The Holodomor has come to have very significant consequences for the nation of Ukraine. The impact on population in the nation has allowed for distortion of their own national narrative, which has made creating a unified national Ukrainian identity difficult. The Holodomor would come as a direct result of the harsh policies of the soviet regime in which collectivization would come too harshly enforced on the nations of Soviet rule. This allowed for stricter control within the nation[1]. While thinning out any opposition to these policies through mass starvation and mass deportation. Through the actions of modern-day politicians, we can come to terms with just how the Holodomor is still a topic that holds much power over the nation, and thus has given Russia influence over the direction of the country is a sense. With the drop in life expectancy down to the lowest in all of Europe in the 20th century at the time, this allowed for less opposition to the infiltration of Soviet or Russian Influence[2] This would help stop Ukraine from creating their own national identity, and the introduction of Soviet backed citizen’s relocation into the nation would reinforce the influence Russia sought to achieve[3] With these factors caused by the devastating famine can be seen as a primary cause for the looming influence of Russia. With the division the Holodomor causes in the modern day, it is clear that the Russian influence has come to determined by the events of the past and their attempts at distorting the event themselves, resulting in the attack on the creation of a separate Ukranian identity and narrative.
[1] Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. Basic Books, 2010.
[2] Valin, Jacques, France Mesele, Serguei Adamets, and Serhii Pyrozhkov. “A New Estimate of Ukrainian Population Losses during the Crises of the 1930s and 1940.” Population Studies 56, no. 3 (November 2002): 249–64.
[3] Zhurzhenko, Tatiana. “A Divided Nation? Reconsidering the Role of Identity Politics in the Ukraine Crisis.” Die Friedens-Warte 89, no. 1/2 (2014): 249–69
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