The driving factor behind the disagreement of interpretations regarding the famines genocidal status lies within the ill-defined parameters of the term itself. Deborah Mayersen recognises the intense debate in regards to the accepted meanings in conjunction with the term genocide and the impact of such a discourse influencing historical interpretations and subsequent responses to present issues. The term became officially recognised in 1948 by the United Nations, spurred on by the atrocities that occurred during the Second World War. Holocaust scholars Frank Chalk and Kurk Johanson have become increasingly uncomfortable with the over usage of the word genocide, in particularly its application as in regard to the Ukrainian famine and the potential …show more content…
Nicolas Werth reasserts the lack of consensus that exists in relation to such genocidal studies and argues that historical research should not be simply confined to the legalities of definition and avoid the competitiveness amongst the victims of atrocities. One must not overlook the considered founder of genocidal studies, Raphael Lempkin, who offers a multidimensional definition when attempting to understand the concepts of genocide and its impacts upon the social and cultural framework of society. In 1953, Lempkin presents an essay claiming the actions in the Ukraine were tantamount of genocide, as there was not simply a physical destruction but also a direct assault on the Ukraine’s identity through Russification along with the subjugation of the Ukrainian language, religion and removal of intelligentsia. For scholars that accept Lempkin’s posts they come to the conclusion that an act of genocide was not merely Stalin’s intention to kill off the populace, but his aim was to eliminate any aspects of Ukrainian way of life. Historian Norman Naimark suggests that the legal definition can be seen to be overtly narrow and in the case of Stalin, a court of law would have difficulty in convicting him of genocide, but it does not necessary mean that this event falls outside the realms of …show more content…
Post-Soviets republics, including the Ukraine, after gaining their independence embarked on a path of rediscovering and revising their national histories. These newly found independent nations have tended to categorise their past ills under the banner of genocide with disregard to the legal international definitions of such. Professor Evgeny Finkel classified this rush for acknowledgment as a “search for lost genocides”. Jonas Ohman acknowledges the influence of traumatic events such being the Ukrainian famine, which may advance the formation of national narratives that aims to feed into a collective identity. The long-lasting impressions created by the famine could fall under the banner of what Jeffrey Alexander refers to as cultural trauma. From this perspective, the emerging Ukrainian identity will cling on dearly towards the preceding heinous events. Historian David Marple’s acknowledges how competing narratives have the potential to shape the national identity in post-soviet Ukraine but it becomes nonsensical in attempting to use the events of the past in order to be appealing to wide spectrum of the Ukrainian population as their lies an ambiguity in regard to the heroes and villains of their past. The publication of Marple’s novel had occurred shortly
The word genocide was derived from the Greek root genos (people) and the Latin root cide (killing), and did not exist in the English language until 1944, which was the end of World War II (Power). According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, genocide is “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group.” Such violence occurred during the Holocaust and during the separation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The problems of ethnic cleansing and repression have become so prevalent in the last century that they have contributed to two world wars, over fourteen million deaths, and a new word. United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, said, “Far from being consigned to history, genocide and its ilk remain a serious threat. Not just vigilance but a willingness to act are as important today as ever.”
Initially, the first human right that Stalin violated during his reign as dictator of the Soviet Union was everyone is entitled to fair and public hearing by an impartial tribunal. Natasha Petrovskaya was tried three times and still convicted guilty. The judges were biased and were not at all interested. Mikhail Belov was tried by a court of three pro-Bolshevik judges, a troika, and it took 10 minutes to figure out his sentence. Olga Andreyeva was treated unfairly as she did not even get a trial she was simply given 10 years in the G...
The intentional murder of an enormous group of people is near unthinkable in today’s society. In the first half of the twentieth century, however, numerous authoritarian regimes committed genocide to undesirables or others considered to be a threat. Two distinct and memorably horrific genocides were the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany and the Holodomor by the Soviet Union. In the Holocaust, The Nazis attempted to eradicate all European Jews after Adolf Hitler blamed them for Germany’s hardship in recent years. During the Holodomor, Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union attempted to destroy any sense of Ukrainian nationalism by intentionally starving and murdering Ukrainian people. The two atrocities can be thoroughly compared and contrasted through the eight stages of genocide. The Holocaust and Holodomor shared many minor and distinct similarities under each stage of genocide, but were mainly similar to the methods of organization, preparation, and extermination, and mainly differed
Throughout history there have been many horrifying genocides, the most famous of which is the Holocaust. However, there have been many other genocides, some dating centuries prior to the Holocaust, or even during the Holocaust, such as the Asian Holocaust. One of these genocides predating the Holocaust is known as the Holodomor, A man-made famine lasting from 1932 to 1933, and, in more broader terms, the deportation and execution in Ukraine and other areas where the Ukrainian nationality is dominant.
The. Gunter, Michael M. Armenian History and the Question of Genocide. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Print. The.
...he human depravity one can imagine. Even though Genocide did not begin with the Holocaust, Germany and Adolf Hitlers’ heartless desire for “Aryanization” came at the high cost of human violence, suffering and humiliation towards the Jewish race. These warning signs during the Holocaust, such as Anti-Semitism, Hitler Youth, Racial profiling, the Ghettos, Lodz, Crystal Night, Pogroms, and Deportation unraveled too late for the world to figure out what was going on and help prevent the horrors that came to pass. The lessons learned from all of this provide a better understanding of all the scars genocide leaves behind past and present. In spite the ongoing research in all of these areas today, we continue to learn new details and accounts. By exploring the various warning signs that pointed toward genocide, valuable knowledge was gained on how not to let it happen again.
History aims to examine the actions and legacy of mankind. The past is filled with the achievements that humans have reached, however, history also shows us the evil that man is capable of. No atrocity against mankind is more heinous than the act of genocide. Genocide is the aim to destroy all (or part of) of a racial, religious, ethnic, or national group of people. This paper will examine two famous cases of genocide in history: The holocaust of Jews and other groups in Nazi Germany, and the destruction of the Congolese people under Belgian colonialism. The Holocaust remains as one of the main legacies of Hitler and the Nazi party, who claimed an estimated 11 million victims, 6 million of which were Jews. Comparatively, the Congolese Genocide
- The meaning of Genocide, and the impact it has on a single person and society.
In 1934, Sergey Kirov a rival to Stalin was murdered. Stalin is believed to have been behind the assassination, he used it as a pretext to arrest thousands of his other opponents who in his words might have been responsible for Kirov’s murder. These purges not only affected those who openly opposed Stalin but ordinary people too. During the rule of Stain o...
To start off with, what is genocide? Genocide is the killing of a massive number of people of in a group. Genocide has not only been practices in the present day, but it has been practiced for m...
“Holocaust, 1933-1945, The” World Without Genocide. William Mitchell College of Law, 2013. Web. 15 Apr. 2014. .
Paradigms of Genocide: The Holocaust, The Armenian genocide, and Contemporary Mass Destructions, 156-168. Sage Publications Inc., 1996. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1048550
Various schools of thought exist as to why genocide continues at this deplorable rate and what must be done in order to uphold our promise. There are those who believe it is inaction by the international community which allows for massacres and tragedies to occur - equating apathy or neutrality with complicity to evil. Although other nations may play a part in the solution to genocide, the absolute reliance on others is part of the problem. No one nation or group of nations can be given such a respo...
The conflict between the Ukraine and Russia is the Ukraine's most long-standing and deadly crisis; since its post-Soviet independence began as a protest against the government dropping plans to forge closer trade ties with the European Union. The conflict between Russia and the Ukraine stems from more than twenty years of weak governance, the government’s inability to promote a coherent executive branch policy, an economy dominated by oligarchs and rife with corruption, heavy reliance on Russia, and distinct differences between Ukraine's population from both Eastern and Western regions in terms of linguistics, religion and ethnicity (Lucas 2009).