Iryna Skubii
Queen’s University, Kingston
Abstract. Throughout history, famines have led to the deterioration of economic and environmental conditions in rural and urban areas, causing both people and domestic animals to die from malnutrition. However, histories of famine usually present them as human catastrophes alone, minimizing the fact that the impact of famine on animals is equally profound. At the same time that animals have suffered from hunger, they have been physically exploited for labour, in addition to being slaughtered and consumed en masse by humans due to food scarcity. In Ukraine, the Soviet collectivization of agriculture and dekulakization resulted in changes in human-animal relations and the forced confiscation of livestock. The lack of sufficient fodder for animals on both the collective farms and in households due to excessive requisitions brought domestic animals to the brink of death. Those taken into collective farms also lacked sufficient food, which resulted in the spread of animal epidemic diseases. Focusing on the famines of 1921–1923, 1932–1933, and 1946–1947 in Soviet Ukraine as case studies, this article examines the impact of famine on the survival, health, and living habitats of both domestic and wild animals, such as cats and dogs, cattle and horses, and gophers. In discussing an animal-sensitive history of famine, this article aims to answer three major theoretical and methodological questions: 1) Is there a place for animals in the history of famines? 2) What has historically been the impact of famine conditions on animals? 3) What does the history of animals in famines reveal about famines as historical events, animal-human and human-animal relationships, and how the dynamics of human-animal relations change in times of extreme crisis?
Keywords: famine, animals, environment, Ukraine, Soviet Union.
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