Denial of the Holodomor as scientific Problem: Methods and Perspectives of Exploration

The study of the history and methods of Holodomor denial is an important scientific issue. The denial of the Holodomor began already during its implementation and did not stop until the collapse of the USSR. The first to deny the Holodomor were its organizers and perpetrators, the Bolshevik leaders of the USSR. The communist regime of the Soviet Union stubbornly and consistently refused to recognize the fact of the 1932–1933 famine in Ukraine and tried to conceal its catastrophic demographic consequences. To accomplish this task, not only the propaganda apparatus and special services were involved, but also cultural figures, educators, and scholars. Western intellectuals and journalists who belonged to the left or liberal ideas made a significant contribution to the silencing and later denial of the Holodomor. It was only in the late 1980s, under pressure from changes in the domestic political and international situation, that the Communists had to recognize the famine of 1932–1933 in Ukraine. However, as an official explanation for those events, the authorities immediately offered a version that absolved the Kremlin of responsibility for the multimillion human victims of the Holodomor. At the same time, the Communists continued to deny that the artificial famine was anti-Ukrainian. The denial of the Holodomor did not end with the collapse of the USSR. After Ukraine declared its independence, Russia became the main opponent of the dissemination of information about the Holodomor and the organizer of the campaign to deny its recognition as an act of genocide. In contrast to Ukraine, in Western historiography, the study of the history and theory of genocide denial has long been the focus of research by a number of scholars. In Western countries, research on the denial of the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, and other cases of mass extermination of civilians began in the 1980s and 1990s. At the turn of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, a consensus was formed that genocide denial is a separate genre of political journalism and pseudo-scientific literature, and thus a separate subject of study. The application of the research findings of Western scholars of twentieth-century genocide denial will provide an opportunity to better understand the policy of Holodomor denial that was used in the past by the USSR and is now used by Russia in its information war against Ukraine. All of this gives reason to believe that the study of the history and theory of Holodomor denial has great scientific prospects. By studying the Holodomor denial, Ukrainian scholars have the opportunity to use the work of their foreign colleagues. This will facilitate the integration of Ukrainian science into the global scientific community. Keywords: Holodomor, genocide, Holodomor denial, genocide denial, propaganda, USSR, Russia.