New Books In Genocide Studies

Victoria A. Malko's book The Ukrainian Intelligentsia and Genocide: The Struggle for History, Language, and Culture in the 1920s and 1930s (Lexington Books, 2021) focuses on the first group targeted in the genocide known as the Holodomor: Ukrainian intelligentsia, the "brain of the nation," using the words of Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term genocide and enshrined it in international law. The study's author examines complex and devastating effects of the Holodomor on Ukrainian society during the 1920-1930s. Members of intelligentsia had individual and professional responsibilities. They resisted, but eventually they were forced to serve the Soviet regime. Ukrainian intelligentsia were virtually wiped out, most of its writers and a third of its teachers. The remaining cadres faced a choice without a choice if they wanted to survive. The author analyzes how and why this process occurred and what role intellectuals, especially teachers, played in shaping, contesting, and inculcating history. Crucially, the au