EDMONTON-TORONTO – On November 1-2, the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium (HREC) at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies is holding a conference at the University of Alberta in Edmonton to examine materials related to the Holodomor that are found in archival collections outside of the countries of the former Soviet Union. Sources to be discussed at the conference include the archives of foreign governments and diplomatic correspondence, and the holdings of the émigré Ukrainian community as well as of minority groups and communities.
“With this conference, we aim to bring to light lesser known and under-researched sources related to the Holodomor and thus to encourage and stimulate further research and publication based on primary source materials,” said Dr. Bohdan Klid, research director for HREC.
When Robert Conquest’s “The Harvest of Sorrow” was published in 1986, scholars did not yet have access to Soviet archives. The first collections of archival materials on the Famine appeared in the second half of the 1980s, based on materials from the ministries of foreign affairs of countries that had diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in the 1930s, including British, German and Italian documents. These were followed by the publication of collections from Polish and Romanian archives. With the fall of the Soviet Union, Communist Party and Soviet government archives were opened, and an “archival revolution” commenced that led to a surge in research on the Holodomor and many publications.
However, there remain diplomatic records as well as collections associated with immigrant and diaspora communities that have yet to be studied and published.
A conference keynote address will be given by Ola Hnatiuk, professor at the University of Warsaw (Center for East European Studies) and at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy (Department of History). Dr. Hnatiuk, who is the recipient of numerous awards and author of several books, including the often-cited “Farewell to Empire” (2003), will speak on “Reactions of Ukrainians to the Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Interwar Europe: New Discoveries and Sources.”
The conference is being organized by the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Alberta. It is co-sponsored by the Department of History and Classics, Faculty of Arts.
For more information, readers may contact Dr. Oksana Vynnyk, vynnyk@ualberta.ca, or call 780-492-2972.