Nash Holos book review: Starving Ukraine – The Holodomor and Canada’s Response

Starving Ukraine – The Holodomor and Canada’s Response by Serge Cipko is a richly detailed history of Canada’s response to the Holodomor, the great famine in Ukraine in 1932-1933. By examining Canadian newspapers, contemporary letters, and government documents, Cipko paints a shocking picture of famine and death, and the Soviet government’s denials of these events. 

Cipko’s book is an important contribution to Holodomor studies since it examines how Canada responded to the horrific events. The contradictory newspaper articles about starving people by journalists such as Pierre Van Paassen, and Walter Duranty are shocking. The Soviets were very effective in co-opting the press into reporting what they wanted to hear. However, there were many journalists in Canada, America, and England who spoke out about the Holodomor. This should be a reminder to all of us about the importance of the free press in a time of political turmoil. 

Starving Ukraine provides readers with detailed contemporary and archival research, as well as an extensive bibliography which would be very useful to anyone doing further research on this topic. 

Transcript of the review can be found here.

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