Diagnoses of Death During the Holodomor of 1932–33 As a Source
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Diagnoses of Death during the Holodomor of 1932–33 as a Source for Creating a Memory Base for the Nation “As long as Ukraine retains its national unity, as long as its people continue to think of themselves as Ukrainians and to seek independence, so long Ukraine poses a serious threat to the very heart of Sovietism.” Raphael Lemkin1 The annual Day to Commemorate the Victims of the Ukrainian Famine of 1932–33, which is marked on the fourth Saturday of November, is just around the corner. Today, this artificially- engineered famine, known as the Holodomor, is the focus of a large number of scholarly publications and media reports because for the first time in the history of modern Ukrainian statehood this topic has begun to attract the attention of both the Ukrainian public and the international community. A significant factor in this surge of interest in the Holodomor is the fact that Ukrainian society is continuing to come to grips with these tragic and instructive pages from the history of the Ukrainian nation, despite the current Ukrainian government’s frosty attitude to this topic. For millions of Ukrainians, research on the Holodomor genocide continues to be a factor of self-identification, a spiritual bridge connecting the living with the dead. It is important to note that some studies of the Holodomor do not cite any primary sources, above all, archival documents. While collections of directive documents and documented memoirs, which shed a general light on the genocide of the Ukrainian people, have already been published, it is to be expected that hardly any personal data exist on Ukrainians who starved to death during the building of the “bright future,” even though the creation of such 1 See Lemkin’s essay, “Soviet Genocide in the Ukraine,” published in 1953. The full text is posted online here: http://www.uccla.ca/SOVIET_GENOCIDE_IN_THE_UKRAINE.pdf. For a Ukrainian translation, see Rafael′ Lemkin, Riadians′kyi henotsyd v Ukraïni (Kyiv: Maisternia knyhy, 2009) (this quotation on pp. 31–32). information is constantly emphasized in nationwide and local Ukrainian research programs and commemorative measures. This is precisely why, in the absence of a documentary base, there is no body of historical work on this topic. Some notable exceptions include Oleksa Kalynyk’s book What Does Communism Entail?2 as well as a small number of publications that have appeared in recent years.3 This is explained by the fact that until recently the records of all branches of the Civil Registry Office (RATsS; Rus. ZAGS) for 1932–33—the main documentary sources on this set of questions—were stored in sub-departments of Ukraine’s Ministry of Justice. Today they are part of the permanent holdings of oblast-based state archives. As of autumn 2007, 715 documents were transferred to the State Archive of Sumy Oblast (DASO). Keeping in mind that approximately one-third of them consist of documents recording the deaths of people during the Holodomor, in this article I will analyze diagnoses of death in 1932–33 and examine the prospects for compiling a database of victims of the genocide that was committed against the Ukrainian people with the aid of data collected from several raions (districts) located in Sumy oblast. Analyzing diagnoses of death allows Holodomor researchers not only to study quantitative features, but also affords them the opportunity to examine the problem from various angles. For example, if we look at 182 diagnoses studied thus far, we can see the scale on which the history of the Holodomor was being falsified when the genocide was already in full swing. The presence in a single registry volume of such causes of death as “unknown” and “from sickness”, which were issued for dozens and hundreds of victims, as well as the complete 2 Oleksa Kalynyk, Shcho nese z soboiu komunizm? Dokumenty pro rosiis′ko-komunistychnyi teror v Ukraïni (Munich; Toronto, 1953). 3 See, e.g., Holodomory v Ukraïni: Odes′ka oblast′ (1921–1923, 1932–1933, 1946–1947), doslidzhennia, spohady, dokumenty (Odesa: Astroprynt, 2007). absence of cause of death demonstrate that the Soviet communist government was deliberately concealing the truth about the famine and that the Soviet leaders were fully aware of their criminal actions. Therefore, the attempts of contemporary apologists of Bolshevism to attribute the human losses to drought, “wrecking by kulak elements,” or the “hostile capitalist surroundings” are completely groundless. CAPTION: This document features a typical bureaucratic error: the deceased’s nationality, Ukrainian, is listed in the section entitled “Cause of Death.”4 Statistical analysis reveals that civil registry clerks were not far off the mark. Another group of diagnoses of death consists of medical terms that, in the view of archival specialists, must still be researched by medical personnel—for a number of reasons. First of all, it is crucial to identify diagnoses that were recorded during this period by both physicians and non-medical personnel in ink and pencil, calligraphic script, and incomprehensible abbreviations, as well as those that are completely indecipherable. A significant proportion of death certificates is comprised of documents with faded text; therefore their full digitization for the purpose of creating a collection of Holodomor documents is a timely project.5 Next, it is necessary to select medical diagnoses of illnesses that ensued as a consequence of prolonged starvation, weakening of the organism, food poisoning, and the like. It is important to note that the above-mentioned causes of death are frequently present in documents. That said, one must also be aware of the pressure to which medical personnel were subjected in the 1930s. Thus, a significant number of deaths from starvation is “hidden” in various fabricated diagnoses. This means that the next step should be to compare the causes of death of concrete individuals in specific population centers, as cited in DASO documents, along with lists of those who died of starvation, which have been compiled by local working groups. Such data will reveal the scale of falsified diagnoses of death, and new names may be uncovered, which were never registered by the Civil Registry Office or are missing because the registration books did not survive. 4 DASO, fond R 7720, op. 1, spr. 458, fol. 34 5 To date, the following materials have been digitized: 266 record books of the Civil Registry Office (RATsS) and 56,510 death entries from every district in Sumy oblast, except Yampil, whose record books were not sent to DASO for safekeeping. The documents stored at DASO reveal that the most compelling diagnoses of death are those that indicate starvation as the cause of death. There are several groups of these diagnoses: • Diagnoses, including “due to starvation,” “starvation,” “starving, “emaciation due to starvation,” are most frequently encountered in Civil Registry Office records for Nedryhailiv,6 Sumy,7 Konotop,8 Putyvl,9 Bilopillia,10 Romny,11 Trostianets,12 Krasnopillia,13 and Hlukhiv raions.14 • Diagnoses indicating the deaths of people from food insufficiency include “malnutrition,” “from loss of weight,” “weight loss,” “nutrition decline,” “disturbance of nutrition,” “because of depleted nutrition,” “from reduced sustenance,” “emaciation as a result of malnutrition,” “emaciation of the stomach,” “emaciation,” “inadequate sustenance,” “emaciation of the organism due to malnutrition.” Therefore, these causes of death due to starvation are most often encountered in the Civil Registry Office records for Sumy,15 Shostka,16 Nedryhailiv,17 Seredyna-Buda,18 Konotop,19 Putyvl,20 Bilopillia,21 6 DASO, fond R 7720, op. 10. 7 DASO, fond R 7720, op. 15. 8 DASO, fond R 7720, op. 5, 21. 9 DASO, fond R 7720, op. 12. 10 DASO, fond R 7720, op. 1. 11 DASO, fond R 7720, op. 13. 12 DASO, fond R 7720, op. 16. 13 DASO, fond R 7720, op. 6. 14 DASO, fond R 7720, op. 4, 20. 15 DASO, fond R 7720, op. 15. 16 DASO, fond R 7720, op. 17. 17 DASO, fond R 7720, op. 10. 18 DASO, fond R 7720, op. 14. 19 DASO, fond R 7720, op. 5, 21. 20 DASO, fond R 7720, op. 12. 21 DASO, fond R 7720, op. 1. Lebedyn,22 Lypova Dolyna,23 Trostianets,24 Okhtyrka,25 and Krasnopillia raions.26 • There is a group of varied diagnoses recording people’s deaths from extreme emaciation and exhaustion as a result of starvation: “from weakness,” “because of weight loss,” “emaciation,” “exhaustion of the organism,” “weakening of the organism,” “general exhaustion,” “depletion of energy.” Another frequently encountered diagnosis is “geriatric emaciation,” a term that in some cases was also applied to children. For example, in the village of Ulianivka, Bilopillia raion, this diagnosis was issued in connection with the death of an eight-year-old child. 27 It is precisely for these reasons that one must view such a diagnosis as a concealed form of death due to starvation. This group also includes the follow types of diagnoses: “cachetic weakness,” “because of emaciation,” “asthenia” [lack or loss of strength and energy; weakness—Trans.], “acute anemia,” and “general weakness,” as well as a large number of entries recorded in connection with them, such as “cardiac weakness,” “cardiac insufficiency,” “cardiac feebleness,” “decline in heart performance,” “termination of heart performance,” or “myocarditis [inflammation of heart muscle—Trans.] due to malnutrition and loss of energy,”28 and others that indicate death due to emaciation as a result of starvation and difficult working conditions on collective farms. Such cases are illustrated by a death entry that reads “cessation of cardiac activity; death ensued suddenly during field 22 DASO, fond R 7720, op. 8. 23 DASO, fond R 7720, op. 9. 24 DASO, fond R 7720, op. 16. 25 DASO, fond R 7720, op. 11. 26 DASO, fond R 7720, op.