The Famine of 1932–1933 in Historical Memory: Ukraine vs Russia (Reflections on Oral History Sources)

Abstract

The goal of the article is to analyze condition in informational space (here we take oral history centers and internet network) of the famine 1932–1933 survivors’ testimonies in Russia to find presence or abscence of the given above famine in historical memory.

The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism and objectivity. The main methods are the methods of periodization (analysis of oral history sources in the frames of certain chronological frames), history-cultural attribution (dependence of time and place of creation, content of oral history sources on specific social professional environment and value imperatives of this environment) and history-comparative (correlation of development vectors and making available of oral history sources about the famine in Russia and Ukraine).

Scientific novelty. The article suggests looking at the problem of preservation of memory about the famine of the beginning of the 1930-s in Russia through the prism of accumulation of historical sources about this event – of oral history by specific research centers and representation of these data in internet.

Conclusions. The author states relative presence in informational space of oral history sources about the famine in Kuban of 1932–1933 represented in: publication of sources; of separate testimonies; activity of scientific expeditions of Kuban choir on writing down of testimonies, including ones about the famine. At the same time, the resources with the testimonies of the famine survivors in the regions other than Kuban are almost absent. It is important to take into account that the centers on oral history research have been created in many Russian regions. The article proposes explanations of such geographical disproportions in representation on oral history sources in Russian Federation.