PAUL WALDIE
The Globe and Mail
Published
Last updated
When Ukrainian historian Stanislav Kulchytskyi began poring through thousands of declassified secret police files in Kiev, he felt as if his eyes had finally been opened.
The files contained reports, letters, telegrams and directives all relating to the famine in 1932 and 1933 that killed more than three million Ukrainians. Many historians like Prof. Kulchytskyi had long concluded that the famine was a man-made disaster and genocide, imposed by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to squash growing Ukrainian nationalism. But it was only after the Ukrainian government recently opened up public archives and declassified hundreds of thousands of documents that researchers have started to get first-hand accounts of what really happened. And there is much more to come. Thousands of new documents are coming to light almost daily, offering more insights into the tragedy.
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