« 2024. # 2 (176)

The Ethnology Notebooks. 2024. № 2 (176), 274—282

UDK 930(100)”19/20″:341.485-047.275

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/nz2024.02.274

FROM THE EXPERIENCE OF SCIENTIFIC STUDIES OF THE DENIAL OF GENOCIDE PHENOMENA IN WESTERN HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE LATE 20TH — EARLY 21ST CENTURIES

KOZYCKYJ Andrij

  • ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/000-0003-4535-8279
  • Associative Professor of The Chair of Modern
  • and Contemporary History of Foreign Countrie,
  • Ivan Franko National University of Lviv,
  • 1, Universytetska Street, 79000, Lviv, Ukraine,
  • Contacts: e-mail: kozyckyj@yahoo.com

Abstract. Introduction. Conscious and purposeful denial of genocide in the second half of the 20th century became a noticeable phenomenon of the political life of

many countries of the world. The refusal to recognize the historically established facts of the mass extermination of people was most often manifested through

the denial of the Holocaust of European Jews, the genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, and the Holodomor of 1932—

1933 in Ukraine. The end of the 20th century was marked by the appearance of a significant number of publications denying the genocides in Cambodia,

Rwanda and Srebrenica, political repressions in the USSR, Katyn massacre of Polish military officers in 1940, etc. Thus at the end of the 20th — the beginning

of the 21st century in the scientific environment of Western countries was formed a consensus that denial of genocide should be considered as a separate genre

of political journalism and pseudo-scientific literature, and therefore, a separate subject of research.

At the end of the 20th — the beginning of the 21st Stanley Cohen, Israel Charny, Herbert Hirsch, Michael Shermer, Alex Grobman, Michael Shafir, Tony

Taylor, Lech Nyakowski, and other Western researchers were engaged in the theoretical processing of genocide denial as a scientific problem. Due to their

researcher at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries were developed methodological foundations and research tools, which are still used in the study of genocide

denial.

The relevance of this article is determined by the possibility of using the conclusions of Western historiography in the field of genocide denial to counter

Russian propaganda as an essential component of the information war waged by the Russian Federation against Ukraine.

The purpose of the proposed investigation is to analyze the current state of the theoretical study of genocide denial in Western historiography.

The object of the research is theoretical studies of genocide denial in western historiography, and the subject — scientific books and articles of leading

researchers of genocide denial of Western countries. The methodological basis of the research is the principle of contextualization in combination with elements

of structural and functional analysis.

Conclusion. Theoretical studies of Western historiography of genocide denial can find application in understanding of the policy of Holodomor denial, which

was carried out by the USSR in the past, and today is used by Russia in its information war against Ukraine.

Keywords: genocide, propaganda, genocide denial, historiography, Holodomor denial.

Received 15.03.2024

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