Posted on 12/09/2005 2:23:46 AM PST by twinself
Outside the walls of Kiev's stunning Mikhailov cathedral and monastery, history is being revisited through an exhibition of large black-and-white photographs.
They show dead animals and corpses rotting in the fields and people, barely able to stand, dressed in ragged clothes. The pictures are from 1932-1933.
In Ukraine's collective memory, those years are known as the "Great Famine" when the Soviet Communist Party under Stalin forced Ukrainian peasants to give up their land and join collectivized farms by confiscating all food. Anyone caught saving food or taking even a grain of corn was sent to Siberia or shot.
Historians estimate that 7 million to 10 million Ukrainians died as a result of Stalin's policies, which were implemented with the help of the Ukrainian Communist Party.
Ukraine quietly started commemorating the famine a few years ago. But the authorities refrained from criticizing the former Soviet Communists, or Ukraine's Communists, for executing such policies.
Since it gained its independence from Moscow in the early 1990s, Ukraine has been slow to deal with its past. This is in contrast to other former Communist countries, particularly in Eastern Europe, where several governments - after a first rush of historical re-evaluation in the 1990s - have recently started taking bolder steps to understand how the Soviet Union ruled its satellites. The new conservative government in Poland started opening Warsaw Pact files last month. Radek Sikorski, the defense minister, showed how in 1979 the Kremlin was prepared to use Poland as its own cordon sanitaire in the event of a nuclear war with Western Europe. Relations were tense at the time because of the election of a Polish pope, a standoff between Moscow and Washington over deploying nuclear missiles in Germany and the increasing influence of the Polish underground trade union movement.
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
So when will the NY Times come clean on Duranty and that Pulitzer?
When Pigs fly, and Pinch Sulzberger nominates George W. Bush for a Nobel Peace Prize...
Oh wait! That was a rhetorical question, wasn't it...?
A.A.C.
What no mention of Babi Yar? The Ukrainians helped the Germans massacre 1000's and 1000's of jews. They were shot and their bodies thrown into a pit at...Babi Yar. Later the Germans used the pit for Ukranian citizens who were executed.
The tyrant in Zimbabwe was installed by Washington and London in 1980. I don't know who was Prez then.
It is interesting to note that in Ukraine, many claim not to speak Russian, although it is taught in schools everywhere.
I used my small bit of Russian in Kiev last summer and was told (in English) quite politely that the person spoke Ukrainian or English, not Russian.
Hard feelings there.
By the way the Cathedral of St. Mikhail was destroyed by Stalin during the famine.
The Ukrainians got it back up after partition in the 90's in just 2 years with contributions from Ukrainians all over the world. Itis a real beauty and not a small little chapel either.
Signs like this give me hope for Ukraine.
How shocking is it to know Jimah Carter was President in 1980? A dictator cuddled and propped up by Carter???? Imagine that.
Ukraine is still split down the middle. Yushenko is seen as too western by the Russian element there.
Prayers for Ukraine.
Spasiba Bolshoi, Svetoi Mikhail!
Stalin in order to dominate the Ukrainians and control better their economy and society not only arranged the famine but seeded western Ukrain with people he sent from other areas to break the nationalistic tendencies of the Ukrainians.
Itis a fact that some Ukrainians welcomed the Germands to Ukraine during the second world war as they thought they could get rid of the Russians. The Germans, being poor thinkers at that point slaughtered the Ukrainians, putting Ukraine at contest from both sides.
YKPAIHA!
LOL That's OK. I suspected that was only a mispelling.
Stalin sent them. He did not send the best.
Stalin sent Poles to Ukraine ? Interesting. Could you provide some source ?
"For centuries this part of Europe (Ukraine) had a large Polish population - many of them remained in place after the Revolution. The total or partial disappearance of Poles from the areas of Kamieniec Podolski, Winnica, Zhytomierz and Kiev" - from "Kolmya, land of gold and death."
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