Ukraine, the “breadbasket of Europe,” is a land historically known for its fertile black earth and its golden wheat. Yet, between the years of 1932-33 as many as an estimated 10 million peasants were starved to death in Ukraine by deliberate Soviet national policy. This event has become known as the Ukrainian Famine-Genocide and is widely accepted as the final effort of Stalin to gain political control over the peasantry under his rule.

The Ukrainian Famine-Genocide is considered by many to be one of the most horrific events of the 20th century due to the speed with which it wiped out an entire generation. In 1929 Stalin ushered in his two-pronged attack on the peasantry of the Soviet regime which included widespread “dekulakization” and “collectivization” of the countryside. By mid-1932 all of Ukraine had been successfully "de-kulakized" and "collectivized." In August, 1933 the Soviet regime set grain delivery requirements for the farms so far in excess of the region’s capacity to deliver that, in doing so, the government of the Soviet Union indirectly sentenced the peasantry to death by starvation. As a result, by the beginning of winter 1932 all of the grain, including seed grain, had been seized and the peasants were forced to live on nettles and leaves. By spring 1933, there was no food left, the Ukrainian peasantry was starving and the death toll had reached upwards of an estimated 10 million.

Detail of painting "Starvation in Ukraine 1933" by William Kurelek (1977). The painting is on display in the Ukrainian Famine-Genocide Exhibit at the Ukrainian National Museum of Chicago.

The Ukrainian National Museum of Chicago is proud to house a special exhibit dedicated to educating the public on this horrific event in Ukrainian history. The permanent Ukrainian Famine-Genocide exhibit is located on the first floor of the museum and includes a timeline of famine events, witness accounts, and reproductions of the now infamous articles by William Duranty whose reporting of events "conditions are bad, but there is no famine" won him the Pulitzer Prize. The exhibit also features articles from the "Chicago American", the only western publication to report truthfully on the famine.