Demography of the Holodomor Period through the Lens of Ukrainian Experts of 1930s: Achievements, Problems, and Possibilities of Use in Modern Researches

Abstract

The purpose is to analyze the demographic situation in the Ukrainian SSR i n the early 1930s and conceptualize the work of Ukrainian demographers and statisticians of that time in the context of the peculiarities of the Kremlin's internal policy.

The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism and critical analysis of historical sources, using comparative and quantitative historical methods. The focus is on the analysis of the work of A. Asatkin, S. Sosnovyi, M. Ptoukha, A. Khomenko and official statistical data on population size.

The scientific novelty lies in the first systematic verification of publications and archival data from the 1930s describing the population size and movement, as well as the demographic forecasts made in 1930—1932 for the near future.

The main results of the study. Official publications on population size during 1930—1933 are traced, indicating their conscious discrepancies with the indicators of current recordings documented by statistical agencies. Difficulties in recording the current population are noted, which were caused by both the underestimation of a significant number of famine-related deaths in 1933 and the overall ill-considered reconstruction of the recording system in the early 1930s. The nature of the commonly used figure of 32,680.7 thousand people as the population of the Ukrainian SSR as of January 1, 1932, in the public narrative about the Holodomor has been thoroughly analyzed. It is clearly stated that this figure cannot be used in scientific discourse to establish the quantitative parameters of losses from the Holodomor. It convincingly proves that the demographic forecasts for the period up to 1937, published by M. Ptoukha and A. Khomenko in 1930—1932, were inaccurate and emerged as a result of the Kremlin’s attempt to turn demographic research into a propaganda tool. The practical value will be the refusal of modern scholars to use propagandistic or merely erroneous publications from the period of the second communist onslaught as arguments in calculating losses, as well as significant reservations regarding the use of internal data on current population registration and natural population movement in the 1930s for such purposes.