The Holodomor (Ukrainian: Голодомор) was the 1932–33 famine in Ukraine. This famine was part of the larger famine in the Soviet Union, which also affected the lower Volga region, and northern Caucasus, and in which several million persons died of starvation; estimates vary.
Holodomor may be translated from Ukrainian as deliberate famine. The term is used by those who consider that this was an artificial famine, a deliberate genocide committed as part of Joseph Stalin's collectivization program under the Soviet Union.
The nature and causes of the famine is a controversial, politically-loaded topic, and subject to debate by historians. Russian historians maintain that the famine was a natural consequence of collectivization and associated resistance, exacerbating an already-poor harvest. Others criticize Ukrainian communities as using the term Holodomor to appropriate the larger-scale tragedy of collectivization as their own national terror-famine, thus exploiting it for political purposes.
However, while the course of the events as well as their underlying reasons are still a matter of debate, the decrease of population in Ukraine between 1927 and 1939 by 4 million is confirmed even by the official Soviet statistics. With the expected population natural growth taken into account, an estimated death toll of these events in Ukraine is above 10 million.
Etymology
Holod means hunger or famine.
Mor is an old East Slavic word meaning:
- massive nonviolent deaths, as in epidemy
- (seemingly nonviolent) actions that cause such deaths
Of direct relevance to holodomor is the cliché morit' golodom, "to inflict death by hunger". Holodomor is a noun for this verb phrase.
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Last updated: 10-19-2005 05:22:39
