Description

Although comparative genocide as the second generation of genocide studies has developed over the past two decades, the Holodomor as a crime of genocide committed by Stalin’s regime has not been examined in comparative perspective. In her presentation, Dr. Myroslava Antonovych will trace the reasons for this situation and will offer a comparative analysis of the Holodomor with examples of genocide in the first half of the XX century–namely, the Armenian genocide of the Ottoman Empire and the Holocaust of Nazi Germany. The speaker will compare the three genocides as crimes under international law in terms of the mental (mens rea) and material (actus reus) elements of genocide that characterize each of them, noting the dissimilarities and similarities in intent, the perspectives of the victims and perpetrators, and the acts perpetrated. The key common element in the genocides perpetrated in the Ottoman Empire, the Soviet Union, and the Third Reich is that state organization was substituted by hegemony of a ruling party: the Ittihadists, the Communists, and the Nazis. The importance of comparing cases of genocide is evident – if lessons from the past are not heeded and genocide is not punished, history will repeat itself as can be seen in the east and south (Crimea) of Ukraine, where the successor state to the Soviet Union – the Russian Federation – continues an attack on the Ukrainian nation.

Dr. Myroslava Antonovych is the Director of the Centre for International Human Rights and Associate Professor of the Faculty of Law, University of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy”, Kyiv, Ukraine. In 2010-2014 she was a Judge ad Hoc at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. She graduated from the Faculty of Law, Lviv National University (1995) and from the English Department, Dnipropetrovsk National University in Ukraine (1981) with honors. She has LL.M. degree from McGill University in Montreal, Canada (1999). Her Doctor of Law degree is from the Ukrainian Free University in Munich, Germany (2008) and Candidate of Philology degree is from Kyiv Linguistic University in Ukraine (1988). As a Fulbright scholar she conducted research on International Human Rights at the Urban and Morgan Institute for Human Rights, University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA (1996). She is the author of about 100 books and articles in Ukraine and abroad. Her research focuses on International Human Rights and Genocide Studies. In April-May 2017, Dr. Antonovych will be the visiting professor at the Petro Jacyk Program for the Study of Ukraine and the Holodomor Education and Research Consortium