A first-time filmmaker’s documentary on the 1930s famine in Ukraine and its impacts on Ukrainians in Minnesota will premiere on TPT pubic television on Jan. 5.

Titled “Holodomor: Minnesota Memories of Genocide in Ukraine,” the documentary is written and directed by Zina Poletz Gutmanis, of Plymouth, whose grandmother is a survivor of the famine. In the documentary, survivors and their families discuss the famine, and the documentary highlights Ukrainians in Minnesota who have worked to bring attention to it.

The famine, called the Holodomor, lasted from 1932 to 1933 in Ukraine under the rule of Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin. According to the University of Minnesota Center for Holocaust and Genocide studies, the primary victims of the Holodomor were rural farmers and villagers who were forced to surrender land and livestock to work on government collective farms as part of collectivization efforts. The number of deaths has been estimated from more than 3 million to 10 million.

Though her grandmother survived the famine, she never spoke about it, Gutmanis said. It wasn’t until she chaired a local commemoration event in 2018 for the 85th anniversary of the Holodomor, with a theme of oral history, that Gutmanis learned she knew several survivors.“And that really shocked me and made me realize that there was a lot in my history that I didn’t understand, and things that hadn’t been spoken about, traumatic events that perhaps are percolating regardless, even though they’re not discussed,” Gutmanis said.

Oral history project

Gutmanis called that realization the beginning of her research on the impact of the famine on the Ukrainian community in the state. In 2019, she began an oral history project with funding from the Minnesota Historical Society, working with survivors and their families. It was around that time that she was encouraged to make a film.

She began spending hours conducting interviews and doing research at the Immigration History Research Center archives at the University of Minnesota, she said.

While many Ukrainians don’t tell their stories of surviving the Holodomor due to the traumatic nature of it, Gutmanis said, some were willing.

“And so this film does tell the story of the Holodomor’s aftermath in the words of survivors and their children,” she said.

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Gutmanis said she realized that it had been a part of the story as well.

“It’s about the Ukrainian community in Minnesota. I mean, it tells you a lot about what we’re like and the Ukrainian diaspora. Diaspora played an important role in calling attention to these crises in the 1930s and in today and in lobbying for aid,” Gutmanis said.

‘Aspirations for freedom’

The documentary also is a product of the Ukrainian community in Minnesota. St. Constantine Ukrainian Catholic Church, St. Michael’s and St. George’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and St. Katherine Ukrainian Orthodox Church produced the documentary with Gutmanis. Many others also donated or provided other support, Gutmanis said.

“I think that I want people to learn more about their Ukrainian-American neighbors, and also, I think that it will help people understand a bit more about the war that’s happening in Ukraine right now and about the aspirations for freedom of the Ukrainian people over the centuries,” Gutmanis said.

Grant funding for the project was provided by the Minnesota Historical Society from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

“Holodomor: Minnesota Memories of Genocide in Ukraine” premieres at 8 p.m. on Jan. 5 on TPT MN 2-2 Minnesota Channel, with repeat broadcasts on Jan. 13 at 3 a.m., 9 a.m., 3 p.m. and 9 p.m. It also will be broadcast on TPT LIFE 2-3 at 9 p.m. on Jan. 31.