By Reading between the Lines: The Holodomor on the Pages of the District Press of Kyiv and Chernihiv Regions in 1932-1933
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15407/uhj2024.02.157Keywords:
Holodomor, district press, Kyiv region, Chernihiv region, direct and hidden informationAbstract
The aim is to identify the peculiarities of the information recording about the Holodomor in the district press of the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions in 1932—1933.
Methodology based on the principle of historicism, combines the methods of contextual analysis, abstraction, comparison, and systematization.
Main research results. An array of direct and indirect information about the emergence of the Holodomor is revealed. It is discovered that despite the total pro-government orientation of the district press and strict censorship, even direct mentions of the famine penetrated the newspaper columns. The complex of hidden information is concentrated in materials related to public catering, distribution of advances, cutting the unripe wheat heads, the seizure of a meager amount of grain, and the setting of grain procurement plans for individuals higher than the gross harvest. The information on the starvation of peasants territorially covers different parts of the forest-steppe and Polissia zones of both regions and chronologically — the end of 1931 — the middle of 1933. Prospects for further work lie primarily in using developed approaches for studying the district press of other regions. In addition, it is determined that there are reasons to find the microlevel correlation between grain procurement plans and the gross harvest on the basis of newspaper materials. The practical significance of the results achieved. The traced features of the reflection in the district press on the problems of the peasants’ starvation additionally refute the desire to deny the fact of the purposeful organization of the Holodomor. The authorities showed that the Holodomor was based on nothing more than a deliberate intention to create conditions incompatible with life on the territory of the entire Ukrainian SSR, blurting out in the press about the famine in various climatic zones and regions of economic profiles due to the grain seizure.
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