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An Interview from the Front with a Chernihiv Holodomor Researcher
He is the guardian of the memory of the Holodomor. Today, the renowned Chernihiv historian and Holodomor researcher, Serhiy Horobets, is defending Ukraine on the front lines – to prevent the horrors of the Holodomor and other crimes by Russian occupiers from happening again. When we connected and spoke with our interlocutor, we were moved and struck by this profound symbolism…
“I’m here because unpunished evil breeds new crimes,” says Mr. Serhiy. “But this time, it’s different. We won’t let ourselves be destroyed by bombs, bullets, cold, and again hunger. The army is defending our land. And memory defends our past and opens the way to the future. We will stand firm and win. We will become stronger. And we will not forget!”
We are incredibly grateful to Mr. Serhiy for finding the time and opportunity to respond to our questions – even though his unit was recently in one of the hottest spots of the front – Kupiansk, Ukraine. The topic of our conversation is exceptionally tragic and heavy, yet it’s essential to remember and speak out about it – so that genocides do not repeat…
We still do not know the names of many Ukrainians who died from the Holodomor – and with each year, there are fewer of those we can ask. But there are those who remember. And there are those who will pass on the memory to the next generations.
And on the eve of the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holodomor and the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor of 1932–1933 in Ukraine, we talk to Mr. Serhiy about this…
Unveiling the Truth About One of the Most Horrific Crimes in Human History
– Mr. Serhiy, as a renowned historian and a staff member of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance… When did you start researching the Holodomor, and what motivated you to do so?
“The Holodomor is one of the research areas I’ve delved into. It all began around 20 years ago as part of the history of the village of Petrushyna in the Chernihiv district, Ukraine. I enjoy the approach where you don’t just accept ready-made conclusions and frameworks but reach them through minor facts, through the stories of individual families in one village.”
This drove Serhiy to seek out, to work with a wide array of documents. This led to the publication of a book about the Holodomor in Petrushyna (2003). As archival documents became accessible and as memories of the elderly were extensively recorded, he synthesized the entire body of information at the district level (“The Holodomor of 1932-1933 in the territories of the Chernihiv district,” 2008). Further contemplation of the Holodomor tragedy led Serhiy to make generalizations at the level of the Chernihiv region (“Chronicles of the Bolsheviks’ war against the Ukrainian people. The Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Chernihiv region: perpetrators of the crime,” 2016; “Realization of the Holodomor of 1932-1933: Chernihiv region,” 2019 – both co-authored with Serhiy Volodymyrovych Butko).
One of the motives for Serhiy’s research was the lack of answers to many questions that arose when he immersed himself in such a complex topic. Through articles and books, the truth was unveiled, and the mechanism behind one of the most horrific crimes in human history was clarified.
– During your research, which stories of the Holodomor survivors struck you the most?
“Many things shocked me. And it’s not just about cruelty or heartlessness. How can one not be struck by memories with Soviet stamps like:
“During the Holodomor, those who weren’t too lazy to work survived, they could feed themselves.”
Can you really imagine lazy people who didn’t want to work so much that they died of hunger?”
Serhiy shared a striking fact that during the peak of the Holodomor, authorities opened a second special distribution point (meaning, one already existed) in Chernihiv for feeding the Soviet and party elite, who, in fact, were implementing the policy of the Holodomor-genocide locally. And it seems there were far more than two special distribution points. So, not everyone starved.
The heartlessness of the Soviet-party activists was also shocking:
“The worst came in the summer of ’33. Everyone was starving. The children of collective farmers went to the kolgospny maydan (something like a daycare). Here, children were somehow fed, cooking borscht with sorrel and dock, and once a day, porridge from flour, giving a very small piece of bread. Deaths even occurred in the ‘maydan.’ But worse was that the children of non-collective farmers were not allowed into the ‘maydan.’ And they, hungry, swollen, literally crawled here begging for ‘something to eat, some bread!’ Often dying right there, under the fence…”
The cruelty and impunity of the then-officials and activists were astounding. A memory from the Sribnyansky district, Ukraine: families were already swelling from hunger, yet the raids checking the state of grain collections did not cease.
“They came almost every day looking for anything we might have hidden. Finding a handful of grain at our place once, they beat my mother and told her to move out of the house with her children… My mother became like a wild animal. They were pushing her out of the house, and she grabbed onto anything she could with her weak hands, not giving up. Then they put her fingers in the door and crushed them. Bloodied, they threw her outside, and the youngest sister Kharitya ran to her screaming: ‘Mommy, mommy, my mother!’ My uncle grabbed the child and threw her into the well. My mother fainted, and they set the house on fire and left…”
If any of the villains or sadists were held accountable, most often they were just transferred to another position or to another village.
The extent of class hatred towards “kulaks” – no, not wealthy farmers, but those who had once been such. This is when, during the peak of the dekulakization campaign, people were expelled from the village because:
“The element is harmful to the village. The property status before the revolution was: 150 hectares, 2 houses, 3 barns, 4 sheds, 12 horses, 10 cows, had a horse-drawn thresher and a mill. Now has nothing.” Once more: NOW HAS NOTHING. But still, a “kulak”!
The level of denial of the terrible truth by some people who persist in saying that there was no famine in their village is also shocking. In their village, during the peak of starvation, more people died in one month than in the entire previous year, the mass mortality there is evidenced by secret police summaries, and some memories:
“You’d go out onto the street, and see a cart full of dead people being carted away. They were collected around the village and brought, like firewood, to the cemetery. They were brought like this because they couldn’t bury them fast enough.”
But no, it doesn’t convince them, they still say there was no mass mortality…
– The Holodomor in the Chernihiv Region in numbers and facts unveiled is …
Researchers have identified 36,818 victims of the Holodomor by name in the Chernihiv region, primarily through death registration books from the corresponding years, which have survived for only 460 of the over 1,500 settlements in Chernihiv. Clearly, the real numbers are much higher. Chernihiv historians Oleksandr Kovalenko and Volodymyr Tkachenko estimated the region’s human losses by comparing the population as of January 1, 1932, with the 1939 census results — about 230,000 people.
To put it in perspective, this number roughly equals the human losses in Chernihiv during World War II, both military and civilian. Yet, unlike the six years of World War II, there were no wars in 1932-1933.
— The generation that survived the Holodomor feared speaking out about this horrific crime against Ukrainians for decades. What if Ukrainians had started discussing the Holodomor much earlier? How would the situation in Ukraine be different?
“Ukrainians never remained silent! As soon as the suffocating ‘fraternal embrace’ weakened, the truth about the crime burst into the world. Ukrainian emigration spoke about the Holodomor. And in the Ukrainian lands, they spoke out in 1941-1943 when the communist power quickly fled under the pressure of the Germans.”
Indeed, those were terrifying and sad times of Nazi occupation. Yet, it was then that the press first raised the issue of the crimes of the communist regime, including the Holodomor. Later, towards the end of the 1980s, when the Soviet Union began to wobble, it was not Shcherbytsky who spoke first, but Volodymyr Manyak and Lidiia Kolomiiets, founders of the Association of Holodomor Researchers in Ukraine and the Ukrainian Republican Historical and Educational Society “Memorial.”
— Ukrainians were not passive victims of collectivization and the Soviet regime — they resisted! How did Chernihiv fight back? Can we say that the Holodomor-genocide was Russia’s “punishment” for not wanting to be under its rule?
“Like all of Ukraine, Chernihiv was particularly tumultuous in 1930-1931, when Ukrainians decisively opposed the policy of enslaving peasants. Chernihiv was a restive region, and the vast forest tracts in the north of the area facilitated the actions of partisan units. The May events of 1930 in the village of Borshna in Pryluky, Ukraine, where matters almost led to a march on the district center, gained widespread attention.”
One of the most massive peasant uprisings, which Serhii told us about, occurred in the spring of 1931 in the Left-Bank Ukraine, engulfing Gorodnya and neighboring Ripky, Snovsk, Mensk, and Sosnytsia districts of Chernihiv, led by Yakym Hnatovych Riabchenko from Tupichev. In early February 1932, the GPU of the Ukrainian SSR reported that a specially dispatched group had discovered and eliminated 34 insurgent groups, 19 “bandit groups,” arrested 224 “terrorists,” and in total, 7,861 people were arrested in the region. Even in the midst of starvation, in August-November 1932, there were instances of “opposition to the party line” in 42 villages and 20 districts of the Chernihiv region.
Yes, the Holodomor-genocide was primarily a reprisal. A reprisal for disobedience, for the Ukrainians’ love of freedom, for their desire to be masters in their own house. After all, the tragedy of the Holodomor occurred after the uprisings had been brutally suppressed, and the protest movement had declined.
Sometimes you can hear that Stalin was afraid of losing Ukraine, similar phrases are found among the country’s top leadership.
“Listen, they weren’t afraid of anything! When they fear losing something, they look for compromises, they implement a softer policy. How can you organize such a massive crime, starve millions of people in a region you’re supposedly afraid of losing?
Such crimes are only possible with total and complete control over the situation. Stalin and his henchmen could only have been afraid in 1930-1931, when peasants were herded into collectives and turned into rights-less slaves, and when all of Ukraine was ablaze with uprisings. But the massive forces of the security structures and the army crushed the resistance, cruelly punished both the leaders and those involved, as well as potential future protest leaders. And AFTER THAT, Moscow began its reprisals against defenseless people.” The more you delve into the tragedy of the Holodomor-genocide, the more terrifying it seems.
– In this context, it’s impossible not to draw parallels with the current Russian aggression against Ukraine and the fact that Russia wants to repeat the genocide of Ukrainians…
“They can’t and don’t know how to act differently. Both Muscovy and Russia have always glorified themselves through the humiliation and suffering of others, through blood and tears. We’ve always been particularly targeted because we are of Cossack descent, freedom-loving and defiant. We are like a thorn in the throat for our twisted neighbor. Remember, Russia has never been punished for its crimes. Whatever they do—everything goes unpunished. Unpunished evil begets new crimes. They firmly believe in their impunity. But this time it’s different. We will not allow the repetition of someone’s ‘desires.’ We will stand and win. We will become stronger. And we will not forget.”
– Many have researched Russian aggression towards Ukraine in previous centuries. Did you think the war would come this close to your home, which was destroyed by Russian bombs?
“I assumed it might happen. But like everyone, I hoped it wouldn’t come to that, that there was a limit to the Kremlin maniac’s madness. I will always remember the last days of February and all of March 2022 in Chernihiv. The bombings, destruction, victims—how could you forget? The weary yet unbroken residents of the city, the empty streets with makeshift barricades, the warm embraces upon meeting all acquaintances, the genuine support for one another. And the unwavering belief in victory.”
– Last year, due to the full-scale Russian invasion, you lost not only your home but also the fruits of your historical research… Have you managed to rebuild your house?
“The reconstruction is in its final stage: there’s a roof and walls, a ceiling, windows, and doors are installed, and the floor is cemented. Only the interior work remains. And all this was made possible thanks to the help of friends, acquaintances, and simply caring people. They enabled us to gather the necessary funds after a Facebook announcement, to purchase materials. And friends, comrades, neighbors helped with the renovation – it was a community effort, as they say. So, heartfelt thanks and a deep bow to everyone who supported and helped, without them, none of this would have been possible.”
– What should we, as Ukrainians, as a nation, remember and protect to ensure such horror never happens again? Why is it essential to light a Candle of Memory on November 25th?
“The Candle of Memory is our tribute to the millions who perished, our respect for the tens of millions who went through this hell. Over the past centuries, Moscow has sown only blood and violence in Ukraine, murdered, maimed, and sent the flower of our nation into distant exile. Thus, our memory of these crimes, a clear understanding of the real intentions of the Russians that stem from these crimes, is our main weapon, our main motivator, and our main safeguard.”
– There’s a poignant quote that “Only in a place where, aside from a candle, a machine gun can be placed in the window, will there never be famines.” Modern Russian war criminals are attempting to repeat in Ukraine what their predecessors did. And it is our defenders, among whom you serve, who prevent this terrible tragedy from happening again…
“Exactly. Moscow has never been part of the civilized world and is unlikely to become so in the foreseeable future. It will flirt, reassure, but sooner or later, its imperialist essence, formed over some 700 years, will inevitably show itself. So, having such a neighbor, we are doomed to keep our weapons ready and not to relax – not today, not tomorrow, not in the coming decades. We are strong, and we can do it! The main thing is not to forget the lessons of the past, not to be lulled by promises and pretty words, and the rest will follow.”
Friends, we ask you to share this text. Thank Ukrainian military personnel – those who are currently protecting us from the repetition of tragedy. On Saturday, November 25th, light a candle in your window. So that the memory of the millions of dead and unborn Ukrainians does not fade. So that we do not disappear as a nation, as a society… As people.
