Disregard of Domestic Archives as an Evidence of Deficiency of Studies on the 1932–1933 Genocidal Famine

Author

SERHIYCHUK VOLODYMYR

a Doctor of History, a professor at the Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University’s Department of Ancient and Modern Ukrainian History

DISREGARD OF DOMESTIC ARCHIVES AS AN EVIDENCE OF DEFICIENCY OF STUDIES ON THE 1932–1933 GENOCIDAL FAMINE

Abctract

The ascertainment of the victims number of the Holodomor-genocide of 1932–1933 still remains as a topical task for the present-day historical science. As it is kn own, our Diaspora has constantly commemorated from 7 to 10 million Ukrainians who have perished during this terrible tragedy. This number first and foremost is based on the testimonies of German diplomats in Ukraine, as well as the conclusions of separate emigratory researchers. Kyivan scholar Stanislav Kulchytskyi, whom the Communist Party at the end of the 1980s has allowed to promulgate a figure of 3.5 million casualties, using only the materials from Moscow archives, today supports the demographers who, without a careful study of the Ukrainian archives original documents, state the number of victims of 3.9 million persons.

Just owing to these documents, which should be continued to reveal in once secret archives, we already know the population of the Ukrainian SSR on the eve of this terrible Holodomor: as on January 1, 1932, there are 32.680,700 people. Basing on this index exactly, the prominent Ukrainian demographer Arsen Khomenko, whose calculations are ignored stubbornly by his current colleagues, has predicted at the same time, that under the usual conditions the population of the USRR as on January 1, 1934 will increase to 33.464, and by January 1, 1937, to 35.615 persons.

Moscow has published the data of the All-Soviet Census of the Population of 1937 in the Ukrainian SSR only in 1990 as 28.383,0 people. That is, the inhabitants of the USSR in comparison with 1926 have become less!

At the same time the recalculation of the district results of the census has assured that this figure is overestimated by at least 532 thousand people, as the materials from12 districts still need to be thoroughly analyzed. Nevertheless, if one will take this minimal understated number of results distortion, then as to the beginning of January, 1937 the population of Ukraine is no more than 27,851 thousand people.  If we subtract from this figure the amount of population growth in 1934 (88,2 thousand people), 1935 (417,2 thousand) and 1936 (533,7 thousand) – 1,039,1 thousand in all, then we have as on January 1, 1934, 26,812 thousand people.  And there should be 33.933,400 people. That is to say, the difference is 7.121,400.

If one will admit probable natural losses under normal conditions in 1932-1933 in amount to 1.029,400 people, then we receive 6.092,400 direct casualties from the Holodomor of 1932-1933.

However, we insist today on the number of victims of at least 7 million people, since the whole component of the loss has not been studied yet. This fact makes it impossible to obtain real results of scientific research. It is necessary in particular to establish the number of hungry peasants shot by the Soviet border guards on the Dniester and Zbruch in 1932–1933. They are buried in the border regions of Russia and Belarus, where they have gone to find bread. One has also to ascertain the quantity of imported Soviets from the various Soviet republics recruited for newly built buildings of the Ukrainian SSR, which are placed as the victims of the Holodomor in the census of 1937. We also should identify the persons non-listed in the documents of the civil registration authorities because of the lack of appropriate forms and extremely neglected calculation, which has been already revealed in 1933.

Keywords

Holodomor-genocide of 1932-1933, calculation of victims, Ukrainian archives.

References

1. Vinnytsia Region State Archives.
2. Dnipropetrovsk Region State Archives.
3. Kyiv Region State Archives.
4. Mykolaiv Region State Archives.
5. Odesa Region State Archives.
6. Khmelnytskyi Region State Archives.
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