INFORMATION WAR OF THE USSR (1945 – BEGINNING OF 1980S): HOW PROPAGANDA TURNED TESTIMONIES OF UKRAINIANS ABOUT REPRESSIONS AND FAMINE OF 1932–1933 INTO “ADVENTURE NOVELS”

Abstract

Notion of Holodomor as an invention of “Ukrainian nationalists” and “Nazis” circulated in world information sphere since the end of WWII. Gradually, with more oral history written, with more documents being declassified and more researches done, Holodomor reconstituted its place in Ukrainian historiography, collective memory and state commemorative traditions. The goal of the article is to reveal five vectors, and at the same time – means of Soviet/Russian propaganda, applied toward theme of the famine in the frames of the genocide denial instrument called «manipulation». These are: direct accusations of involvement into Nazism; deepening of mental abyss between free and Communist worlds; exploitation of a thesis “conquerors are not judged” as the result of the victory in WWII; legal proceedings; Sovietology studies. Weigh of each component varies and is of more or less power. The first proposed instrument had the most long-lasting and powerful effect. It basically tied the whole national Ukrainian movement and ideology to Nazism. Its consequences and echo were still visible till the beginning of full-scale war in 2022. The next three instruments were connected to WWII and thus their influence gradually weakened. Chairs of Sovietology, like the first vector, also remained strongholds of anti-Ukrainians and pro-Soviet/Russian imperial narrative till 2022, when many historians faced the necessity to rethink their previous assessments of Ukrainian history, including the Holodomor. Therefore, proposed by the author vectors and instruments used in propagandist campaign against the Holodomor both show their long-lasting influence and deconstruct the Soviet-Russian imperial myth.