The Ukrainian Holodomor in Czechoslovak Historical Sources and in Czech and Slovak Historiography

The purpose of the research paper is to analyze Czech and Slovak historical sources on the Holodomor in Soviet Ukraine in 1932-1933. The research also examines Czech and Slovak historiography from the perspective of this issue to clarify the results of historians' work and to identify problems, specifics, and trends in the study of the topic. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that, for the first time, an analysis of potential primary sources of Czech and Slovak provenance for the study of the Ukrainian Holodomor is performed. Furthermore, Czechoslovak (so-called interwar) and Czech and Slovak historiography from the turn of the 20th - 21st centuries have not yet been researched in terms of interpreting the nature and character of the Soviet Famine in the USSR in the early 1930's, with a particular focus on the Holodomor in Ukraine. In the former Czechoslovak area and after 1990, neither Czech nor Slovak historians utilized the potential of gathered material from the interwar period (archival, press, radio, travel notes, etc.). No monothematic monograph on the Soviet Famine or the Holodomor in Ukraine in 1932-1933 has been published. This problem is presented only in the form of chapters in general works on the history of Stalinism or Soviet history in general. There is practically no translated literature, mainly by Ukrainian authors. This situation is caused by the fact that in the second half of the 20th century in Czechoslovakia, and after 1990 in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia, no scientific school of Ukrainian studies was established. Currently, it is only beginning to develop. A recent trend is the effort to << revive >> the work of the Czech historian and Sovietologist Jan Slavik, research materials of Czechoslovak press and diplomatic provenance, the publications of Czechoslovak intellectuals who visited or traveled in the USSR in the 1920's and 1930's, and the fate of the Volhynian Czechs in Soviet Ukraine during Stalinism. Czech and Slovak historians still have a lot of work to do in this area. At the same time, there is an obvious demand from the Czech and Slovak public for long-hidden and distorted aspects of Ukrainian history, including the Holodomor and other Ukrainian themes of the 20th century.