5 Stalks of Grain & Holomodor Remembrance

Back in July we visited a travelling exhibition about the Holodomor, the famine inflicted upon the people of Ukraine by Russia ninety years ago. I wrote about the experience in this blog and the link is below.

Today, the fourth Saturday of November is the “Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (“Holodomor”) Memorial Day” in Canada, a memorial established by the government of Canada in 2008. While there may not be much in the way of public recognition some have noted that this event is even more poignant in light of what is currently taking place in Ukraine as Russia does everything possible to inflict hardship on the nation it has attempted to invade. Electricity and water is out for millions and food is often in short supply. 

In yesterday's Globe and Mail there was an article by Michael Bociurkiw, a global affairs analyst and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington whose background is Ukrainian. 

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the brazen stealing of grain and destruction of agriculture infrastructure has reawakened within me and others memories of the Holodomor – the man-made famine of 1932-33 ordered by Stalin in which at least four million Ukrainians died. It was the “largest policy of mass killing in Europe in the 20th century” until the Holocaust, wrote Yale University’s Timothy Snyder.

I've heard from a couple of sources about a new graphic novel called Five Stalks of Grain written about that Russian genocidal campaign of mass starvation which is now known as the Holomodor. I'm hoping that our library will purchase it because there are so many Canadians with a Ukrainian background, as many as 1.4 million. We need to know about this history. 

As we pray for peace in Ukraine let's also remember that we can support those who have come to Canada for refuge since February. We can also be mindful that Ukrainian Orthodox clerics were persecuted mercilessly during the Holodomor and today the Russian Orthodox church is supporting this unjustifed war, much to its shame. 

https://lionlamb-bowmanville.blogspot.com/2022/07/holodomor-then-and-ukraine-now.html