Globe and Mail Peddles Solzhenitsyn’s Ukrainophobia

By Dr. Roman Serbyn – excerpt of analysis

Nobel-prize winning Russian Novelist, dramatist and historian Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote “The Ukrainian Famine was not a Genocide” and printed in The Globe and Mail May 31, 2008, for “historic record”. It was first published April 2 in the Russian newspaper Izvestia, under the title “Possorit’ rodynye narod” and translated “To start a Quarrel among Brotherly Peoples”.

 In the examination of Solzhenitsyn’s Article in the Globe and Mail

The first paragraph lists some of the lies that Soviet citizens had to swallow about the origins of the Communist regime.

The second paragraph states that people in the West did not become aware of these lies and did not become immunized against them.

The third paragraph talks about the famine of 1921. This paragraph is tendentious:

a) the author mentions only 1921, whereas the famine continued into 1923;

b) he mentions only European Russia, across the Volga and up to the Urals, neglecting to mention that it also ravaged southern Ukraine;

c) he is right to criticize the Communists for only blaming natural drought (which actually took place & was greatly responsible for the famine), and neglecting to admit to the forced requisition that was the other reason for the famine; however, but fails to mention famine relief aid that was asked for and received from the West;

d) leaving Ukraine out of the picture, Solzhenitsyn fails to mention that Ukraine had enough food to feed its population but was forced to send it to Russia (Petrograd, Moscow & the Volga), even from the drought stricken regions of the south and for this reason there was a famine in Ukraine as well;

e) the term Holodomor not used at that time, although the expression “moryty holodom” probably was has to be investigated. Most Ukrainian farmers were conscious of the fact that the famine was man-made and documents reflect this realization.

Such omissions for an author that is presented as a historian is not excusable.

The fourth paragraph is the only one that actually deals with the famine of 1932-33. The author once more gives a most biased presentation:

a) he mentions that there were Ukrainians among the communist bosses, but fails to mention that Kuban’ (part of RSFSR), which he cites was two-thirds Ukrainian;

b) he claims that the Communist bosses treated this famine with the “same silence and concealment” double error: in 1921 the bosses knew of the famine and asked for aid (first for Russia & eventually for Ukraine); in 1933 the bosses from Ukraine (Petrovsky, Chubar & others) informed Stalin, Molotov & Kaganovich and begged for aid but were refused; Published collections of documents (Stalin-Kaganovich correspondence; Sovetskaia derevnia glazami OGPU; Tragedia sovetskoi derevi) just to mention the ones published in Moscow & therefore easily available for Solzhenitsyn, give a very precise picture of the difference of the famine in Ukraine and in Russia.

Only half of this paragraph deals with the famine; the second part is a diatribe against the “spiteful, anti-Russian, chauvinistic minds” in the Ukrainian government circles. Letting one’s imagination run wild may be good for literary inspiration but not when it leads to spewing hatred as in the closing words of that paragraph: “the government circles of modern-day Ukraine, who have thus outdone even the wild inventions of Bolshevik agitprop”.

The fifth paragraph begins with seeming appeal to the World: “To the parliaments of the world:” But if it were aimed at foreign parliaments, then the author would not address them in the third person: “They have never understood our history: You can sell them any old fairy tale”. The original Russian text has only four paragraphs and in fact last two form a single whole. The sentence “To the parliaments of the world” are in quotation marks. What the author is saying is that the Ukrainian government circles are taking their “fairy tales” to the parliaments of the world.

When we analyze Solzhenitsyn’s op-ed, what do we find?

First, there is no analysis, historical or otherwise, of the Holodomor controversy, the author gives no arguments why the Ukrainian famine should not be considered genocide.

Second, the text is no great piece of literature, and the fact that the translators had trouble understanding it was not due to the complexity of ideas but to poor style.

Third, artistic license stops where social science begins; the question of famine and genocide demands serious discussion not bouts of delirium.

Fourth, the piece is extremely insulting, first to the Ukrainian community, and then to the general Western public.