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“НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЛЮТИЙ 2009 23 Branch 38 of Denver Commemorates Holodomor by Ania Savage Over the last two years, UNWLA Branch 38 in Denver has worked hard to raise the funds needed to mount a three-day event in Denver to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Holodomor. Under the leadership of branch president Inya Saldyt, members organized monthly bake sales and hosted a Ukrainian community picnic, events that raised the $3,000 required to stage a fitting com- memoration of Holodomor. Their efforts were focused on generating sufficient funds to bring to Denver three recognized experts on Ukraine and an outreach to a local university where part of the commemorative event was to be held. As Ms. Saldyt noted, “We had a very successful 70 th anni- versary commemoration and decided to do our very best to focus attention on the 75th anniversary, not only in the Ukrainian hromada in Denver but also among the general public.” On Friday evening, the three-day event opened with a screening of the documentary “Harvest of Despair” at the Josef Korbel G raduate School of International Studies. The evening event included a roundtable discussion of the film and the famine by the three experts who had been invited to speak at the event: Dr. Mark Von Hagen, chairman of the Department of History at the at Arizona State University and former director of the Harriman In- stitute at Columbia University; Dr. David Marples , director of the Stasiuk Program on Contemporary Ukraine at the University of Alberta; and Dr. Roman Serbyn, professor emeritus, Université du Québec à Montréal. The Association of Human Rights Students and its president, Roxolana Wynar, organized the screening. The main event — a day-long symposium at the University of Denver — took place on Saturday, October 11 and featured presentations by Drs. von Hagen, Marples and Serbyn. Titled “Politics of Food: Past and Present,” the symposium focused on examining the Great Famine in Ukraine within a broader historical and geographical context. It was hoped that this comprehensive comparative frame- work would attract students, faculty, and the general public and that those attending would include Colo- rado high school social studies and history teachers, who could then prepare lesson plans focusing on famines and, in particular, Ukraine’s Holodomor. In connection with this, participating educators re- ceived a CD with materials on the famine that could be used in the classroom. Each of the featured speakers examined the causes and the aftermath of Holodomor as well as the view that the famine of 1932 – 1933 was a genocide aimed at destroying the Ukrainian nation. In his presentation, Dr. von Hagen remarked that “One of the lessons of the Ukrainian famine is that food has been used throughout history as a means to coerce a people.” Explaining how the Communist Party and Stalin implemented the man-made famine, Dr. Serbyn documented the genocidal aspect of the Holodomor. He observed that the Holodomor was genocide because Stalin not only destroyed the Ukrainian peasantry but also the intellectual and religious leadership of the nation. Dr. Marples analyzed the different per- ceptions of the Holodomor in Ukraine and in the diaspora, and how the famine is being used to for- mulate Ukraine’s current political stance vis -à-vis Russia. He pointed out that the famine had been “unmentionable” in Soviet Ukraine for decades and that it was openly discussed for the first time in 1966. According to Dr. Marples, subsequent men- tion of the famine in Soviet Ukraine and in Russia often cast blame on drought and a bad harvest. “The narrative of the famine as the destruction of the Ukrainian nation did not begin until 1990,” Dr. Marples said. In fact, formal and widespread study and investigation of the famine did not begin until after the collapse of the Soviet Union. To broaden the discus sion on “the politics of food,” two scholars joined the three experts on Ukraine and examined the subject of food manipu- lation and shortages in the twentieth century. Daniel Abebe, dean at First College, Metropolitan State University of St. Paul and board member of African Relief and Development Initiative, spoke on the famine in Ethiopia in 1985 and on the present food disruption and imminent famine in Darfur. Dr. Carol Helstosky, associate professor of history at the University of Denver, whose special field of interest is the history of food supplies, spoke about food supply manipulation during World War II.
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