DOI: 10.20535/2307-5244.49.2019.189536
National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine
By implementing the policy of silencing the genocide against the Ukrainians,
Stalin still could destroy the memory about the Holodomor in the Ukrainian diaspora.
Media played an essential role in spreading the truth about these events.
Stalin’s decrees were debated in the press, private letters from Soviet Ukraine,
and translations of the articles of foreign correspondents.
Since the late 1980s to 2006, the historians studied and systematized the documents
proving the Holodomor to be the genocide. As a result, there is no complex
research of the diaspora press of the 1930s. The objective of this article is to
analyze the level of the awareness of the Ukrainians living abroad of the processes
taking place in Ukraine, using the materials of the Svoboda newspaper from. A wide range of special historical methods was used. In particular, problem-
chronological (to reveal the evolution of thought), typological (to systematize
the events in Ukraine of 1932), and historical-genetic (to trace the connections
between Ukrainian diaspora perspectives and the processes in the UkrSSR).
The study shows that starting from April of 1932, the weekly newspaper Svoboda
published articles about the extermination of the Ukrainians by starvation, as
well as their survival strategies of mass migration to the cities or escape from the USSR. The newspaper also analyzed Stalin’s laws and discussed their implementation.
For example, the messages in Svoboda highlighted facts of grain quotas, the
Law of Spikelets, and the introduction of the passport regime for access to the city.
Therefore, the Ukrainian diaspora was fully informed about the mechanism of the
Holodomor in 1932. The publications in the mass media call for a further complex
study of the awareness in the world community about the genocide of Ukrainians.
Keywords: Ukrainian diaspora, the Holodomor, genocide, Svoboda newspaper,
the Law of Spikelets, passport regime.
