Memorials to the Victims of Political Repression in Crimea

Historian Andriy Ivanets, a senior researcher at the Holodomor Research Institute branch of the National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide (Kyiv), writes about memorial culture in Crimea and the fate of Crimean monuments under Russian occupation.

The Russian occupation authorities in the occupied south and east of Ukraine pursue the policy of discrediting and erasing the memory of the Holodomor — the genocide of 1932–1933. One of the most symbolic examples of this was Russia’s destruction of the Holodomor and Political Repression Memorial in occupied Mariupol in the fall of 2022. The ideology of neo-totalitarian Russia leans toward a complete denial of the Ukrainian nation’s existence; therefore, the genocide organized by the communist regime based in Moscow in the 20th century must be pushed into the realm of public amnesia.

The first regions occupied by Russia — Crimea and Sevastopol — remained part of Ukraine’s sociocultural and informational space until 2014, although they were among the most distinct territories in the ethnocultural sense. Before the occupation, on the Day of Remembrance of the Holodomor Victims (which at one point also commemorated victims of famines and political repression), memorial events were regularly held in Crimea. These gatherings involved public representatives and, especially during Viktor Yushchenko’s presidency, government and local authorities. Several memorial sites were established, with members of Crimea’s Ukrainian community and the Crimean Tatar people actively organizing and participating in the events. However, the process faced strong opposition from pro-Russian forces in Crimea, which embraced the Russian narrative of denial, distortion, and discreditation of the genocide of Ukrainians. Russian organizations working autonomously and in Sevastopol also contributed to this resistance.

In 1932–1933, Crimea was part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) and suffered from the Holodomor primarily due to the mass flight of people from Soviet Ukraine, escaping the artificially induced famine. Additionally, entry restrictions were imposed on Ukrainian peasants, and food exports to Ukraine were blocked. While the situation in the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic during those years remains insufficiently studied, it is evident that certain steppe regions in northern Crimea also faced hunger — though on a smaller scale than the neighboring mainland Ukrainian areas. In the following decades, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, many of whom had either survived the Holodomor or came from families affected by it, relocated to Crimea for various reasons.

Since the occupation of Crimea in 2014, the situation regarding the preservation of memory about the victims of the Holodomor has changed drastically due to the policies of the aggressor state. In the temporarily occupied territory, there have been documented cases of the destruction of literature about the Holodomor and persecution for having these materials in public libraries.

Representatives of the occupation administration have stopped participating in the annual events held on Holodomor Remembrance Day. Many Crimean activists who organized or attended such events before Russia’s aggression have either been imprisoned by the occupying state or forced to leave the Crimean Peninsula.

The Russian occupation authorities do not honor the memory of Ukrainians who perished in the horrific man-made famine. On the contrary, they actively seek to discredit the Holodomor as a genocide of the Ukrainian people. Additionally, they have illegally dismantled several monuments related to Ukrainian history and culture, effectively banning Crimeans from holding traditional public gatherings. For example, commemorative events at the bust of Taras Shevchenko in Simferopol on March 9 or on Simferopol’s central square on May 18, the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Crimean Tatar Genocide, have been de facto prohibited.

Overall, the Ukrainian community in Crimea has been turned by Russia into one of the most discriminated-against ethnic groups, alongside the Crimean Tatar people. It has been deprived of the ability to fully meet its informational and cultural needs and remains under constant informational, propagandistic, administrative, and judicial pressure.

With the destruction of nearly all pre-war Ukrainian socio-political and cultural-educational institutions, the Crimean Eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate—and later the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine—became one of the few remaining centers of support for Crimean Ukrainians. It not only sustained their spiritual life but also helped preserve their national identity. However, the eparchy itself suffered significant losses, as its clergy and parishioners refused to re-register under the laws of the occupying state. In 2023, the Russian armed forces took over and sealed the the Cathedral of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Volodymyr and Princess Olga – the main church of the Ukrainian Orthodox church in Crimea. The dome of the cathedral was dismounted in 2024. The memorial cross to the victims of the Holodomor 1932–1933 (mounted on the facade of the cathedral) remains in danger of being destroyed.

The fate of several Holodomor-related memorial sites in Crimea has also been difficult. Historian Serhii Hromenko, in a popular science article about Crimea’s role in Ukraine’s broader effort to restore historical memory, mentions memorial markers installed by local residents in 2008 to mark the 75th anniversary of the Holodomor. These were located in the villages of Tselinne, Myrnovka, Pobidne, Yasna Polyana, Pakharevka, and Izumrudne in the Dzhankoy district. He described them as follows. "Small, very simple, and unassuming, these monuments were created by the villagers themselves. Some of them—post-war settlers from Ukrainian regions—had personally survived the Holodomor or lost relatives to it. Others still recall how refugees from the southern regions of the then Ukrainian SSR, having broken through the NKVD blockade units, died by the hundreds and thousands in the streets of Crimean villages and towns." In Tselinne, communists held a protest against the unveiling of the memorial marker, forcing the police to step in and put an end to the demonstration.

Since the beginning of the Russian occupation, there has been almost no information about the condition of Holodomor-related memorial sites in the Dzhankoy district. It can be assumed that, at the very least, residents of these northern Crimean settlements can no longer organize commemorative events as freely as they did before 2014, even if these memorials have survived. After all, Russian legislation, unlawfully imposed on the occupied south of Ukraine, effectively prohibits holding public events without severe restrictions — especially those that contradict Russia’s anti-Ukrainian imperial ideology.

The situation with the first memorial plaque to the victims of the Holodomor of 1932–1933 in Crimea is particularly telling. It was ceremoniously unveiled in November 2007 on the building of the Ukrainian Cultural and Information Center in Sevastopol. In 2016, a "lovers' bench" was installed next to this memorial, and the area was renamed the "territory of happiness." Media reported that it was unclear whether the memorial plaque had been dismantled or simply covered with posters.

However, the mentioned sites in the Dzhankoy district and Sevastopol were not the first Holodomor memorials in Crimea. As early as 2000, a commemorative marker in the shape of a cross was installed in a niche on the facade of a building housing the Cathedral of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Volodymyr and Princess Olga of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate (since 2018, part of the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine) in Simferopol. From that moment, it became a site of remembrance. Thanks to the stance of the clergy and the needs of Crimea’s Ukrainian community, it continued to serve this purpose even after the beginning of the Russian occupation.