Kiev to host famine conference (12/31/89)

Kiev to host famine conference

TORONTO - An international conference, "The Famine of 1933 in Ukraine," will take place in Kiev in September 1990, reported the University of Toronto. This will be the first time that scholars, writers and journalists from Ukraine as well as the United States, Canada and Europe will jointly examine the famine that devastated Ukraine in the early 1930s.

Participants in the conference will discuss such questions as the nature of genocide and famine, archival documents, eyewitness accounts, and film and photo material as historical sources. Specific topics will include the problem of grain exports, dekulakization and deportation, the connection between the famine and the simultaneous destruction of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, demographic consequences, and the treatment of the famine in historiography, literature and film.

The conference is being organized at the initiative of Marco Carynnyk, research associate of the Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto. Mr. Carynnyk recently visited Kiev at the invitation of the Filmmakers' Association and Writers' Union of Ukraine. His proposal to convene the conference was adopted at a meeting of leaders of Ukrainian civic organizations in Kiev on October 2.

The sponsors of the conference include the Popular Movement of Ukraine for Perebudova, or Rukh; the Taras Shevchenko Ukrainian Language Society; Ukraine's Memorial Society; the Institute of Literature at the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR; the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta; and the Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto.

The organizing committee is headed by Oles Honchar. Other members include Vyacheslav Briukhovetsky, Ivan Drach, Mykhailo Horyn, Volodymyr Maniak, Borys Tymoshenko, Mykola Zhulynsky and Mr. Carynnyk.

The organizers expect that participants will visit sites connected with the famine and that film screenings and an exhibit of documents, printed materials, and photographs will be held during the conference.

For additional information, write to: Marco Carynnyk, Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Toronto, 100 St. George St., Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1A1.