Memory based on the truth

One of the famous classics of world literature was absolutely right to note that whoever is afraid of the truth (all the truth, no matter how terrible it is) and does not dare look the truth in the eyes has betrayed this truth. It is a sacred duty of historians to tell society and our descendants the truth about the Holodomor, one of the 20th century’s most horrible manmade disasters, a global-scale tragedy. European academics — friends of Ukraine — are making a very notable contribution to this. Among them is, above all, Prof. Andrea Graziosi, vice-president of the Italian Society for Modern History Research, a person who has taught at Hravard, Paris and Rome universities, a professional expert whose publications on 20th-century Europe (including the ones that concern the Ukraine Holodomor of 1932-1933) are well known in many countries of our continent. So the visit of Andrea Graziosi to Kyiv, who came, as an editor, to launch the unique book Letters from Kharkiv (Lettere da Kharkov), a collection of documentary evidence from the Italian diplomats Sergio Gradenigo, Bernardo Attolico, and Vittorio Cerruti on the “famine terror” in the USSR (especially in Ukraine), became a momentous event in Kyiv’s intellectual and civic life and caused quite a ripple.

The proof of this was the presence of Ukraine’s Vice-Prime Minister for Humanitarian Issues Ivan Vasiunyk, Foreign Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Ohryzko, the Ambassador of Italy to Ukraine Pietro Giovanni Donnici and other representatives of the diplomatic corps, a number of Ukrainian MPs, well-known historians, journalists, culture and education figures, at the launching ceremony held on February 25 at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy.

At the beginning of his speech Prof. Graziosi frankly confessed that he was overwhelmed with emotions (which is quite natural owing to the subject of the forum) and offered an apology to the audience. Prof. Graziosi noted that the documents, now published in Ukrainian translation by the Kharkiv-based Folio publishers, had been found about 20 years ago. These documents “radically changed my idea of Soviet history and my view of 20th-century history as a whole. Then I thought it would be good to show these documents to the Ukrainians so that millions of citizens of this country know the terrible truth about their own history.”

Thanks to a tremendous collective effort of historians from Ukraine (Stanislav Kulchytsky, Yurii Shapoval), Russia (Oleg Khlevniuk, Vladimir Danilov, Viktor Kondrashin), and the West (Terry Martin, Robert Whitcroft), we have essentially enriched our knowledge of the Holodomor, an immense tragedy of Ukrainian and world history.

Suffice it to recall the attitudes of experts 20 years ago, when the unforgettable James Mace was only beginning his selfless work and Robert Conquest’s Harvest of Sorrow had not yet been translated into Ukrainian, and to compare them with the attitudes of today, Graziosi pointed out. Now practically all the researchers do not deny the very fact of the Holodomor. Nor do they have serious differences about the number of victims and responsibility of the totalitarian Stalinist regime for this unheard-of crime. Graziosi said he was sure that the knowledge of the magnitude of this tragedy would change the dominant attitude to the entire 20th-century history of Europe. There is undoubtedly a painful way for us to go. A new assessment of the 1932-1933 catastrophe has already been made by researchers but has not yet become a common viewpoint. We see, however, that a new image of European history and the making of a common European memory is no longer an unachievable dream.

It is more or less clear to us, researchers, what exactly and why happened in 1932-1933, Andrea Graziosi noted. Yet there is a number of very important questions left. For example, what are the Holodomor’s consequences and the price the Ukrainians had to pay then? The famous Italian historian stressed that we are still imagining all this in general outlines, and what can be the methodological “key” to resolve the problem is the approach of the late James Mace who called Ukraine a post-genocidal society (and, which is less known, used to add that such a post-genocidal society does not know how to speak and know the truth about what happened to it). So Prof. Graziosi emphasized that we see here a terrible deformation of consciousness, which is also a typical consequence of other great upheavals in the “bloodthirsty” 1930s.

The speaker spotlighted some very important, but not yet fully researched, scholarly problems which he thinks require a special thorough study. Among them is studying the role that the memory of the Holodomor played in the shaping of the mentality of the Ukrainian (and in general Soviet) ruling political elite of the “quiet” Khrushchev and Brezhnev times. Another question: what can and should be the knowledge of the Holodomor in the context of the modern Ukrainian state now under construction? Yet, in spite of all the unresolved difficult problems, Prof. Graziosi said he was firmly convinced that the publication of Letters from Kharkiv would promote instillation of the truth- based historical memory in Ukrainian society (with all its component parts), which will help heal the horrible wounds.

The ceremony also saw the appearances of some topmost governmental officials of Ukraine (President Viktor Yushchenko, whose presence was expected, failed to arrive). For example, Ivan Vasiunyk, Vice-Prime Minister for Humanitarian Issues, sincerely thanked the organizers (above all, the Italian Cultural Center in Ukraine, without whose assistance it would have been impossible to publish Letters from Kharkiv, and personally Signor Nicola Franko Balloni) for a tremendous contribution to assertion of the historical truth of the Holodomor, for this unites and cements the nation. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko noted that the world knows precious little about the Stalinist regime’s horrendous crime, but it is also true that Ukraine has a lot of friends all over the world, to which this ceremony is ample proof. On the diplomatic arena, the aspiration to put across to the world public the true, not tendentiously censored, facts about the famine terror have already produced certain results: for example, the UN Security Council has passed a resolution which effectively condemns this glaring crime (even though we are not fully satisfied with the text of this resolution) and was supported by the vast majority of states; the parliaments of 16 countries have officially recognized the Holodomor as genocide of the Ukrainian people. naturally, it is only the beginning of the way, with lots of work still to be done. Ohryzko stressed that one of the essential point of this book is the idea the Andrea Graziosi expressed in the foreword to the book Letters from Kharkiv: “I hope that a more profound understanding of what was going on in 20th-century eastern Europe will help the entire Europe take a well-balanced approach to the common past, in which, I am sure, the great tragedy of which the Italian consuls told us will occupy the place it deserves. When this occurs, the European Union will have the right to call itself truly European.”

The academics also gave meaningful, fact-loaded and, fortunately, “warts-and-all” speeches. For instance, the historian, Dr. Yurii Shapoval, emphasized that the past few years had at last seen qualitative changes in the understanding of this terrible cataclysm. There are descriptions of specific anti-Ukrainian actions of the Kremlin ruling clan — first of all, the ban on leaving the famine-stricken villages: this undoubtedly deliberate genocidal action in fact turned a major part of Ukraine into a “famine ghetto.” Shapoval especially stressed that the famine was not only an instrument of terror but also one of nationalities policy, for Stalin regarded it as the decisive phase of the elimination of the Ukraine-centered potential which was never destined to revive. The available documents allow understanding the “technique of the crime” and see the situation at the micro- and macro-levels. Shapoval continued that their documents explain very much and, what is more, cause one to think. It the view of the well-known historian, one must take into account that the truth of the Holodomor was skillfully buried for decades. So it will take us a tremendous effort to tell Ukraine and the world about this crime. All the more amoral is the creation of some so-called “versions” of the Holodomor, whereby the Ukrainians themselves are to blame for the famine because they used to eat themselves in the eyes of a friendly West. Letters from Kharkiv is ample proof that this is a poisonous lie, to put it mildly. The merit of the book contributors and editor Prof. Graziosi, as well as the Kharkiv-bsed Folio publishing house, is that they included the Holodomor facts into the worldwide culture of memory.

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On May 31, 1933, the Consul Sergio Gradenigo wrote the following awesome lines in a regular report to the Italian Embassy in Moscow: “Maybe, in the nearest future, there will be no more need to speak about Ukraine or the Ukrainian people and, accordingly, there will be no Ukrainian problem because Ukraine will in fact be part of Russia.” This did not — and will never — happen. Yet the documents in Letters from Kharkiv help one understand what a terrible price the Ukrainian people paid for their independence.