Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Kyiv disappointed by Medvedev's position on Stalin-era famine
Unian ^ | 19.11.2008

Posted on 11/23/2008 7:14:21 AM PST by Grzegorz 246

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev`s statement on the Stalin-era famine provoked disappointment in Ukraine, the country`s ambassador to Russia said on Tuesday, RIA Novosti reported.

In a letter to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko released by the Kremlin on Friday, the Russian president accused Kyiv of using the Stalin-era famine, known as the Holodomor, to drive a wedge between Ukraine and Russia, and urged efforts to forge a common position on the tragedy.

In the letter, Medvedev said Ukraine`s attempts to declare the Holodomor an act of genocide by the Soviet authorities meant he could not attend commemoration events in Kyiv.

"Of course, disappointment is felt in Kyiv," Ambassador Konstyantyn Hryshchenko told the Ekho Moskvy radio station.

Eight heads of state, including the presidents of the Baltic States, Poland and Georgia, are expected to attend an international forum and commemoration events on the 75th anniversary of the Holodomor, which are taking place in the country`s capital until Saturday. Some 40 foreign delegations are also expected to attend.

"Ukrainian politicians of different levels have repeatedly and consistently stated that they [events to mark the anniversary of the famine] are not about any responsibility or link with the modern Russia," Hryshchenko said. "It is about revealing historical facts and the responsibility of the Stalin regime."

The ambassador added that Ukraine would continue to raise the issue in international organizations.

Ukraine has been seeking international recognition for the Stalin-era famine as an act of genocide by the Soviet authorities following a similar move by Ukraine`s Supreme Rada in late 2006. The United Nations General Committee refused last month to include the famine on its agenda, supporting Russia`s recommendation to exclude the Holodomor from the UN session.

"We would like to draw attention to the greatest tragedy of the 20th century," the ambassador said. "Indeed, before Ukraine had raised the issue, no one spoke about it seriously, either in Russia or any other post-Soviet state."

Andriy Honcharuk, a deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential staff, also expressed regrets about Russia`s refusal to participate in the events.

"We regret that our eastern neighbors, our partner Russia, will not take part in the events, but I think that time and history will judge this situation," Honcharuk told a briefing in Kyiv.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Russia
KEYWORDS: famine; holodomor; russia; russianthreat; soviets; ukraine; ussr
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021 next last

1 posted on 11/23/2008 7:14:21 AM PST by Grzegorz 246
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: onedoug; AnalogReigns; The_Media_never_lie; dixiebelle; voteNRA; valkyry1; Monkey Face; ...
Eastern European ping list

FRmail me to be added or removed from this Eastern European ping list

2 posted on 11/23/2008 7:14:59 AM PST by Grzegorz 246
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Grzegorz 246

How telling that RUSSIA’s leaders identify themselves with Stalin and the Soviet Union... instead of saying, well, that Russia was a victim of Soviet Communism itself.


3 posted on 11/23/2008 7:16:54 AM PST by SolidWood (Sarah Palin - Everything that is Sweetness and Light! WE STAND WITH HER!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Grzegorz 246
So the russkies take the New York Times’ position on the Ukrainian Genocide.
4 posted on 11/23/2008 7:18:38 AM PST by pnh102 (Save America - Ban Ethanol Now!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Grzegorz 246

Once again, the descendants of Stalin can not bear to see the truth of his work brought out into the light.

This should be an annual event. So Russia can be shown to the world as not merely anti-democratic but insanely unforgiving of any attack put upon Uncle Joe.

At least Germany does not celebrate Hitler. But the KGB is not so readily open to condemnation for the acts of its henchmen.


5 posted on 11/23/2008 7:19:55 AM PST by romanesq
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SolidWood

Exactly. The Empire of the Rus was founded in Kiev/Kyiv. I don’t see a future with separate Russian and Ukrainian states - unless the Russians continue to insist upon it which is what they seem to be doing. The ignorant thugs who now run Russia seem committed to a world in turmoil and a Russia bound for self destruction (again).


6 posted on 11/23/2008 7:23:55 AM PST by InABunkerUnderSF (Illegal Immigration is not about the immigration. Gun control is not about the guns.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: SolidWood

McCain was, and is, right on one thing. He said when he looks in Putin’s eyes he sees KGB. And anyone who thinks Putin hasn’t surrounded himself with like minded souls is delusional.


7 posted on 11/23/2008 7:25:27 AM PST by SlapHappyPappy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Grzegorz 246
"In a letter to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko released by the Kremlin on Friday, the Russian president accused Kyiv of using the Stalin-era famine, known as the Holodomor, to drive a wedge between Ukraine and Russia, and urged efforts to forge a common position on the tragedy."

"Holodomor"? Let me eat some humble pie here, and admit I have no clue -- what does the word mean? Yes, I've heard the basic facts of a Stalin imposed "famine" on Ukraine, somehow ignored or covered up by the Western press, where millions died, in what years, 1928?

Seems curious though, that Russians might want a "common position on the tragedy." How about the facts of history?

8 posted on 11/23/2008 7:43:39 AM PST by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Grzegorz 246
It is always interesting to watch communists rationalize away their failures, which are continuing and legion. In their book “Soviet Communism: A New Civilization?”, Sidney and Beatrice Webb pooh pooh the great famine of 31-32 as not really so bad, compared to famine experts from India and China. They relate assurances of soviet officials that, “...whilst there was shortage and hunger, there was, at no time, a total lack of bread, though its quality was impaired by using other ingredients than wheaten flour; and that any increase in the death-rate, due to diseases accompanying defective nutrition, occurred only in a relatively small number of villages....”

No doubt Obama has this book, and adores it.

9 posted on 11/23/2008 7:46:35 AM PST by wgflyer (Liberalism is to society what HIV is to the immune system.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: BroJoeK

Holodomor is the Ukranian word (holod, ‘hunger’, and mor, ‘plague’) for the imposed famine in 1932/33.


10 posted on 11/23/2008 8:17:23 AM PST by SolidWood (Sarah Palin - Everything that is Sweetness and Light! WE STAND WITH HER!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Grzegorz 246
I have a question, and hope that those who are interested in this thread can help me out. The first chapter of a novel about the Soviet Union was posted in the WSJ online, and I think it was here that I found it. The book opens with a heart-wrenching story about a boy in the Ukraine whose cat got out, and who has to find it before it is found and eaten. It is the only thing good he has left. The danger is not just that the cat will be eaten, but that if the boy gets caught in the woods by people crazed with hunger, they might never come home, either.

It was a very powerful first chapter. I think the book was about the boy after he grows up and goes to work for the Soviet state in the 50s. I was going to order the book but never did. That was a couple years ago. I was looking for that book on Amazon, and could not find it. Does anyone remember that book's title or the author? Hopefully, someone on this thread remembers it.

11 posted on 11/23/2008 8:44:43 AM PST by Defiant (I for one welcome our new Obama Overlords.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: BroJoeK

After the Bolshevik Revolution most farms in the Ukraine remained in private hands. In the fall of 1932 the NKVD and Red Army came in and confiscated the harvest, leaving farmers with nothing to eat and no money to buy food. Between two and a half and three and a half million people, mostly children, many if not most Jews, starved to death or died of diseases associated with famine. The Soviets then moved to “save” the people of the Ukraine from the inefficiencies of bourgeois capitalist agricultural practices by collectivizing their farms and deporting large numbers of those who resisted collectivization to more fertile areas, like Siberia.

That’s the history. The The Soviet Union and the Communist Internationale denied it and western reporters with communists leanings either wrote articles denying the claims of survivors who escaped the famine or just kept it out of the western press.

One good source is “Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism” by Roy Medvedev. Medvedev was a Georgian Marxist historian who wrote in the Soviet Union during the “Glasnost” era. (Presumably no relation to the current Russian President.) He’s not the most accessible writer and his translator is pretty inept but there are a lot of interesting tables in the appendices.


12 posted on 11/23/2008 8:47:44 AM PST by InABunkerUnderSF (Illegal Immigration is not about the immigration. Gun control is not about the guns.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: romanesq
At least Germany does not celebrate Hitler. But the KGB is not so readily open to condemnation for the acts of its henchmen.

A joke being told when I was a young man was of an old sick Russian, hearing a knock on the door, asks "Who is there?",the answer comes back "Death is here, I have come for you,", replies the old man "Thank God, I thought it was the KGB!". More truth in that old joke than one can imagine.

13 posted on 11/23/2008 9:04:25 AM PST by calex59
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: wgflyer
whilst there was shortage and hunger, there was, at no time, a total lack of bread, though its quality was impaired by using other ingredients than wheaten flour; and that any increase in the death-rate, due to diseases accompanying defective nutrition, occurred only in a relatively small number of villages.

Yeah, some of the "other ingredients" were sawdust of various types.

14 posted on 11/23/2008 9:08:00 AM PST by calex59
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: InABunkerUnderSF
"One good source is “Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism” by Roy Medvedev."

Check this out on Amazon.com. Note the list price, used are a bit cheaper!

Let History Judge

15 posted on 11/23/2008 9:20:30 AM PST by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: BroJoeK

There is the gold standard by Robert Conquest and his book is “Harvest of Sorrow Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine”

http://www.amazon.com/Harvest-Sorrow-Soviet-Collectivization-Terror-Famine/dp/0195051807

In November 2005, Conquest was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.


16 posted on 11/23/2008 9:30:48 AM PST by romanesq
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: BroJoeK

Yea, definitely a book to check out from your local leftist library.


17 posted on 11/23/2008 12:08:43 PM PST by InABunkerUnderSF (Illegal Immigration is not about the immigration. Gun control is not about the guns.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: romanesq

Just ordered it.

I’ve heard of Conquest for years and have seen this work sited numerous times but have never been able to find a copy in any library or book store in this area. Since the Soviet Union fell apart before the age of the internet really took off, I guess I just never thought to check Amazon.


18 posted on 11/23/2008 12:14:09 PM PST by InABunkerUnderSF (Illegal Immigration is not about the immigration. Gun control is not about the guns.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: Defiant

The novel you are looking for is “Child 44” by Tom Rob Smith. It is exceptional for a first book, and if you never knew of the horrors imposed by Stalin before, you will have a good hint of them after you read it.


19 posted on 11/23/2008 8:23:12 PM PST by Sender (Never lose your ignorance; you can never regain it!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: Sender

Thank you very much.


20 posted on 11/24/2008 9:15:25 AM PST by Defiant (I for one welcome our new Obama Overlords.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson