Authors

Discussion

The famine that hit Soviet Russia and Ukraine in 1921-23, while often referred to as the ‘Russian’ or ‘Volga’ famine also affected southern Ukraine and is referred to by Ukrainian historians as ‘the first Holodomor’ because Ukraine was forced to export grain, and the Moscow government initially tried to divert international aid from it. Films made by international aid agencies and the Moscow and Petrograd film organisations typically reinforced the ‘Russian’ framing of the crisis. This paper examines the treatment of the theme in Ukrainian cinema of the 1920s, focusing on the only surviving film (and one of the very first VUFKU features) Famine and the Struggle with it (Golod i bor´ba s nim) by Nikolai Saltykov (VUFKU, Odesa, 1922).

The film will be considered both in how it compares to other representations of the famine, in terms of its focus and style.