The subject of the Ukrainian Famine is so intensely distressing that any critique of its representation in the arts runs the risk of being mistaken as an attempted denial of the fact of the Famine itself. The term ‘Holodomor’, coined during the 1980s by the Ukrainian diaspora in North America to describe the intentional extermination of people on a massive scale through hunger, has since become a cornerstone in the process of state building in independent Ukraine and in the formation of a national identity.

It goes without saying that events during the Famine in the early 1930s have been traumatic. In current discussions on the 1932–33 Famine, figures of up to 10 million victims are quoted. While the latter figure is certainly excessive, it is almost unconditionally taken for granted in the current Ukrainian historiographical mainstream, as Heorhiy Kasianov has shown. Still, any significant reduction of the number of victims would not alter the situation much, as we would still be dealing with millions of premature deaths. Unlike the victims of the Holocaust, those of the Ukrainian Famine still await an adequate visual representation of their sufferings.