« 2021. # 3 (159)

The Ethnology Notebooks. 2021. № 3 (159), 581—592

UDK 94(47+57)”1932/1933″

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/nz2021.03.581

FOOD CONFISCATION DURING THE FAMINE OF 1932—1933 IN UKRAINE AND KUBAN IN ORAL HISTORY SOURCES: CONTEMPORARY ANALYSIS

BORIAK Tetiana

  • ORCID ID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7472-0014
  • Candidate of Sciences (History), Associate Professor,
  • PhD student, History department
  • Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv,
  • 64/13, Volodymyrska Street, City of Kyiv, Ukraine, 01601
  • Contacts: e-mail: tetiana.boriak@fulbrightmail.org

Abstract. From the end of the 1980-s, for more than ten years of intense Holodomor studies the researchers thought that total confiscation of grain resulted into extreme mortality — the Holodomor. Gradualy they had been coming to a conclusion that extortion of non-grain food reserves turned the famine into the Holodomor.

The goal of the research is to analyze confiscation of food reserves from Ukrainian peasants and Kuban stanychnyky through the prism of oral history sources during the Ho­lo­domor.

Methodological ground of the research is historical-comparative method.

The scientific novelty of the article. For the first time comparison of mechanism of turning of starvation into the Holodomor in UkrSSR and Kuban by confiscation of food reserves during household searches with usage of oral history sources only.

The result of the analysis is presented in 9 tables. They show types of food reserves, extorted by the authorities, as well as the facts of confiscation of home stuff and clothes. Quantitative and geographical parameters of analyzed sources that come from two regions indicate categorical superiority of Ukrainian data: 169 testimonies (99,4% out of general amount of involved into analysis oral history sources) against 105 testimonies (47,5%). Ukrainian data array of oral history sources looks in general more informative with data on the topic. This data array also allows stating that confiscation of food took place in much more amount of stanyts’, than officially was blacklisted. Similarity of categories of taken food allows to cautiously (to give more affirmative answer we need bigger amount of oral history sources on Kuban sample) assuming that Ukraine and Kuban had become one space where food was confiscated.

Practical significance of the research. Because of the lack of Kuban sources, the Ukrainian sources allow to rank the UkrSSR as a first-place region with total purposeful confiscation of food reserves among other grain regions of the USSR.

Keywords: oral history, famine of 1932—1932, Holodomor, Kuban, Ukraine, household searches, confiscation of food.

Received  22.05.2021

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