, symbolizing the souls of the victims. The foundation of the Candle is lying on four metal black crucifixes, decorated with the figures of bronze storks.



The Candle is lighted from inside with the lamps and on the perimeter. Round the candle there are 24 millstones. The underground Memorial hall is situated under the Candle, there the films about the Holodomor victims are shown. The entrance to the Memorial is between the obelisk on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. The visitors pass two figures of angels, staying on one knee. Next to the figures there is a statue of a girl, holding three ears in the hand. The figure of the girl is the central image of the construction. Behind the statue there is a belfry in a form of a candle. Leaving the belfry the visitors come to the underground Holodomor museum symbolizing the hell.

The exit leads to the park, to Garden of Eden. According to the author, the people, who had suffered the hell should have found themselves in the paradise. His symbols — several thousands of snowball bushes, landed to commemorate those died of famine. Thus, all construction can be divided into two parts: the earthly hell and the biblical paradise. The very museum, situated under the Memorial Candle is a symbol of nation revival. Back labradorite along the stairs leading to the Museum symbolizes the plowed ground the harvest from which the peasants could use at those times.

Black color against black background

On the stands there are books including the names of millions of victims. The building is divided into two parts: the center of the circle and the perimeter. The predominant color is black.



On the perimeter there are propagandist stands, exposing "colonists": the Russian Impire, the USSR and Stalin. The title to the stands tells: "The Ukrainian nation Genocide". The last word is put in red for focusing on. The first part is introduction: "The Rich Ukraine" (e. g from 16 to the beginning of 20 centuries). Then "the Ukrainian great power statehood" is exhibited (which has changes three form in three years). Then the 1930s are shown in red and black. The "mechanism of the Ukrainian nation destruction" is also analyzed.



Visiting of the place makes a painful impression. The famine of the beginning of 30s is presented as conscious annihilation of "Ukrainian nation" by colonists from the East, as if other nations of the USSR didn’t suffer from it. However, "the Orange" decided that the Ukrainian land is not enough for large-scale anti-Russian campaign. Their aim is to put a monument in the very birth-place of the idea of "anti-Ukrainian genocide" — in the USA. This desire was articulated by the former president Juschtschenko in 2005. The president of the USA George W. Bush found a place for the monument — in the capital of the country. On October, 14 2009 the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers directed 5 million UAH (about 600 thousand dollars) on construction of the Memorial to the Genocide victims in Washington, which was planned to be erected in 2010.

Is boat missed?

However, today a great amount of things created by Juschtschenko are lost. The present president of the Ukraine Victor Yanukovych doesn’t consider the Famine of the beginning of the 1930s to be the Genocide of a certain nation, including a Ukrainian one. At the meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Yanukovych stated it. According to the Ukrainian leader, the Holodomor was a result of "Stalin totalitarian regime", but it can’t be called the Genocide of a certain nation because the mass famine was a common tragedy of states, which were parts of the USSR. Yanukovych claimed that the famine happened in Kazakhstan, Belorus, Russia, not only in the Ukraine.

The news about " Yanukovych rejecting Genocide" spread quickly. It caused more disaffection than "surrender of Sevastopol". Moreover, they articulated many unreasonable thought. Thus "Our Ukraine" started to threaten Yanukovych with responsibility for "rejecting the Holodomor". The press-service of the party made an appeal in which he was blamed of "confronting opinion of Estonia, Australia, Canada, Hungary, Lithuania, Georgia, Poland, Peru, Paraguay, Ecuador, Columbia, Mexico and Latvia, who officially acknowledged the Holodomor to be the Genocide of the Ukrainian nation ".

However, "the orange" have no trump cards. The Obama administration is not willing to nationalistic mythology of the Holodomor. The EU seems to be satisfied with the fact that that there is a new, politically adequate and reasonable president in the Ukraine, who won’t bother them with questionable projects and wage "gas wars".

Alla Eroshkina, Alexei Vovchenko