Holodomor victims commemorated on whole territory of independent Ukraine from east to west

[Athanasiy]

( continued )
Our Religion: It is absolutely not ours. In practice, our ancestors incorporated many primal elements (pagan) into Christianity. But the essential structure of Christianity was unchanged: that people are servants of God, and that the fate of a person directly depends on God’s will, and the person has no effect on all of this. This religion has destroyed and is continuing to destroy our national soul, which was always freedom loving. Even from ancient times, they have described Ukrainians as not being able to tolerate captivity. What has happened in the past millennium? The answer is simple – we changed our religion, and therefore our worldview, we betrayed ourselves… This religion declares that all authority comes from God, and so each Christian should in sufferance, accept the invader. Surely this cannot be right? It seems that religion firstly was invented by the strong to enslave those spiritually weaker than themselves; and secondly, almost effortlessly, these very same people they physically enslaved. Can such a religion be of any use to Ukrainians?

In 1775, the Cossacks were convinced by the clergy, not to take arms up against their brothers, only to be later slaughtered by these same Russian Christian brothers, having put faith in the words of the priests (this was a large part of the Sich Cossacks). And the peasants also, believed the clergy, who dictated that they should not rise up against the oppressor, they should not make their own, just court here on earth, but wait for God’s great judgement day, some day, in an undefinable future. It was this Church that wooed Ukrainians to sleep. Considering that the Church in Russian-controlled Ukraine, was always subject to the policies and practices of the Russian government, it was always an enemy of the Ukrainian nation. The peasants’ mentality is one of honesty, even naive. Walking through any village, you might hear quite often: “God is good, god will provide.” No doubt, seventy years ago, many peasants would have believed in this wholeheartedly. But it was a futile and dangerous hope in a particular moment, to believe that everything will be all right, that God will protect them. And, as you know, it didn’t happen that way….

They were terror-filled times, when innocent people lay dying, when churches were being demolished, when evil was circling above our world. And it is not surprising that many of these victims, who managed to survive, later became sceptics as far as religion was concerned. It seemed then that God had left his devotees alone to face their fate, abandoned them to their dreadful suffering and inevitable deaths. Only the hope remained, that in the next world, everyone “who had suffered, would be saved”. Naturally, nobody can say where the souls of those martyrs had gone, and the fact remains, that after that evil that was played out on Ukrainian terrain, the morale of our population strongly declined. The only positive, universal elements of Christianity are those general ideals and principles that highlight the role of humanity. But largely, the dogmas of this international religion strive towards teaching people to tolerate their suffering and oppression in any given situation.

Ukrainians have a saying: A person creates (by smithing) his own good luck. It is likely, that this saying originated in the time of blacksmithing, where practically every nation had its own religion. That short sentence, reveals the deep meaning of how Ukrainian society used to be. And why was it necessary to change it?

I consider that the reasons behind the famine were not only external, but also internal. And it is in this internal situation, that we should change something…

We are strong enough, we can do it!

Boris Iskra
iskrayavir@ukr.net

 

[Athanasiy]

These articles , I have copied from the web side of Mykola Ponomarenko. - ‘’The Holodomor Memorial Website’’
Unforunately , the testimonies or eyewitnesses memories of the people who survived holodomor , are not translated into English yet.
Of course the Mykola Ponomarenko has his personal interpretation and vision of the Holodomor .

But what astonish me that reading the Wikipedia , I do not see ‘’ the objective definition ‘’ and ‘’ illumination’’ of the Ukrainian Holodomor .
It means that the world does not know much about it , or the world does not know ‘’ the full truth ’’ about it.

 

[Freshman88]

Holod 1933
There is no evidence in any document from Stalin government that this was intended as genocide against Ukrainian people as is now being told by Nasha Ukraina politicians.

I can see from your location that you would have problems with this, but can’t we just focus on the memorial, and not get into petty partisan politics?

 

[Freshman88]

Unforunately , the testimonies or eyewitnesses memories of the people who survived holodomor.

I had read such testimonies in an Eastern European history class. I’ve never been so disgusted in my life. I consider myself to be very desensitized to violence, but those accounts hit my limits.

Warning: Very Gruesome account ensues.

To give you an idea of the horror;

Warning, very gruesome account

In one village where all the inhabitants had died, in a small house, all that was found was a mother who had hung herself. Upon closer inspection of the house, they found the remains of a newborn in the oven. It appears, that out of desperation the mother had cooked her baby, and upon realizing what she had done, she was so overcome with grief that she took her own life.

So many prayers are needed.

 

[Diak]

Vichnaya pamyat to all of the victims of the Holodomor, and may the land of Rus’-Ukraine never see such a tragedy again.

Also Vichnaya Pamyat to the several brave correspondends such as Gareth Jones and Malcom Muggeridge who were ostracized by the very pro-Stalin and pro-Russian mainstream media that produced such misinformation as that reported by the infamous Duranty.
FDRLB

n.b. Yevshan carries a good DVD documentary of the Holodomor.

 

[Diak]

May this always be a lesson to our people as to what happens when capitulating to Muscovite control of our land and people. From serfdom to the Holodomor to even Chornobyl’ (the Muscovite physicists outrightly recommended such a plant design NOT be built in Russia) let us never forget. Pamyat.
FDRLB

 

[Freshman88]

May this always be a lesson to our people as to what happens when capitulating to Muscovite control of our land and people. From serfdom to the Holodomor to even Chornobyl’ (the Muscovite physicists outrightly recommended such a plant design NOT be built in Russia) let us never forget. Pamyat.
FDRLB

Forever a free and independent Ukraine.

Slava Heroim! Slava Ukrayini!

 

[Volodymyr]

Even Chornobyl’ (the Muscovite physicists outrightly recommended such a plant design NOT be built in Russia) let us never forget. Pamyat.
FDRLB

First Soviet atomic reactor set up in city of Sarov, not far from Nijhnij Novgorod - right in heart of Russian countryside.

The world first Atomic Energy Station was built and working in 1954 in Obninsk - just short of 100 km from Moskow - half way to Kaluga from Moskow. In 1960s opens AES in Kazakhstan, then in 1974 opens Leningrad AES which is only 80 km from Leningrad (St Petersburg).

Chornobyl’ Atomic Energy Station was to be first in Ukraina - and located in the very underpopulated bogs of Chernyobyl’ region. This was to provide energy available to Ukraina and to Belarus’ which already available in Russia.

 

[Athanasiy]

May this always be a lesson to our people as to what happens when capitulating to Muscovite control of our land and people. From serfdom to the Holodomor to even Chornobyl’ (the Muscovite physicists outrightly recommended such a plant design NOT be built in Russia) let us never forget. Pamyat.
FDRLB

Also , we are much obliged to the writings of the James Mace , who revealed to the world , the horrers of the Holodomor.
James Mace was shocked that the Western media ( in the North America and West Europe ) were keeping silence at that time , and were pretending that nothing like that happens in Ukraine .

About the Chornobyl it is known that , among the Ukrainian diaspora nationalists writers there were the thinkers , who predicted the Chornobyl’s explosion like a prophets.

 

[Volodymyr]

This entire discussion on the Great Famine of 1933 is in appropriately placed in Eastern Catholic section. Below is a map of places effected by the Famine of 1933; most severe brown, less in yelow. The white area- including L’viv, Ternopil’ and Uzhorod (where 100% Greko Catolics live) was not part of Soviet Union in 1933 and not suffered from Famine. This politicalization of Famine by Greko Catolics who were not even involved in such suffering is a horrible affront to Orthodox Eastern Ukraina and a overt political attempt to foster anti-russian feeling in Ukraina. Soviet communists and Stalin brought about famine - not russian people trying to kill Ukrainian people.

I believe that the Administrator of this site shoud not further allow such discussion of Famine under the section “Eastern Catolics” since they were not dying in famine.

 

[Athanasiy]

Even the Church of Moscows patriarchat does not deny the Holodomor in Ukraine.

This is the article of the eye witness from the Mykola Ponomarenko site which is translated into English.

• Pavlo Solodko, who was born in 1922, is a pensioner, former director of Bakhmatsk school №2, teacher of mathematics and astronomy. A story was written down in 1997 by his granddaughter.

«I was born on February 22, 1922 in village Kurin’, Bakhmatsk district, Chernigiv oblast, where I lived during the Holodomor. I am a war veteran and since 1951 I worked as a director of the Bakhmatsk secondary school in the village Bakhmach, where I presently live on the 5 Lesja Ukrainka street, as a retired person. Our village was large, close to 2000 houses, with the population of more than 7 thousands people. In 1932 I was helping my parents to work in the fields by carrying the wheat stocks (kopas) from the field to our home together with my elder brother (the kopa consists of 60 wheat bundles). The harvest was average in our region that year, but nothing indicated a famine in 1933. We collected enough grain to live till the new harvest. But it did not happened as we planned.

My father has fulfilled the plan of bread sales to the state. Our farm was considered to be in the category of so called middle - «hard-core» households. The reason was because my parents did not join the collective farm and kept the household to themselves. To force such middle peasants to join the collective farm, they were notified about additional new «fixed» plans - to give additional 20 pounds of grain. We did it. But again, yet another new task was given, and again, until nothing was to give. We left some grain in order for our family, which consisted of 6 persons, to survive the winter. But the brigades (we called them «advanced workers - “ydarnyky”) were walking around our farms and snooping, and gradually took away everything to the last grain. These brigades were armed with metallic rods and could quickly find any grain, which my uncle had hidden somewhere in the pit in his yard. The same happened to our family. It was good that potatoes harvest was good and we ate it for some time. The potato pit was dug for the winter and could contain about five bushels. The advanced workers didn’t dug out potato pits. But they took away all our grains and beans to the last grain.

When all food was used to the end my mother had nothing to cook for us in the bowl.

Many people were swollen. We also began to swell. Than mother took out of the chest several homemade clothes and send the elder brother Grygorij to the grinding mill. There he exchanged clothes for several sacks of the millet shells. They had not a single grain of millet. So, you can imagine what kind of caloric value we are talking about? We had some silver coins of czar’s coinage that had been kept in our family since the revolution. My brother carried them to the trade syndicate (“torgsyn”) and exchanged them for a bag of millet.

I believe that these “operations” saved us from starving. Mother cooked a big cast iron bowl of soap, in which there were very small chips (?) of potatoes and just a few grains of millet. We swelled even more because of excessive fluid consumption. Our “heavy” legs were hardly moving, our faces were so swelled that only splits were left where formerly eyes were. As Taras Shevchenko wrote “The village was like burned”. There were almost no people on the streets, there were no songs, music, people’s voices, because it was hard for people to say a word. And we almost did not go outside.

Until there were potatoes that we grated and added that millet chaff and baked some corn pones. When potatoes finished we added dried linden leaves, corn’s stem crumb to chaff and tried to bake something.

Hungry people at night tried to dig out potatoes planted on the vegetable gardens. There were cases, when these “thieves” were dying on the somebody’s field.

At last came the spring. People began to use heads of clover, nettle, goosefoot and linden leaves. All that was dried, grinded and people tried to bake something from it. Once I went to the school garden (nearly 300 meters from home) to cut linden leaves. I saw dead man on the road in front of the garden. It was very terribly and scary picture. Nevertheless, I have cut the branches, because they were waiting for me at home. Another time my mother sent me to the garden that was separate from the yard. When I was coming up to the garden I saw another man’s dead body. His body was nibbled by dogs on his thigh. I fell down because of dizziness and when I come to my senses I could hardly stand up. A lot of people died in our corner (small village’s quarter), in particular Karpenko’s family died out totally, wife and children died in the family of Andrij Chekhanjuk, father, wife and three children died in the family of Jakiv Matisk. In my uncle Trokhym’s family, who died earlier from famine, only one daughter was alive out of 6 people. The tragedy of the situation was even worth because in the village lived close relatives, but they weren’t able to help. It is hard to say how many people died in our large village, because at that time I was only eleven years old. That year many people from other Chernigiv’s districts (even from Poltava region) were staying in the village, hoping to beg something to eat. They were telling that in their region death had taken many people. In some villages almost all people died out.

Fortunately, potatoes took plumages very soon in 1934. It was our rescue. Nobody waited till it ripen and tuber become bigger.

It is terrible to remember but all it happened. My children and grandchildren could hardly imagine it, all the more to believe it. I am convinced that famine, in particular in our region, was caused purposely by the state’s leaders…"

 

[Athanasiy]

This entire discussion on the Great Famine of 1933 is in appropriately placed in Eastern Catholic section. Below is a map of places effected by the Famine of 1933; most severe brown, less in yelow. The white area- including L’viv, Ternopil’ and Uzhorod (where 100% Greko Catolics live) was not part of Soviet Union in 1933 and not suffered from Famine. This politicalization of Famine by Greko Catolics who were not even involved in such suffering is a horrible affront to Orthodox Eastern Ukraina and a overt political attempt to foster anti-russian feeling in Ukraina. Soviet communists and Stalin brought about famine - not russian people trying to kill Ukrainian people.

I believe that the Administrator of this site shoud not further allow such discussion of Famine under the section “Eastern Catolics” since they were not dying in famine.

БЛИК - БЛИК

Its not Greek Catholic Church , its a ‘’ Ukrainian parliament ‘’ who recognized the holodomor as the genocide against Ukrainian people , and not only Ukrainian parliament but the parliaments of 12 other countries as well.

 

[Freshman88]

I believe that the Administrator of this site shoud not further allow such discussion of Famine under the section “Eastern Catolics” since they were not dying in famine.

Are you being serious? How is this a logical conclusion?

 

[Diak]

It is very appropriate to discuss the Holodomor in this thread as Greek Catholics suffered greatly since many lived in rural areas of western Ukraine. I have known survivors in some of the UGCC parishes I have been blessed to belong to. To say they did not suffer is a lie. Metropolitan Andrey of blessed memory expended much effort to try to obtain food for his starving flock.

First Soviet atomic reactor set up in city of Sarov, not far from Nijhnij Novgorod - right in heart of Russian countryside.

The world first Atomic Energy Station was built and working in 1954 in Obninsk - just short of 100 km from Moskow - half way to Kaluga from Moskow. In 1960s opens AES in Kazakhstan, then in 1974 opens Leningrad AES which is only 80 km from Leningrad (St Petersburg).

Chornobyl’ Atomic Energy Station was to be first in Ukraina - and located in the very underpopulated bogs of Chernyobyl’ region. This was to provide energy available to Ukraina and to Belarus’ which already available in Russia.

Regarding Chornobyl’ - please read my post - I never claimed (as would be ridiculous) that this was the first atomic power plant constructed in the USSR. My point (which is true from anecdotal information from the Russian scientists themselves as well as outside technical interpretations) is that a plant of that design would never have been built within Russia from the claims of Russian physicists themselves. As a professional geologist I know from strictly a scientific perspective that plant should never have been built, and I also posit never would have been built in a similar way and in a similar site within Russia.

Getting back to the Holodomor - the recent statement by Metropolitan Onufriy of the MP that Ukraine actually deserved the Holodmor show the continued hatred of a free Ukraine and of Ukrainians that come not only from nationalist Russians, but from the very men who are supposed to be the living icons of Christ.

Here’s the quote from Interfax on the Metropolitan’s statements:

24 November 2008, 16:40

Moscow, November 24, Interfax – Holodomor was a punishment of God for people’s rebellion against God, a permanent member of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Synod Metropolitan Onufry of Chernovtsy and Bukovina believes.

“Holodomor was a correction from God, suppression of our pride that rebelled against ourselves, against human existence. There’s a Ukrainian expression, it’s a bit vulgar, katuzi po zasluzi (an executioner gets what he deserves – IF). Thus, we got what we deserved,” Metropolitan Onufry of Chernovtsy and Bukovina has told an Interfax-Religion correspondent on Monday.

Metropolitan Onufry urged believers not to make a political action of commemorating holodomor victims, but rather to pay attention to its spiritual causes.

Spiritual causes? I read that he is implying that because Greek Catholics and Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox are not in communion with the MP we deserved this.

This is not much different than a Jewish rabbi saying the Jews deserved the Holocaust. I am beyond outrage that any hierarch would say this, but I have to sadly admit it is not surprising coming from a bishop of the MP.
FDRLB

 

[Athanasiy]

The word genocide was invented by the Jewish-Polish lawyer Rafael Lemkin , reffered to the Holodomor as well.
As far back as the 1950th , Lemkin wrote a book titled the ‘‘History of Genocide’’ in which he specifically included a chapter on ‘’ Soviet Genocide in Ukraine ‘’.

Think about it - almost third of the Ukraine population has died from famine.
Yes . We used to live in a constant and chronic lie for a 70 years.
For a 54 years the Soviet regime denied the existance of the Holodomor.

Therefore we must make it clear :

• The Holodomor is ‘’ the act of genocide by Stalins regime against Ukrainian people’’.

The government of USA has recognized it.
The government of Canada has recognized it.
And many other democratic countries governments.

Ukrainian president Victor Yushchenko has issued a bill that would make it a criminal offense to deny that the famine was genocide.

Some one can say ;

• Why should we remember the Holodomor if it happened long time ago ?
  But the Holocaust also happened a long time ago .
  But why the Jews so much more respectful about their dead ?
  Why do so many books and movies based on this topic come out every year ?

What about the fact of the genocide against Armenians , the fact which by the honest writing of Orphan Pamuk can not be hidden from the history and from the reality.
Its a bitter truth , the truth which force the country like Turkey to deal with the fact and have a difficulties with European Union membership.

I think that in this 75 th anniversary of the Ukrainian famine , its worthy to know about the facts of the truth and not to deny it.
We should remember it , the events should be as a warning to the humanity.

And our past should be respected , if we shall not respect the past , then we shall not respect ourselves as a nation.

 

[Athanasiy]

 

[Athanasiy]

Re: Holodomor victims commemorated on whole territory of independent Ukraine from east to west. Today we commemorate this date