Andriy Portnov
Conceptions of Genocide and "Ethnic Cleansing":
Western Scholarly Discussions and
their Ukrainian Topics
The author attempts to present the main trends and themes in the field of genocide studies. The article contains discussion of definitions of "genocide" and a brief overview of the history of genocide studies as a field developing in close contact with political and media challenges. The article also sketches the main problematics of the field: genocide and modernity, genocide and war, the questions of terminology and research methodologies. Portnov analyzes various comparative approaches to the study of Nazism and Communism and discussions around "Soviet totalitarianism", which, in the author's opinion, reveal more about the scholarly and politico-ideological contexts of German, French and American academia than about the subject of discussion. The author conceptualizes the famine of 1932-33 as a challenge to the theory of genocide and notes its major problematic points: the issue of intentionality of Stalin's policy; national dimensions of the famine in Ukraine; and the problem of perpetrators on various levels of Soviet bureaucracy. Portnov also proposes a brief introduction to the problematics of the Holocaust in Ukraine and Ukrainian topics in the history of "ethnic cleansing" (anti-Polish campaign of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in Volhynia in 1943 and Soviet deportations of Crimean Tatars in 1944). The author emphasizes moral and legal dimensions of the studies of genocides and urges sensitivity to the strategies of their denial or relativization.