THE INFORMATIONAL POTENTIAL OF THE LOCAL MEDIA AS A SOURCE OF FACTS ABOUT HOLODOMOR OF 1932-1933: EXAMPLE OF MALYN NEWSPAPER “BY THE BOLSHEVIK RATES”

The article aims to examine the specific reflection of the problem of Holodomor of 1932-1933 by the local media through the prism of the Malyn newspaper of “By the Bolshevik Rates”. The research methodology includes a combination of a number of historical methods: comparative, source studies, contextual analyses, structural and functional analyses. The scientific novelty. The article is a pioneer research of the above-mentioned newspaper as a source of data of the Holodomor period as well as of the informational potential of the local media as a source of facts for the Holodomor studies. It is a first attempt to analyze the specific features of the formation of the local media’s content with regard to Holodomor. Conclusions. The Malyn newspaper “By Bolshevik Rates” indicates the broad opportunities of the local media related to the following major research problems of Holodomor: the authorities’ strategies (especially of the regional level); the role of the media in the ideological, political and economic campaign on the territory of Holodomor; the processing of the forced grain extraction and confiscation of the nutrition in the villages; inhabitants’ notions about the situation and their perspective;  active (including the criminal practices) and passive resistance of the different groups of the population for the activity of local officials as main providers of the power plan; prosopography of Holodomor’s implementers and victims. The information potential of media makes it possible to expand scholarly knowledge on the character and course of Holodomor and on the social, psychological, and economic processes that determined its key trends. As a result, it presents the possibilities to examine how the model of Holodomor functioned. In addition, it will stimulate the improvement of the research practices in the field.