The Poetics of Hunger: Responding to Rupture in the Wake of the 1932–33 Famine (Holodomor) in Soviet Ukraine

Abstract

This article examines poems that were written by students in Soviet Ukraine during the 1930s to better understand how poetry served as a response to the ruptures caused by the 1932–33 famine (Holodomor). In a time when speaking openly about the famine was prohibited, survivors turned to poetry to write about what could not be said out loud. In this article, I contend that the poetry composed by these students offered alternative narratives about 1932–33 that challenged the state’s silencing of events and addressed what it meant, from a survivor’s point of view, to live through and experience the man‐made famine. The poems produced by these students, which were written between 1933 and 1937, described in detail what it was like to be subjected to search brigades, theft, humiliation, and starvation. As a whole, these poems offer a window into the physical and emotional impact of the famine on the lives of everyday Ukrainians and communicate what it meant to work through related pain, suffering, and trauma. However, the onset of repressions in the late 1930s served as another rupture and worked to suppress survivor efforts to write further about the famine and come to terms with what happened.