National Identity and Memory of the 1921-23 Famine in Cinema: Russia and Ukraine

• In Event: Screening the Past: Representing Trauma and Memory in Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian Cinema

Abstract

The 1921-23 famine that devasted parts of Soviet Russia and Ukraine claimed between 2 and 10 million lives, including up to 900,00 in Ukraine, was widely reported and filmed as part of an international famine campaign. The films (and photographs) produced by the Soviets and by Western aid agencies were often widely circulated at the time, but even the footage was rarely screened until the end of the Soviet era.
With the fiftieth anniversary of the Ukrainian Holodomor of 1932-33, some of these images resurfaced, to tell the story of the later famine, and have figured in films about famine in the Soviet republics since. This paper will look at how the famine of 1921-23 has been depicted in Ukrainian film, comparing this with how it has been compared in Russian film, and reflect on how cinema reflects different memory cultures in the two countries.

Author

• Jeremy Hicks, Queen Mary, U of London (UK)