Lemkin on the Genocide against the Ukrainians Professor Roman Serbyn, of the Universite de Quebec http://www.infoukes.com/lists/politics/2008/10/0012.html These are the reproduced excerpts from “Soviet Genocide in Ukraine”, the last chapter of a monumental History of Genocide, written in the 1950s by the Jewish-Polish scholar, Raphael Lemkin. Unfortunately, the monograph has not yet been published and the chapter on Ukraine is known only to a few Lemkin scholars. The whole chapter (12 double-spaced pages) on Ukraine will soon be published in the original English language in the USA. It should be noted that Lemkin, who developed the concept and coined the term “genocide” , applies it to the destruction on the Ukrainian nation and not just Ukrainian peasants and farmers. Lemkin speaks of:
As Ukraine and the Ukrainian diaspora commemorates in November 2008 the 75 th anniversary of the Genocide against the Ukrainians, it should be inspired by the all-encompassing approach to the analysis of the great Ukrainian catastrophe by the father of the concept of genocide and the man who did the most to have it enshrined in the United nations Convention of 1948. Lemkin’s perception of the Ukrainian genocide as a solid recommendation to the UN Assembly to finally recognize the Ukrainian tragedy for what it was , a case of genocide , the destruction of a nation. United Nations Convention of Genocide Act 2. In the present convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such:
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