Russia destroys monuments to Victims of Holodomor and Stalin’s Terror in occupied Luhansk
Missiles are the deadliest, but by no means the only weapon Russia is using in its determination to eradicate Ukrainian identity and Ukrainian historical memory on all occupied territory.
The latest attack on Ukrainians’ memory of Holodomor, the man-made Famine of 1932-33 in Ukraine, and of Soviet repression was reported on 18 July 2024 in occupied Luhansk. The Russian propaganda ‘Luhansk information centre’ announced the dismantling of stone monuments to the Victims of Holodomor and to the Victims of Stalin’s Repression on Remembrance Square in occupied Luhansk. The report, although very brief, was filled with all the standard aspects of Russia’s narrative about Ukraine. This, for example, includes labelling any Ukrainians or Ukrainian organizations with a pronounced sense of Ukrainian identity and patriotism as ‘nationalist’. These are claimed to have been places of pilgrimage for “Ukrainian nationalists” and Prosvita activists, with this clearly viewed as something suspect. The Prosvita, or Enlightenment, Society was only ‘radical’ to Russians who wanted to deny Ukrainian statehood, and the importance of Ukrainian as the state language.
Even more typical is the pretence that the destruction of monuments honouring the memory of Ukrainians deliberately starved to death or persecuted was at the initiative of ‘Luhansk residents’. It is claimed that there were appeals from “veteran organizations” which purportedly “demanded the dismantling of monument-fakes that have no historical or cultural significance and insult the patriotic sentiments of Luhansk residents.”
Worth noting a poignant photo from 27 November 2023 of roses underneath the words: Rest in Peace, Those Starved to Death’ in occupied Luhansk. The victims of this genocide are honoured throughout the world each year on the third Saturday in November, with at least one ‘Luhansk resident’ willing to take a major risk and lay flowers in memory, even though this was at the Monument to the Victims of Holodomor in a part opposite the Russian-controlled ‘ministry of state security’.
It is telling that the monuments, like others to Victims of Holodomor in particular, have been demolished since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and openly annexed Ukrainian territory, including Luhansk. While a huge number of countries have joined Ukraine in recognizing Holodomor as an act of genocide, Russia has carried out an aggressive campaign of denial and disinformation. The current regime under Russian leader Vladimir Putin has not openly denied the crimes of the Soviet era, and specially the Terror under bloody dictator Joseph Stalin. It has, however, actively sought to ‘rehabilitate’ or whitewash Stalin and his henchmen, the notorious secret police from Cheka to KGB and has persecuted those organizations and activists who seek to remember the victims of the regime’s crimes. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, huge numbers of books on Ukrainian culture and history have been banned as ‘extremist’, including any books telling the truth about Holodomor and Soviet history.
The attacks on Ukrainian historical memory began back in 2014 in both occupied Crimea and the Russian proxy ‘Luhansk and Donetsk people’s republics’ [‘LPR/DPR’]. In August 2015, a Memorial to the Victims of Political Repression and Holodomor was dismantled in Snizhne, within ‘DPR’. Such destruction was claimed to be aimed at the “reinstatement of historical justice”.
By October 2022, the Russians had destroyed the Memorial to Victims of Holodomor in Mariupol. The monument was made of granite and erected in 2004 near the Drama Theatre which was sheltering around a thousand residents when it was bombed by the Russians on 16 March 2022. Here too the Russians produced a propaganda video claiming that Mariupol residents were in favour of the monument’s destruction, while only showing one collaborator who actually claimed that it was not Ukraine which had suffered from the Famine of 1932-33. There was an especially cynical note in the attempt to justify the destruction by claiming that the granite was to be used ‘for construction work’. No mention, of course, was made of who had destroyed Mariupol hospitals, residential buildings and places of culture.
Monuments to the Victims of Holodomor were also ostentatiously destroyed in occupied parts of Kherson oblast in late 2023. The occupation forces in Ivanivka Hromada boasted of having destroyed at least fourteen memorials to Victims of Holodomor. They prefaced Holodomor with the word ‘so-called’, and reposted images of the destruction, however did themselves wear masks to conceal their own identity.
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