Institute of History of Ukraine National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

The Holodomor Research and Education Consortium (HREC), an initiative of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) at the University of Alberta, has announced the launch of a new Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) titled Famine as Genocide in the 20th Century: The Case of the Holodomor. Scheduled to be fully accessible online on March 23, 2026, the 13-module course will be delivered globally on the Coursera platform, offering a vital resource for scholars, students, and the public alike to examine one of the 20th century’s most devastating, yet understudied, episodes of mass violence.

Register your interest here

The course addresses a profound paradox: the famines of the 20th century occurred in an age of unprecedented global food abundance. As the case of the Holodomor illustrates, the catastrophic 20th-century famines were not merely humanitarian disasters but were often forms of political violence that targeted marginalized populations in the pursuit of transformative political projects.

The 1932-33 famine in Soviet Ukraine—the Holodomor—represents the epitome of this kind of violence. Famine as Genocide in the 20th Century explores the Holodomor through an interdisciplinary lens, engaging with famine studies; Soviet , Ukrainian, and global history; colonial and genocide theory; as well as memory studies. Organized by the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium at the University of Alberta, the course draws on decades of international research conducted by leading experts.

The course consists of 13 modules, or lessons, that integrate a wealth of recent scholarship related to the Holodomor.The delivery method via the Coursera platform will feature interviews with leading international experts, archival documents, videos and photos, guest lectures, primary and secondary source readings, and scalable assessments.Module topics include “Dying and Living,” which explores the experience of those who suffered the Holodomor; “Ukrainian Cultural Renaissance and the Destruction of Ukrainian Culture,” which looks at the policy of Ukrainianization and its brutal conclusion; “What Did the World Know?” which addresses what the international community knew about the famine at the time it was happening; and modules on the aftermath and longer-term impact of the Holodomor as well as how knowledge of the Holodomor has been preserved and shared over time.

The collaboration between the University of Alberta and Coursera ensures that the course fulfills a dual mandate: While University of Alberta students—specifically through the Department of History, Classics, and Religion—will be able to register for Famine as Genocide in the 20th Century: The Case of the Holodomor, the online course will be accessible to the general public globally at no cost.

Participants will gain knowledge of the Holodomor’s impact on Ukrainian, Soviet, and world history, improve their ability to analyze primary sources and oral history, and develop a critical understanding of Stalinist society.

Crucially, the course compels reflection on the Holodomor’s enduring relevance to current political developments in the region and the Russian war on Ukraine, addressing themes like disinformation and ‘fake news’ within the context of historic Russian-Ukrainian relations.

This project is made possible through the dedicated efforts of CIUS and HREC, with generous support from the Helen and Paul Baszucki Family and the Temerty Foundation.

Famine as Genocide in the 20th Century: The Case of the Holodomor is a wide-ranging exploration of the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine. Learners will gain a deep understanding of the Holodomor in the context of other 20th century famines, genocide studies, survivor experience, knowledge dissemination, disinformation and denial, and Ukrainian and Soviet history.

The Holodomor, one of the major tragedies of the twentieth century, became the subject of serious study only since the fall of the USSR. Through an exploration of recent research and through the prisms of colonialism, empire, genocide, famine and food security, (dis)information dissemination, and Ukrainian-Russian relations, Famine as Genocide in the 20th Century: The Case of the Holodomor makes the case that the Holodomor is crucial to understanding Ukrainian, Soviet, European, and world history as well as current events.

This course is offered online in thirteen modules through University of Alberta’s partnership with the platform Coursera through which courses are offered for-credit to UofA students as well as to the general public.

Frank E. Sysyn (Module 1) is director of the Peter Jacyk Centre for Ukrainian Historical Research at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS), professor in the Department of History, Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Alberta, and editor in chief of the Hrushevsky Translation Project, the English translation of the multi-volume History of Ukraine-Rus’. He heads the executive committee of the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium (HREC) and is a member of the editorial board of Harvard Ukrainian Studies and East-West: A Journal of Ukrainian Studies, and head of the advisory board of the Ukrainian Program at the Harriman Institute.

Olga Andriewsky (Modules 2, 5-8) is Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at Trent University. She is the author of “Towards a Decentered History: The Study of the Holodomor and Ukrainian Historiography” in Contextualizing the Holodomor (CIUS Press) and has written numerous articles on politics, identity, and social history in late Imperial Russia. She was the winner of the 2024 Article Prize of the Canadian Association of Ukrainian Studies for her article “Dangerous Illusions and Fatal Subversions: Russia, Subjugated Rus,’ and the Origins of the First World War” (Slavic Review, Summer 2023).

Lynne Viola (Modules 3 & 4) (Professor Emeritus, Department of History, University of Toronto) is a historian of the USSR, focusing on 20th-century political and social history. Her research interests include gender, rurality, political culture, and violence. The author of more than 30 articles, she has also written five and edited/co-edited 19 books. Among many honors, Professor Viola received the 2021 Social Sciences and the Humanities Research Council Gold Medal Impact Award. Her book Stalinist Perpetrators on Trial: Scenes from the Great Terror in Soviet Ukraine received the Best Book Prize from the American Association of Ukrainian Studies in 2018.

Taras Koznarsky (Module 9) is an Associate Professor, Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures, University of Toronto. His research interests Ukrainian and Russian literary interactions (first half of the nineteenth century) and modernism and the avant-garde in the late Russian Empire and Ukraine. His current research examines the urban text of Kyiv in Ukrainian, Russian, Jewish, and Polish literary and cultural imaginations and the battle for Kyiv in contemporary Ukrainian prose. Recent articles focus on Romantic poet and historian Mykola Markevych and on implications of the Cossack past in Ukrainian and Russian cultural/popular imaginations.

Henry Prown (Module 10) is the 2022-25 Temerty Postdoctoral Fellow in Holodomor Studies (Holodomor Research and Education Consortium, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta) and an instructor in the History, Classics, and Religion Department. His current research examining the relationship between Stalinism and the US media in the 1930s is the subject of a monograph to be published in 2026 in the series Bloomsbury Academic: Communist Propaganda in Pre-Cold War America.

Kristina Hook (Module 11) is Assistant Professor of Conflict Management at Kennesaw State University. An anthropologist specializing in genocide, she has conducted multi-year fieldwork in Ukraine since 2015, including as a US Fulbright scholar. Her forthcoming book (Georgetown University Press) on the Holodomor and the enduring legacy of this genocide on Ukrainian society is the recipient of a 2024-25 US National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship.

John Vsetecka (Module 12) is Assistant Professor of History at Nova Southeastern University (Fort Lauderdale, FL). A scholar of East European, Ukrainian, and Soviet history, his research focuses on the history of famine, mass violence, and transitional justice. John is finishing his first book, entitled In the Wake of Hunger: Confronting the Legacies of the 1932-1933 Famine (Holodomor) in Soviet Ukraine during the 1930s. He is also co-editor (with Daria Mattingly) of The Holodomor in Global Perspective: How the Famine in Ukraine Shaped the World (ibidem-Verlag/Columbia University Press). John is also the founder of H-Ukraine (part of the larger H-Net platform), which shares and promotes academic and scholarly content related to the study of Ukraine.

Karolina Koziura (Module 13) is a cultural and historical sociologist who studies the legacies of violence, identity formation processes, and politics of knowledge in/about Eastern Europe. Currently she is a Petro Jacyk Postdoctoral Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto. For more than 15 years, she has conducted ethnographic and historical research in Ukraine and Poland. She is finishing her first monograph on the politics of hunger and transnational political contests surrounding the Great Ukrainian Famine, 1932-2022.

CONTRIBUTING RESEARCHERS

• Iryna Skubii
• Olena Palko
• Larysa Bilous

Module 1 – Introduction

This introductory module provides information on Ukrainian geography and history as a context for understanding the Holodomor. The module also summarizes the major topics dealt with in subsequent modules.

Module 2 – Famine in Modern History

Some of the largest famines ever recorded, including the Holodomor, occurred in the 20th century, an age of unparalleled food abundance. This module examines how modern famine shifted from natural to man-made causes.

Module 3 – The Soviet Context, Pt. I

This module is the first of two examining the broader historical context of the Holodomor. It explores the Bolshevik Party’s struggle to establish control over the former Russian Empire between 1917 and 1922 and considers how the legacy of revolution, war, mass violence, and economic collapse shaped the formation of the Soviet state.

Module 4 – The Soviet Context, Pt. II

This module examines how the Soviet state and economy were transformed in the 1920s and how Stalin’s radical program of industrialization and collectivization, introduced in 1928, set the stage for famine.

Module 5 – From Famine to the Holodomor, Pt. I

Recent research has revealed significant differences in famine mortality across the Soviet Union. This module is the first of two that explore what made the Holodomor in Soviet Ukraine different from famine elsewhere. It examines how and why Ukraine and Ukrainians were targeted.

Module 6 – From Famine to the Holodomor, Pt. II

This module examines specific policies and measures introduced in Soviet Ukraine in the winter of 1932-33 that willfully intensified the famine. It looks at how the Soviet grain procurement drive evolved into a larger campaign waged by Stalin and the Kremlin leadership for political control over Ukraine.

Module 7 – Dying and Living, Pt. I

What was starvation like for those who experienced it? What were the ways people tried to save themselves and their families? This is the first of two modules that draw on survivor and witness testimonies to address the experience of the Holodomor “from below.”

Module 8 – Dying and Living, Pt. II

This module explores additional survival strategies adopted by the rural population during the Holodomor and analyzes how the authorities used food and a rationing system to reward or punish specific groups within Soviet society.

Module 9 – Ukrainian Cultural Renaissance and the Destruction of Ukrainian Culture

Ukraine in the 1920s experienced a cultural renaissance after centuries of Russian imperial oppression. This module examines the transformation of Ukrainian education and urban life and the remarkable achievements in Ukrainian literature, visual arts, theater, and film that were cut short by the Stalinist regime’s suppression of Ukrainian culture and cultural elites ─ part of the multi-pronged attack on Ukraine in the late 1920-early 1930s.

Module 10 – What Did the World Know?

What did the international community know about the Holodomor during the early 1930s? Far from being a “hidden famine,” awareness was widespread, even among those who publicly denied it was happening. By looking at the efforts of media, governments, and private organizations to cover ─ and cover up ─ the tragedy, this module provides insight into contemporary discussions about misinformation, propaganda, and mass atrocity.

Module 11 – Genocide

This module looks at the origins of the concept of genocide, its definition under international law, and how public understanding of genocide has changed from its legal definition in 1948. The module also presents common misperceptions and key debates about genocide and provides an overview of the dynamics of the Ukrainian Holodomor within comparative genocide studies frameworks.

Module 12 – After the Holodomor

In this module, we explore the short- and long-term impacts of the Holodomor, not only for Ukraine but for the USSR and beyond. Although the famine had largely ended by the fall of 1933, its consequences continued to affect the physical and mental health of survivors and had long-term impacts on social relations and society, as well as on agriculture and the environment.

Module 13 – Remembering the Holodomor

How was the memory of the Holodomor shared and passed on? In this module we look at the concept of collective memory, used by anthropologists, sociologists, historians, and psychologists. This module provides an overview of the dynamics of collective memory; the social, cultural, and political contexts of transnational memory formation; and the complex processes of collective Holodomor memory formation in and outside of Ukraine.

Over the last three years here at the University of Alberta I have had the fruitful opportunity to research in-depth the sordid story of Holodomor denialism, and rather more inspiring instances of Holodomor whistleblowing/memorialization. This research has culminated in a number of lectures and publications, including a book – Communist Propaganda in Pre-Cold War America – as well as a self-designed university course now in its third iteration which places the Holodomor at the center of modern world history: “HIST219 – Famine as Genocide in the 20th Century: The Case of the Holodomor”. This offering was developed in hand with a much larger and more collaborative scholarly project to which I have also had the fortunate chance to contribute as an author, editor, and reviewer: a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) focused on the Holodomor and offered through the UofA on the Coursera online-learning platform. The forced mass starvation of Ukrainians by the Stalinist regime was disputed and dismissed from the very beginning by government officials, corporate journalists, and paid propagandists – a project in denialism which continues to this day. This MOOC, the very first of its kind, serves as a welcome scholarly intervention into the ongoing public controversy surrounding the Holodomor – giving students the chance to engage directly, and for free, with cutting-edge scholarship on the tragedy and its causes.
– Henry Prown