Reviews tagging 'War'

Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine by Anne Applebaum

9 reviews

maximillionmax's review against another edition

emotional informative inspiring sad slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Murder, Genocide, and Violence

Moderate: Cannibalism, Suicide, Abandonment, Child death, Classism, and Colonisation

Minor: Deportation, Kidnapping, Torture, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Hate crime, and War

yvespiders's review against another edition

Well researched and educational, but my heart couldn't take it when they talked about the effects of famine on children. Very disturbing and heartwrenching 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism, War, and Violence

leelulah's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

It felt a bit dense at first, but thrn it gained momentum.  Its so sad that in the end the USSR got its way even after WWII. The denial narrative, the accusations of fanatical nationalism and Nazism against Ukraine, while Nazis planned to do the exact same, and there were Ukrainian soldiers in the troops that helped defeat Hitler are ridiculous. They, the USSR,  even got away with reshaping the definition of genocide so that they wouldn't get accused of it.
Memory eternal to all victims, dissidents and truth bearers who dared to speak out.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Genocide, Mental illness, Deportation, Hate crime, Torture, Colonisation, War, Xenophobia, Chronic illness, Cannibalism, Child death, Death, and Eating disorder

hanna's review against another edition

dark informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.25

This was such an important read for me and I learned so much about Ukrainian history and especially about how the USSR interacted with other countries during the 20th century. 

I'm German, so I'm used to seeing only one rhetoric (one that acknowledges the USSR had issues but none as bad as Germany) and this was a really interesting different perspective. 

The way Applebaum uses her sources is something I can only aspire to as a history student. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Cannibalism, Death, and Torture

Moderate: War and Xenophobia

Minor: Animal cruelty and Animal death

sandybrady's review against another edition

challenging dark sad fast-paced

4.5

This book is about a famine. There is not much joy to be found here, but there is a lot of hard truths.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Death of parent, War, and Rape

jennifer_vars's review against another edition

challenging informative sad slow-paced

5.0

"The archival record backs up the testimony of the survivors. Neither crop failure nor bad weather caused the famine in Ukraine. Although the chaos of collectivization helped create the conditions that led to famine, the high numbers of deaths in Ukraine between 1932 and 1934, and especially the spike in the spring of 1933, were not caused directly by collectivization either. Starvation was the result, rather, of the forcible removal of food from people’s homes; the roadblocks that prevented peasants from seeking work or food; the harsh rules of the blacklists imposed on farms and villages; the restrictions on barter and trade; and the vicious propaganda campaign designed to persuade Ukrainians to watch, unmoved, as their neighbours died of hunger."

This is an intense book that took some time to get through. People always say they can't imagine how people sat by while atrocities occurred. This book shows exactly how such things can happen through propaganda, isolationism and fear. The book also illustrates that there are deep wounds still left open in the collective memory of Ukrainians, this knowledge helped me better understand the current crisis. 

It also shows just how complicated history is. Applebaum writes that when the Germans first entered the country, Ukrainians were naive and hopeful. Girls even presented troops with flowers. Can you imagine? So eager they were to escape Stalin's terror and then found themselves in the midst of another.

Estimates range that anywhere between 3-10 million people died during Stalin's famine known as "Holodomor". Ukrainian culture and language was meticulously eviscerated as well during this time and even before all of this, the land has a long history of occupation and conflict. And yet amazingly, Ukraine still exists on the map and continues its fight for independence. Ще не вмерла України і слава, і воля  (The glory and freedom of Ukraine has not yet perished)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War and Violence

xhelat's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Miscarriage, War, Animal death, Cannibalism, Child death, Death, Antisemitism, Body horror, Genocide, Murder, Violence, and Xenophobia

srm's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Xenophobia, Death, Violence, and War

Moderate: Cannibalism, Child death, Death of parent, Grief, Murder, Religious bigotry, and Torture

Minor: Animal cruelty, Antisemitism, and Racial slurs

annikalula's review against another edition

4.5

I usually don't go for books like this but read it for my Abitur (German high school diploma) as I did a project on the Holodomor and its presentation in media. And BOY this was a tough read!!!! I can say quite confidently that I did not enjoy reading this book. Firstly it is a brick of a book filled with information to its last page which makes it quite hard and exhausting to read and secondly deals with awful contents. However Anne Applebaum did her research so well and actually managed to portray the complex historic events in a relatively accessible way. I've also read a variety of other books on the Holodomor and have to say that it was my favorite- also because it was only published quite recently and contents more accurate information than other books.
However this book is SO important!!! Before reading it I've never heard of the Holodomor let alone its brutality. While working in my project and telling people about it I did not come across a single person who knew what the Holodomor was, I even had to explain it to my history teacher. 
So I hope this book gets even more attention that it already got as the Holodomor probably one of the biggest crimes of the 20th century and the education about it is beyond problematic. Please read it!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Animal death, Antisemitism, Body horror, Cannibalism, Child death, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death, Death of parent, Excrement, Genocide, Grief, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Murder, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Rape, Suicide, Torture, Violence, and War