CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – The Center for Slavic, Eurasian and East European Studies (CSEEES) at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (UNC-CH), in collaboration with the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and the Ukrainian Association of North Carolina, and with support from the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium and the Ukrainian Studies Fund, is organizing an international scholarly conference in commemoration of the 85th anniversary of the 1932-1933 Holodomor in Ukraine. The conference will be held on October 5-7 at the FedEx Global Education Center, 301 Pittsboro St. in Chapel Hill.
The conference will spotlight new interdisciplinary research on the Holodomor within the context of other man-made famines. As part of the conference, a workshop on the Holodomor for middle and high school teachers will be conducted by Valentina Kuryliw, director of education at the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium (HREC) in Canada.
The keynote address will be presented via Skype by Anne Applebaum, columnist for The Washington Post, Pulitzer-Prize winning historian, Professor of Practice, Institute of Global Affairs, London School of Economics and author of “Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine,” a comprehensive analysis of the Holodomor.
Other participants include scholars from fields such as demography, history, cartography, political science, economics, epidemiology and psychology, who have advanced understanding of the Holodomor from the perspectives of their respective disciplines.
The fact that half of the conference participants are non-Ukrainian scholars is an indication of the growing recognition by the international scholarly community of the Holodomor as a subject of general interest that should be researched and better understood. A goal of this conference is to put these scholars into dialogue with one another in order to encourage more integrated interdisciplinary research on the Holodomor, and on famine more generally. A second objective of the conference is to compare the Holodomor with other man-made famines.
Highlights of the program include the following sessions.
• Historical background of the 1932-1933 Holodomor, with George Liber, University of Alabama at Birmingham, speaking on “The Origins of the Holodomor: The Soviet Domestic and International Context” and Oleh Wolowyna, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, presenting the topic “Holodomor Losses by Nationality and the Surge in Mortality in 1933: two little known aspects of the Holodomor.”
• “Regional Dynamics of the 1932-1933 Famine in Ukraine” with Nataliia Levchuk, Institute of Demography and Social Studies, Ukraine, whose topic is “What is Behind the Regional Cariation in Holodomor Losses in Ukraine: The Role of Grain Procurement and Collectivization”; Arturas Rozenas, New York University, “Mass Repression and Political Loyalty: Evidence from Stalin’s ‘Terror By Hunger’”; and Natalya Naumenko, Brown University, “The 1933 Soviet Famine.”
• “Interdisciplinary Approaches to the 1932-1933 Famine,” with presentations by L. H. Lumey, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, “Long-term impact of exposure to the Ukraine Famine of 1932-1933 during Gestation on Type 2 Diabetes at Later Age”; Vitalii Ogiienko, Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, Ukraine, “Defining the Holodomor Trauma: Definitions and Methodological Approaches”; Serhii Cipko, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, “Western Responses to the Holodomor: The Cases of Canada and the U.S.”
• “The 1932-1933 Famine in Comparative Perspective,” with Sarah Cameron, University of Maryland – College Park, “The Kazakh Famine and the Ukrainian Famine: A Comparison”; followed by a roundtable on Ukraine and China (L. H. Lumey), and Ukraine and Russia: (Nataliia Levchuk and Natalya Naumenko).
The program will conclude with a roundtable on “Research on the Holodomor by Different Disciplines” featuring nine scholars.
The conference is part of CSEEES’s Spotlight on Ukraine Initiative to promote Ukrainian studies at the university. In launching this initiative last year, CSEEES has taken its first steps in developing Ukrainian studies at the university. The center sponsored the university’s first course on the history of Ukraine and second course focused on the modern history of Ukraine and the events of 1980s – 2000s; workshops for UNC students on Ukrainian folk art and music; and a four-month exhibit on Ukrainian embroidery and Petrykivka painting.
CSEEES also facilitated the production of “culture kits” comprising artifacts that illustrate Ukraine and its rich history and culture, which are available to teachers in K-12 schools in North Carolina to teach about Ukraine.
The conference is free and open to the public. More information can be found at https://cseees.unc.edu/event/holodomor-conference/.
Donna Serna Goldstein is co-president of the Ukrainian Association of North Carolina.