World Affairs Journal: Yanukovych and Stalin’s genocide
Every November Ukraine commemorates the Holodomor, the famine and genocide of 1932 and 1933. Since 2010, President Viktor Yanukovych has marked the occasion with a formal address to the people. Read in isolation, none of them is terribly interesting. A comparative look at all three speeches, however, reveals some interesting shifts in tone and content that may illuminate Yanukovych’s own evolving thinking about the genocide and his regime.
But first a striking continuity. Yanukovych has never called the Holodomor a genocide. He’s called it a crime, a tragedy, and an Armageddon, but not genocide. Ironically, he does use the term Holodomor, which means “killing by means of hunger” and, in that sense, is virtually a synonym for genocide. There are indications that this reluctance to call a spade a spade may change.