The Ukrainian Intelligentsia and Genocide: The Struggle for History, Language, and Culture in the 1920s and 1930s

Victoria A. Malko

doi:10.5771/9781498596794

Summary

This study focuses on the first group targeted in the genocide known as the Holodomor: Ukrainian intelligentsia, the “brain of the nation,” using the words of Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term genocide and enshrined it in international law. The study’s author examines complex and devastating effects of the Holodomor on Ukrainian society during the 1920–1930s. Members of intelligentsia had individual and professional responsibilities. They resisted, but eventually they were forced to serve the Soviet regime. Ukrainian intelligentsia were virtually wiped out, most of its writers and a third of its teachers. The remaining cadres faced a choice without a choice if they wanted to survive. The author analyzes how and why this process occurred and what role intellectuals, especially teachers, played in shaping, contesting, and inculcating history. Crucially, the author challenges Western perceptions of the all-Union famine that was allegedly caused by ad hoc collectivization policies, highlighting the intentional nature of the famine as a tool of genocide, persecution, and prosecution of the nationally conscious Ukrainian intelligentsia, clergy, and grain growers. The author demonstrates the continuity between Stalinist and neo-Stalinist attempts to prevent the crystallization of the nation and subvert Ukraine from within by non-lethal and lethal means.

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Bibliographic data

Edition: 1/2021
Copyright year: 2021
ISBN-Print: 978-1-4985-9678-7
ISBN-Online: 978-1-4985-9679-4
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 362
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
2. List of Figures and Tables No access
3. Acknowledgments No access
4. Notes on Transliteration and Administrative Divisions No access
5. Introduction: Soviet Genocide against Ukrainians No access
1. Marxist-Leninist Roots of Soviet Genocide No access
2. Intelligentsia during the National Liberation Struggle, 1917–1921 No access
3. The Famine of 1921–1923 in Soviet Ukraine No access
4. Notes No access
1. Intelligentsia in the Fight for Socialism No access
2. Soviet Nationality Policy No access
3. The Crisis of 1926 No access
4. Notes No access
1. Deportations No access
2. Categories for Liquidation No access
3. The SVU Trial No access
4. Labor Camps No access
5. Forced Labor No access
6. Notes No access
1. Rebellions No access
2. Blockades No access
3. Implicated Subjects No access
4. Collapse of Schools No access
5. The End of Ukrainization No access
6. Notes No access
1. Legal Challenge No access
2. The “All-Union” Famine No access
3. Covering Up the Losses No access
4. Banning Books No access
5. Silencing the Truth No access
6. Notes No access
1. Legal Responsibility No access
2. Economic Aftermath No access
3. Social Effects No access
4. Psychological Effects No access
5. History and Memory No access
6. Notes No access
Biographical Sketches and Terminology No access Pages 269 - 304
Bibliography No access Pages 305 - 340
Index No access Pages 341 - 360
About the Author No access Pages 361 - 362