Russian Historiography of Famine of the 1932-1933 in the Period of Perestroika

Abstract

Russian historians were limited mainly by establishing the causes, nature and demographic consequences of the hunger in 1932-1933 at the stage of restructuring in the USSR. The famine is regarded as one of the key consequences of collectivization, but the issue of the food policy in 1932, repression and blockades of villages and entire regions that shed light on the differences famine in Ukraine and Russia, remained in the background. During the years 1986-1991 Russian historical science has made the transition intellectual explanations of the Great Famine from distortion Lenin's cooperative plan, forced collectivization and crop failure to recognize the nature of organized peasant tragedy in the grain regions. However, Russian historians saw as the cause Stalin’s violence to the peasantry accelerated modernization of the country, not going to hit the republican separatism or nationalism, therefore refused to recognize the Holodomor in Ukraine.

Keywords: Russian Historiography, the Perestroika Period, Hunger 1932-1933, Ukraine.