Hi everyone!
It's been a long while since I've written a book review. It's been a year, in fact! It's definitely been a wild year but we're back on track with a goal of 52 books to read in 2022 (please pray for me as I'm already behind thanks to a hectic start to the year with work and events).
The first review that I'll post for 2022 is for Red Famine by Anne Applebaum. I initially picked up this book for research purposes -- I am working on writing a story about my family, who immigrated to the US from Ukraine in the 1990s. Of course, given the current events, reading this book and working on my family story became an even higher priority.
As for the review -- this book is simply fantastic. So well researched and easily explained, Applebaum takes a politically complex topic and breaks down the events that led up to one of the largest famines in European history, Holodomor, which occurred in the 1930s. In the book, a quote from a bipartisan commission set up by the United States Congress to investigate the famine explains what happened; "large numbers of inhabitants of the Ukraine SSR and the North Caucasus Territory starved to death in a man-made famine in 1932-1933, caused by the seizure of the 1932 crop by the Soviet authorities."
Applebaum sets up the story by starting in 1917, discussing the various countries that had settled Ukraine, to the Ukrainian Revolution and how it sparked fear in Soviet Russia. She then explains the famine of the 1920s, Ukraine's recovery from that, and the lead up to Holodomor, as well as all the intricacies and the appalling details of the famine of 1932.
What makes this topic complex, largely, is the propaganda for decades to downplay the tragedy and pin the blame on the Ukrainians themselves. Thanks to the excellent research done by various institutions and compiled by Applebaum, the story of Holodomor is alive.
I kept a pen on me when reading this to highlight some of the astonishing facts or well crafted and meaningful sentences. One of my favorites that paints a succinct picture of what happened: "In other words, the regions 'normally' most affected by drought and famine were less affected in 1932-3 because the famine of those years was not 'normal'. It was a political famine, created for the express purpose of weakening the peasant resistance, and thus national identity. And in this, it succeeded."
If you have a desire for wonderfully written historical fiction, or to read up on history that will provide some background to current events, I highly recommend this book.
Happy reading!
Vivian
