Reception of the Holodomor of 1932 - 1933 in the practice of the nazi occupation regime in Ukraine as a means of forming the model of historical memory

Abstract

The purpose of the research is to analyze the materials of the occupation periodicals, as well as the institutions of the German occupation administration’s practice activities in Ukraine regarding the use of the facts of the Holodomor of 1932 – 1933 as a tool of propaganda influence and a means of forming a new model of historical memory of the Ukrainians. The methodology of the research is based on the principles of historicism, systematic analysis, objectivity and complexity, general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, methods of historical science and source studies, theoretical developments of modern research on propaganda and propaganda operations, the corresponding conceptual and categorical apparatus. The scientific novelty is determined by the attempt to form the author’s concept of the Nazi propaganda’s influence regarding the Holodomor of 1932 – 1933 on the Ukrainians’ historical memory formation, their denial of the imperial ambitions of the Russian imperialism. The Conclusion. In the occupied Ukrainian lands the Nazi policy was based on the intensive ideological support, which used the theme of the Holodomor of 1932 – 1933 as one of large-scale crimes of the Stalinist regime in order to implement a new model of historical memory in the mass consciousness of the Ukrainian society. The Ukrainian society found out the true scale of this tragedy owing to the propagandistic inspirations of the German authorities. In general, the Nazi propaganda blamed the Soviet government and its main socio-political support – the Jews, in particular, for organizing the Holodomor of 1932 – 1933. The German propaganda, based on the methods of suggestion, persuasion and argumentation, using true (in the case of the Holodomor) material, led to a certain deformation of the legal consciousness of the Ukrainians, the specific manifestations of which were legal conformism, legal nihilism and reborn legal consciousness. The collective historical memory of the Ukrainians, which was not completely destroyed by the Soviet authorities, the core of which was the Russian imperialism rejection in all its forms and manifestations, and the narrative of the Holodomor of 1932 – 1933, formed by the German propaganda, manifested itself quite clearly during the period when Ukraine regained its independence.