Sunday, Nov. 25, at 5 p.m., a candle-lighting ceremony in Centennial Square will commemorate the 85th anniversary of the Ukrainian genocide, the Holodomor of 1932-33.
The Holodomor has been officially recognized as a genocide by both the federal government and the City of Victoria, but has yet to be recognized by the B.C. provincial government.
Holodomor, meaning “death inflicted by starvation,” refers to the genocidal famine that occurred in Ukraine in 1932-33 at the hands of the Stalinist regime of the Soviet Union. It claimed the lives of millions of men, women and children.
Raphael Lemkin, a Polish expert of international law who coined the phrase “genocide” and is considered the father of the UN Genocide Convention, identified in his 1953 speech the “destruction of the Ukrainian nation” as “the classic example of Soviet genocide.”
Lemkin specified that the regime of Joseph Stalin had utilized “the most terrible [weapon] of all, starvation,” in its four-pronged attack on the insubordinate Ukrainian nation.
The administration began by striking at the intelligentsia or the “national brain” — tens of thousands of Ukrainian academics, political leaders, writers and artists were liquidated, imprisoned or deported.
The next in line were the national churches or “the soul of Ukraine.”
Then the independent peasants and farmers, “the repository of the tradition, folklore and music, the national language and literature, the national spirit of Ukraine” were starved to death. And finally, the population of Ukraine was diluted by government-facilitated resettlement of non-Ukrainians to the areas once populated by the Ukrainians who had perished.
Lemkin affirmed that the Holodomor was not merely a mass murder, but “a case of genocide, of the destruction not of individuals only, but of a culture and a nation.”
Andrea Graziosi, professor of history at the University of Naples and renowned Holodomor researcher, wrote: “In the case of the Holodomor, this was the first genocide that was methodically planned out and perpetrated by depriving the very people who were producers of food of their nourishment [for survival]. What is especially horrific is that the withholding of food was used as a weapon of genocide and that it was done in a region of the world known as the “breadbasket of Europe.”
On May 29, 2008, the Canadian Parliament passed the Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (“Holodomor”) Memorial Day Act, which both officially recognized the Holodomor as a genocide and set the fourth Saturday of each November as an official memorial day.
Between 2008 and 2010, the legislatures of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec officially recognized the Holodomor as a genocide. The City of Victoria and the District of Saanich followed suit in 2013.
Unfortunately, although the issue has previously been brought before the legislative assembly, the B.C. government has yet to officially recognize the Holodomor as a genocide and designate a Holodomor Memorial Day in the province.
Why is this significant? In addition to the generations of Ukrainian Canadians who call B.C. home, over the past 15 years, immigration from Ukraine to Canada has increased (26.8 per cent, according to the Canadian Magazine of Immigration) with the majority of new immigrant families landing in either Ontario or B.C. The predominant destinations in B.C. are Vancouver and Victoria.
According to the 2016 Canadian census, B.C. is home to 229,205 Ukrainians, making Ukrainians the ninth-largest ethnocultural group in the province.
The Holodomor is an event close to the hearts of many Ukrainian Canadians and many families have been directly affected. The official recognition of the Holodomor as a genocide by the province would be an important show of solidarity with Ukrainian Canadians in B.C.
Residents of Victoria are welcome to show their support of the Ukrainian community by joining the candle-lighting ceremony sponsored by the Victoria Branch of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. The commemoration will include a memorial service, remarks by Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps and a cultural performance in memory of the victims.
Devon Goldie, a Victorian of Ukrainian descent, is a master of arts candidate at the University of Victoria studying applied theatre and Ukrainian studies. She is president of the UVic Ukrainian Students’ Society, board member of the Victoria branch of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and a board member of the Ukrainian Canadian Cultural Society of Vancouver Island.
