Class Year
2023
Document Type
Student Research Paper
Date of Creation
Spring 2020
Department 1
History
Abstract
The Ukrainian Starvation of 1932-33, also known as the Holodomor, was a famine that impacted the Soviet Union, especially Ukraine, as a result of Stalinist policies and the First Five-Year Plan. This paper looks to argue that the events leading up to and during the famine were evidence of a genocide committed against the Ukrainian people. When the word was defined during the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in response to what had happened to European Jews during the Holocaust, certain groups that would and have been victims of genocide, along with actions that have been used to exterminate groups, were excluded from the definition as an attempt to exempt certain countries from being charged with human rights abuses. With that in mind, this paper looks to examine how Stalin’s policies and the First Five-Year Plan were used to orchestrate a famine in the Ukrainian countryside in a deliberate attempt to exterminate the Ukrainian peoples and culture, despite the suffering of the different ethnic groups living in Ukraine and the suffering of people in other Soviet States.
Copyright Note
This is the author's version of the work. This publication appears in Gettysburg College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution.
Recommended Citation
Cerone, Jordan C., "The Holodomor: A Tragic Famine or Genocide Against the Ukrainian Peoples?" (2020). Student Publications. 802.
https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/student_scholarship/802
Comments
Written for History 216: Modern Russia and the Soviet Union.