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Listening to Anne Applebaum's history of Ukraine, and hearing her detail the cities, like Odessa and Donetsk, where officials abandoned teaching Ukrainian or speaking it in public life,Permalink On twitter.com
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all this during the anti-Ukrainian purge of academia and the Communist party in 1932-33.Permalink On twitter.com
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Some two hundred thousand were arrested, and many driven to suicide.On twitter.com
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The purge made Ukrainian national identity, previously official policy in the Ukrainian Socialist Republic, into a scapegoat for the grain shortages of that year.Permalink On twitter.com
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But mentioning the famine itself, which killed millions, was forbidden. Punishable as counter-revolutionary.Permalink On twitter.com
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So now when I hear "mainly Russian speaking town," that feels like an imprint of political choices and violent repression, rather than some kind of marker of affiliation. And certainly not a sign of a desire to be ruled from Moscow.Permalink On twitter.com