Solzhenitsyn Article Attempts to Discredit Holodomor as Genocide

By Dr. Roman Serbyn, Excerpt of Context Analysis

In last week’s (Issue 22) under “Globe and Mail Peddles Solzhenitsyn’s Ukrainophobia”, The New Pathway printed Dr. Roman Serbyn’s content analysis of an article by Russian novelist, dramatist and historian Alexander Solzhenitsyn who wrote “The Ukrainian Famine was not a Genocide” and printed in The Globe and Mail May 31, 2008, for “historic record”. The following is a further contextual analysis of the article and about its “timely” reprint in “Canada’s National Newspaper” long after it first appeared. JP

        Background

Solzhenityzn’s short piece appeared for the first time on April 2, 2008, in the Russian newspaper Izvestia, under the title “Possorit’ rodnye narody?” or “To start a quarrel among brotherly peoples?” The title is hard to translate and was abandoned in the English versions, although it reflected much better Solzhenitsyn’s preoccupation than the one in the Globe’s rendition. Solzhenitsyn has always looked at Ukraine from the perspective of a 19th century Russian nationalist who considered the three Eastern Slav peoples as branches of one Russian nation (consisting of Great Russians, Little Russians and White Russians). The democratic dissident turned Russian chauvinist cannot forgive Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko and his like, of drawing the two “brotherly peoples” further apart by proffering to the world a Ukrainian-only genocide. (There are other passages where the text loses its meaning in the mistranslation - I shall return to it below.)

The timing of Solzhenitsyn’s diatribe was not fortuitous. That same day (April 2), the Russian Parliament was getting ready to discuss Ukraine’s claim of Holodomor-Genocide, and the coincidence was not lost on the Russian commentators. Luke Harding, writing in The Guardian a day later, believed it was an attack on US President George Bush who two days earlier (April 1), together with Yushchenko, laid a wreath at a monument to the victims of the Famine in Kyiv. Harding also commented on the writer’s evolution: “His later statements have demonstrated an increasingly nationalist anti-Western tone, and he appears to be a fan of former Russian President Vladimir Putin, who gave him a literary award last summer.”

In the next few days, the declaration was picked up by all major news outlets; newspapers around the world commented on the Nobel Prize winner’s text, quoted passages, or gave whole translations. The Guardian gave its translation (April 3) a descriptive title: “Ukrainian politicians are misusing the term ‘genocide’ because they can rely on the West not to know any better”.  The merit of this title was to sense the anti-Western drift of the article’s scent.

    Examination and Content Analysis Summary (in full in NP June 5 Issue 22)

        Why did The Globe and Mail publish the article?

Taking into account our discussion of the history and the content of Solzhenitsyn’s commentary, one can only ask, why was this piece published by the Globe and why was it done now?  The article is bad as history, it is poor as literature, it is insulting to Ukraine, Ukrainians and the Western World in general; so why publish it? On the other hand, it is an attempt to discredit the notion that the Ukrainian Holodomor was Genocide. Was this the motive behind this publication?

The timing would suggest that it was. This is a warmed-over piece of Ukrainophobia, published eight weeks after its first appearance in other papers. Why now? Well, it comes several days after the Holodomor Bill was unanimously passed by [all parties] in the two houses of our Parliament. It appeared several days after the triumphant visit to Canada of Ukraine’s President. And thirdly, it appeared two days before a committee hearing on a genocide history course at the Toronto District School Board, at which a Ukrainian community delegation argued to have the Holodomor included in the genocide course curriculum. The message is clear: the West was dupe to Communist lies, and just now it got duped again by Yushchenko into passing the Holodomor Bill. The Toronto District School Board should not let itself get hoodwinked into accepting the Holodomor into the school curriculum. As Luke Harding of The Guardian had placed the first printing of Solzhenitsyn’s article in its historical context, so should we see and realize that the present publication by The Globe and Mail was not a chance occurrence. Someone was interested in having this article appear for specific reasons.

What is to be done?

Considering that the publication was an affront to Ukrainians, the Ukrainian community should demand a retraction and an apology from The Globe and Mail. The Globe should also carry a serious op-ed article on the Holodomor. If not done, the community should start a phone and letter campaign to cancel subscriptions for The Globe and Mail.