Opposition Folklore as a Form of Popular Resistance to the Policy of «Complete Collectivization» and Great Famine (Holodomor) 1932–1933 in Ukraine

Abstract

The article is refer to the problems of functioning of opposition folklore as one of the passive forms of peasant «culture of resistance» to the policy of «total collectivization» and the Great Famine (Holodomor) of 1932–1933 in Ukraine, shows conditions of its emergence and evolution in the early 1930^th., proved the thesis that opposition folklore was one of the factors of peasant identity in coordinates plane «friend or foe».

Key words: «the total collectivization», the Great Famine (Holodomor) 1932–1933, «culture of resistance», self-identification, the opposition folklore, satire.

Introdution. During the «total collectivization» and Great Famine (Holodomor) 1932–1933, peasantry tried to resist the «strangers» – representatives of the other, not-peasant world, largely operated as a social group with common economic interests, whose identity was formed in conflict with other social groups («strangers»).

Despite that, there are at least half of the hundreds of thousands publications about various aspects of collectivization and Great Famine, the opposition folklore was wrote a little bit. This, in turn, led to a losing of a valuable source of that era. It was got into the field of view of researchers only recently, and therefore still waiting for a thorough and comprehensive study.

The purpose of research is to study the role of folklore in the arsenal of passive forms of resistance peasants policy of «complete collectivization» and the Great Famine (Holodomor) of 1932–1933 in Ukraine.

Methods of researching are represented by: analysis of sources; comparative method; generalization; the common logical methods.

Results. Nor should we forget that the forms of peasant resistance are not just a product of the social ecology of the peasantry. The parameters of resistance are also set, in part, by the institutions of repression. To the extent that such institutions do their 'work' effectively, they may all but preclude any forms of resistance other than the individual, the informal, and the clandestine.

Thus, it is perfectly legitimate – even important - to distinguish between various levels and forms of resistance: formal-informal, individual collective, public-anonymous, those which challenge the system of domination – those which aim at marginal gains.

Many of the forms of resistance we have been examining may be 'individual' actions, but this is not to say that they are uncoordinated. Here again, a concept of coordination derived from formal and bureaucratic settings is of little assistance in understanding actions in small communities with dense informal networks and rich, and historically deep, sub-cultures of resistance to outside claims. It is, for example, no exaggeration to say that much of the folk-culture of the peasant 'little tradition' amounts to a legitimation, or even a celebration, of precisely the kinds of evasive and cunning forms of resistance we have examined. In this and in other ways (for example, tales of bandits, peasant heroes, religious myths) the peasant subculture helps to underwrite dissimulation, poaching, theft, tax evasion, avoidance of conscription and so on. While folk-culture is not co-ordination in the formal sense, it often achieves a 'climate of opinion' which, in other more institutionalised societies, would require a public relations campaign.

Originality. Author in complex showed problems of functioning of opposition folklore as one of the passive forms of peasant «culture of resistance» to the policy of «total collectivization» and the Great Famine (Holodomor) of 1932–1933 in Ukraine, proved the thesis that opposition folklore was one of the factors of peasant identity in coordinates plane «friend or foe».

Conclusion. Review of the newest researches and publications shows that cases of passive resistance are the subject of multilateral interpretations and explanations of their objective reality can not be put into question, taking into account the context and the results of the behavior of peasants on collective farms (kolkhoz). Peasants, which were motivated by a number not always clearly defined reasons, used various forms of passive resistance, among them a prominent place occupied opposition folklore.