Newspaper «Soviet Bukovyna» as a source for the study of the Holodomor of 1946-1947 in Chernivtsi region

Abstract

The Holodomor of 1946-1947 is the third by the Soviet government in Ukraine. This article analyzes the information that was covered during this period in the pages of the newspaper of the Chernivtsi Regional Committee of the Communist Party «Soviet Bukovyna». It was established that the printed medium was actively used by the leadership of the region to implement the policy of grain procurement and collectivization in the Chernivtsi region. The tragic events that resulted from such a policy were deliberately silenced. Instead, the ideas of the benefits of the Soviet way of life and the new collective economy were imposed on the population. In order to break the established way of managing the countryside, to introduce total control and exploitation of the peasantry, the Soviet authorities actively pursued a policy of dividing society into «their» and «enemies» – the second were equated with wealthy Bukovynian peasants. Despite the censorship at that time, the analysis of the publications shows the scale of the tragedy that engulfed the region.

Keywords

• newspaper «Soviet Bukovyna»
• Chernivtsi region
• famine
• Holodomor
• grain procurement
• collective farm