title: Marilyn Manson

text: He performed vocals on the Chew Fu GhettoHouse Fix remix of Lady Gaga's "LoveGame", which was featured as a b-side on the song's single in 2008. He was a featured vocalist on "Can't Haunt Me", a track recorded in 2011 for Skylar Grey's unreleased album "Invinsible". He appeared on "Bad Girl", a song from Avril Lavigne's 2013 self-titled album, and featured on the song "Hypothetical" from Emigrate's 2014 album "Silent So Long". New Orleans brass ensemble the Soul Rebels performed "The Beautiful People" alongside Manson at the 2015 edition of the Japanese Summer Sonic Festival. Manson recorded vocals on a cover of Bowie's "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" for country musician Shooter Jennings's 2016 album "Countach (For Giorgio)". The two were introduced in 2013 by Manson's then-bassist Twiggy Ramirez, and the pair first collaborated that same year on a song for the soundtrack to television series "Sons of Anarchy". Their version of the song, "Join the Human Gang", remains unreleased, but the track was eventually rewritten and released by The White Buffalo as "Come Join the Murder". Jennings later produced Manson's 2020 album "We Are Chaos".


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Manson has collaborated with numerous hip hop artists. In 1998, he featured on "The Omen (Damien II)", a track on DMX's album "Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood". Following the Columbine High School massacre, Manson was mentioned in the lyrics to Eminem's "The Way I Am" from "The Marshall Mathers LP", in the lyric "When a dude's getting bullied and he shoots up the school and they blame it on Marilyn". Manson appeared in the song's music video, and a remix created by Danny Lohner and featuring Manson appeared on special editions of "The Marshall Mathers LP". Manson also joined Eminem on-stage for several live performances of the track, one of which featured on Eminem's 2002 video album "All Access Europe". He featured on "Pussy Wet", a song on Gucci Mane's 2013 mixtape "Diary of a Trap God", and provided vocals on the song "Marilyn Manson" on the 2020 mixtape "Floor Seats II" by ASAP Ferg.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Alongside DaBaby, Manson co-wrote and was a featured artist on "Jail pt 2", a song on Kanye West's 2021 album "Donda". Manson and DaBaby appeared alongside West at several events promoting the album, including at a listening event held at Soldier Field in August, and at one of West's Sunday Church Services in October. The appearances attracted significant media attention and controversy. West said the trio collaborated on a total of five songs. The album was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album, which entitled Manson to a co-nomination credit for his work on the song. Manson continued his collaboration with West for the follow-up album, "Donda 2". West collaborator Digital Nas said Manson was in the recording studio "every day" while the album was recorded, and explained that West "doesn't want Marilyn to play rap beats. He wants Marilyn to play what he makes, and then Ye will take parts of that and sample parts of that and use parts of that, like he did [generally when making] "Yeezus"." Manson band-member Tim Skold has confirmed he was involved in the process.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: While with The Spooky Kids, Manson teamed with Jeordie White (also known as Twiggy Ramirez) and Stephen Gregory Bier Jr. (also known as Madonna Wayne Gacy) in two side-projects: Satan on Fire, a faux-Christian metal ensemble where he played bass guitar, and drums in Mrs. Scabtree, a collaborative band formed with White and then girlfriend Jessicka (vocalist with the band Jack Off Jill) as a way to combat contractual agreements that prohibited Marilyn Manson from playing in certain clubs.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Manson made his film debut in 1997, as an actor in David Lynch's "Lost Highway". Since then he has appeared in many minor roles and cameos, including "Party Monster"; then-girlfriend Rose McGowan's 1999 film "Jawbreaker"; Asia Argento's 2004 film "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things"; ""; "The Hire: Beat The Devil", the sixth installment in the BMW films series; and Showtime's comedy-drama TV series "Californication" in 2013, in which Manson portrayed himself. He also appeared on HBO's "Eastbound & Down", of which Manson is reportedly a longtime fan, and had lobbied to appear on for years; and ABC's "Once Upon a Time", for which he provided the voice of the character "Shadow".


title: Marilyn Manson

text: He was interviewed in Michael Moore's political documentary "Bowling for Columbine" (2002) discussing possible motivations for the Columbine massacre and allegations that his music was somehow a factor. He has appeared in animated form in "Clone High" and participated in several episodes of the MTV series "Celebrity Deathmatch", becoming the show's unofficial champion and mascot; he often performed the voice for his claymated puppet, and contributed the song "Astonishing Panorama of the Endtimes" to the soundtrack album. In July 2005, Manson told "Rolling Stone" that he was shifting his focus from music to filmmaking – "I just don't think the world is worth putting music into right now. I no longer want to make art that other people – particularly record companies – are turning into a product. I just want to make art." Johnny Depp reportedly used Manson as his inspiration for his performance as Willy Wonka in the film "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". Manson himself expressed interest in playing the role of Willy Wonka in the film.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: He had been working on his directorial debut, "Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll", a project that has been in development hell since 2004, with Manson also set to portray the role of Lewis Carroll, author of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". Initially announced as a web-only release, it was later decided to give the estimated $4.2 million budget film a conventional cinema release, with a slated release date of mid-2007. The film was to have an original music soundtrack with previously unreleased songs. Production of the film had been postponed indefinitely until after the "Eat Me, Drink Me" tour. In 2010, studio bosses shut down production on the project, reportedly due to viewers' responses to the violent content of clips released on the internet. The film was later officially put on "indefinite production hold".


title: Marilyn Manson

text: However, according to a 2010 interview with co-writer Anthony Silva about the hold, the film was still on and the talk of it being shut down was just a myth.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: In a June 2013 interview, Manson stated that he had "resurrected" the project, and that Roger Avary would direct it. In a separate interview during the previous year, he said a small crew similar to what he used for his "Slo-Mo-Tion" music video would be used, and would rather film the movie on an iPhone than not film it at all. In a Reddit AMA with Billy Corgan on April 4, 2015, Manson commented that he had withdrawn from the project because the writing process for the film was "so... damaging to my psyche, I've decided I don't want to have anything to do with it", and further commented that the only footage that had been created thus far had been content created for the trailer, which was made in order to promote the film.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Manson appeared in the final season of the TV series "Sons of Anarchy", portraying white supremacist Ron Tully. In January 2016, it was announced that Manson would be joining the cast for season 3 of WGN's "Salem". He played Thomas Dinley, a barber and surgeon described as "the go-to man in Salem, from a shave and a haircut to being leeched, bled, sliced open or sewn up". In 2020, Manson was a guest star on the HBO television series "The New Pope", in which he has a personal audience with the series' Pope and recommends that he visit the prior Pope that lies unconscious in a coma.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Manson stated in a 2004 interview with "i-D magazine" to have begun his career as a watercolor painter in 1999 when he made five-minute concept pieces and sold them to drug dealers. On September 13–14, 2002, his first show, The Golden Age of Grotesque, was held at the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions Centre. "Art in America"s Max Henry likened them to the works of a "psychiatric patient given materials to use as therapy" and said his work would never be taken seriously in a fine art context, writing that the value was "in their celebrity, not the work". On September 14–15, 2004, Manson held a second exhibition on the first night in Paris and the second in Berlin. The show was named 'Trismegistus' which was also the title of the center piece of the exhibit – a large, three-headed Christ painted onto an antique wood panel from a portable embalmers table.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Manson named his self-proclaimed art movement Celebritarian Corporation. He has coined a slogan for the movement: "We will sell our shadow to those who stand within it." In 2005 he said that the Celebritarian Corporation has been "incubating for seven years" which if correct would indicate that Celebritarian Corporation, in some form, started in 1998. Celebritarian Corporation is also the namesake of an art gallery owned by Manson, called the "Celebritarian Corporation Gallery of Fine Art" in Los Angeles for which his third exhibition was the inaugural show. From April 2–17, 2007, his works were on show at the Space 39 Modern & Contemporary art gallery in Fort Myers, Florida. Forty pieces from this show traveled to Germany's Gallery Brigitte Schenk in Cologne to be publicly exhibited from June 28 – July 28, 2007. Manson revealed a series of 20 paintings in 2010 entitled "Genealogies of Pain", an exhibition showcased at Vienna's Kunsthalle gallery which the artist collaborated on with David Lynch.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Manson has made an appearance in the video game "Area 51" as Edgar, a grey alien. His song "Cruci-Fiction in Space" is featured in a commercial for the video game, "The Darkness". His likeness is also featured on the "Celebrity Deathmatch" video game for which he recorded a song for the soundtrack (2003). The song "Use Your Fist and Not Your Mouth" was the credits score of the game "Cold Fear" as well as "". The song "Four Rusted Horses" had an alternate version used in trailers for the video game "Fear 3". A remix of the song "Tainted Love" appears in the debut trailer for the 2010 video game, "" and in the launch trailer of the 2012 video game "Twisted Metal". Manson's song "The Beautiful People" was featured in "WWE SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth", "KickBeat" and "Brütal Legend". The song "Arma-goddamn-motherfuckin-geddon" is also featured in "". His music video to the song "Personal Jesus" was used in some parts of the "Buzz!" game series.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Manson launched "Mansinthe", his own brand of Swiss-made absinthe, which has received mixed reviews; some critics described the taste as being "just plain", but it came second to Versinthe in an Absinthe top five and won a gold medal at the 2008 San Francisco World Spirits Competition. Other reviewers, such as critics at The Wormwood Society, have given the absinthe moderately high praise. In 2015, Manson stated he was no longer drinking absinthe.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Manson predominantly delivers lyrics in a melodic fashion, although he invariably enhances his vocal register by utilizing several extended vocal techniques, such as vocal fry, screaming, growling and crooning. In one interview he claimed his voice has five different tones, which mixing engineer Robert Carranza discovered can form a pentagram when imported into a phrasal analyzer. He possesses a baritone vocal type, and has a vocal range which spans three octaves. His lowest bass note of A1 can be heard in "Arma-goddamn-motherfuckin-geddon", while his highest note, an E6 — the first note of the whistle register — can be heard on the "Born Villain" song "Hey, Cruel World...".


title: Marilyn Manson

text: The name Marilyn Manson is formed by a juxtaposition of two opposing American pop cultural icons: Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson. Monroe, an actress, was one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and continues to be a major icon over 50 years after, while Manson, a cult leader, was responsible for the murder of actress Sharon Tate, as well as several others; and served a life sentence on murder and conspiracy charges until his death in 2017.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Manson has mentioned on at least two occasions that he trademarked the name Marilyn Manson. In an interview at the 2015 Cannes Lions Festival, he said: "I trademarked the name 'Marilyn Manson' the same way as Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse. It's not a stage name. It's not my legal name. ... Marilyn Manson is owned by Brian Warner, my real name." He also mentioned this in a 2013 interview with Larry King. The records of the United States Patent and Trademark Office show that he registered four trademarks of the name between 1994 and 1999, protecting entertainment services, merchandising and branding.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Manson says he used those trademark registrations to issue cease and desist orders to media outlets who wrongly blamed him for the Columbine High School massacre. One journalist had erroneously reported the shooters were "wearing Marilyn Manson makeup and t-shirts", although the reports were soon proved incorrect. However, Manson said, "Once the wheels started spinning, Fox News started going." As a result of these accusations, Manson's career was seriously harmed: He was shunned by many venue owners and received numerous death threats.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Manson generally uses the name in lieu of his birth name. Though his mother referred to him by his birth name of Brian, his father opted to refer to his son as simply "Manson" since about 1993, saying, "It's called respect of the artist."


title: Marilyn Manson

text: In September 1996, former bassist Gidget Gein negotiated a settlement with Manson where he would receive and 20 percent of any royalties paid for recordings and for any songs he had a hand in writing and his share of any other royalties or fees the group earned while he was a member and he could market himself as a former member of Marilyn Manson. This settlement was not honored, however.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Former guitarist and founding member Scott Putesky (a.k.a. Daisy Berkowitz) filed a $15 million lawsuit in a Fort Lauderdale court against the singer, the band and the band's attorney (David Codikow) in January 1998 after his departure from the group in the spring of 1996. Berkowitz claimed "thousands of dollars in royalties, publishing rights, and performance fees" and filed an attorney malpractice suit against Codikow, alleging that "Codikow represented Warner's interests more than the band's and ... gave Warner disproportionate control.." By October of that year, the suit had been settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: On November 30, 1998, a few days after the band accumulated "[a] total [of] more than $25,000" in backstage and hotel room damages during the Poughkeepsie, New York, stop of their Mechanical Animals Tour, "SPIN" editor Craig Marks filed a $24-million lawsuit against Manson and his bodyguards. On February 19, 1999, Manson counter-sued Marks for libel, slander and defamation, seeking in reparation. Marks later dropped the lawsuit. Manson apologized for the Poughkeepsie incident and offered to make financial restitution.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: In a civil battery suit, David Diaz, a security officer from a concert in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on October 27, 2000, sued for in a Minneapolis federal court. The federal court jury found in Manson's favor. In a civil suit presented by Oakland County, Michigan, Manson was charged with sexual misconduct against another security officer, Joshua Keasler, during a concert in Clarkston, Michigan, on July 30, 2001. Oakland County originally filed assault and battery and criminal sexual misconduct charges, but the judge reduced the latter charge to misdemeanor disorderly conduct. Manson pleaded no contest to the reduced charges, paid a fine, and later settled the lawsuit under undisclosed terms.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: On April 3, 2002, Maria St. John filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court accusing Manson of providing her adult daughter, Jennifer Syme, with cocaine and instructing her to drive while under the influence. After attending a party at Manson's house, Syme was given a lift home; Manson claims she was taken home by a designated driver. After she got home, she got behind the wheel of her own vehicle and was killed when she crashed it into three parked cars. Manson is reported to have said there were no alcohol or other drugs at the party; St. John's lawyer disputed this claim.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: On August 2, 2007, former band member Stephen Bier filed a lawsuit against Manson for unpaid "partnership proceeds", seeking $20 million in back pay. Several details from the lawsuit leaked to the press. In December 2007, Manson countersued, claiming that Bier failed to fulfill his duties as a band member to play for recordings and to promote the band. On December 28, 2009, the suit was settled with an agreement which saw Bier's attorneys being paid a total of $380,000.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Manson has supported various charitable causes throughout his career. In 2002, he worked with the Make-A-Wish Foundation to collaborate with a fan who had been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. 16-year-old Andrew Baines from Tennessee was invited into the band's recording studio to record backing vocals for their then-upcoming album, "The Golden Age of Grotesque". Manson said on his website, "Yesterday, I spent the afternoon with Andrew, who reminded me the things I create are only made complete by those who enjoy them. I just want to simply say, thank you to Andrew for sharing such an important wish with me." He contributed to Oxfam's 2013 "Rumble in the Jumble" event, which raised money to aid victims of domestic and sexual abuse in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He has supported various organizations – such as Music for Life and Little Kids Rock — which enable access to musical instruments and education to children of low-income families. He has also worked with Project Nightlight, a group that encourages children and teenagers to speak out against physical and sexual abuse. In 2019, he performed alongside Cyndi Lauper at her annual 'Home for the Holidays' benefit concert, with all proceeds donated to Lauper's True Colors United, which "works to develop solutions to youth homelessness that focus on the unique experiences of LGBTQ young people".


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Manson is heterosexual. He was engaged to actress Rose McGowan from February 1999 to January 2001. McGowan later ended their engagement, citing "lifestyle differences."


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Manson and burlesque dancer, model, and costume designer Dita Von Teese became a couple in 2001. He proposed on March 22, 2004, and they were married in a private, non-denominational ceremony officiated by Chilean film director Alejandro Jodorowsky. On December 30, 2006, Von Teese filed for divorce due to "irreconcilable differences". Von Teese also eventually stated she did not agree with Manson's "partying or his relationship with another girl". Manson's "heavy boozing" and distant behavior were also cited as cause for the split. A judgment of divorce was entered in Los Angeles Superior Court on December 27, 2007.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Manson's relationship with actress, model, and musician Evan Rachel Wood was made public in 2007. They reportedly maintained an on-again, off-again relationship for several years. He proposed to Wood during a Paris stage performance in January 2010, but the couple broke off the engagement later that year.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: In the March 2012 issue of "Revolver" magazine, American photographer Lindsay Usich was referred to as Manson's girlfriend. The article referenced a new painting by him featuring her. Usich is credited as the photo source for the cover art of Manson's 2012 album, "Born Villain". It was later confirmed that the two were romantically involved. In February 2015, Manson told "Beat" magazine that he is "newly single".


title: Marilyn Manson

text: In October 2020, Manson revealed in an interview with Nicolas Cage on ABC News Radio that he was married in a private ceremony during the COVID-19 pandemic. The person he married was revealed to be Usich after she changed her social media name to "Lindsay Elizabeth Warner".


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Manson claims he was a friend of Anton LaVey, and early on had also claimed LaVey inducted him as a minister in the Church of Satan. Later in his career, Manson downplayed this, saying he was "not necessarily" a minister: "that was something earlier... it was a friend of mine who's now dead, who was a philosopher that I thought I learned a lot from. And that was a title I was given, so a lot of people made a lot out of it. But it's not a real job, I didn't get paid for it." The Church of Satan itself later confirmed Manson was never ordained as a minister in their church.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Despite that, Manson has been described as "the highest profile Satanist ever" with strong anti-Christian views and social Darwinist leanings. However, Manson denies this, and stated the following:


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Manson is also familiar with the writings of Aleister Crowley and Friedrich Nietzsche. He quotes Crowley throughout his autobiography, including Thelema's principal dictum, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law." Crowley's esoteric subject matter forms an important theme in much of Manson's early work.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Marilyn Manson has been referred to as one of the most iconic and controversial figures in heavy metal music, with some referring to him as a "pop culture icon". "Paste" magazine said there were "few artists in the 90s as shocking as Marilyn Manson, the most famous of the shock-rockers". In her book "Music in American Life: An Encyclopedia of the Songs, Styles, Stars, and Stories That Shaped Our Culture", author Jacqueline Edmondson writes that Manson creates music that "challenges people's worldviews and provokes questions and further thinking". Manson, his work, and the work of his eponymous band, have been involved in numerous controversies throughout their career.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: On May 30, 1996, the co-directors of political advocacy group Empower America organized a bipartisan press conference with Republican William Bennett and Democrats Joseph Lieberman and C. Delores Tucker, in which the record industry was admonished for selling "prepackaged, shrink-wrapped nihilism." The three largely targeted rap music, but also referenced Manson; Tucker called "Smells Like Children" the "dirtiest, nastiest porno record directed at children that has ever hit the market" and said distributing record labels had "the blood of children on their hands", while Lieberman said the music "celebrates some of the most antisocial and immoral behaviors imaginable." They also announced that Empower America would be launching a $25,000 radio advertising campaign to collect petitions from listeners who wanted record companies to "stop spreading this vicious, vulgar music."


title: Marilyn Manson

text: The release of "Antichrist Superstar" in 1996 coincided with the band's commercial breakthrough, and much of the attention received by Manson from mainstream media was not positive. Empower America organized another press conference in December 1996, where they criticized MCA—the owner of Interscope—president Edgar Bronfman Jr. for profiting from "profanity-laced" albums by Manson, Tupac Shakur and Snoop Doggy Dogg. The band's live performances also came under fire during this period; the "Dead to the World Tour" was followed by protesters at nearly every North American venue it visited. Opponents of the band claimed the shows featured elements of Satanism, including a satanic altar, bestiality, rape, the distribution of free drugs, homosexual acts, as well as animal and even human sacrifices. Anonymous affidavits compiled by the Gulf Coast division of the American Family Association made various other claims about the live shows. Students in Florida were threatened with expulsion for attending the band's concerts.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Several state legislatures, including the Utah State Legislature, South Carolina Legislature and the Virginia General Assembly, enacted legislation specifically targeting the group, banning them from performing at state-operated venues. These laws would later be repealed, following separate lawsuits from fans and the American Civil Liberties Union. Ozzy Osbourne sued the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority after they forced the cancelation of the New Jersey date of the 1997 Ozzfest at Giants Stadium; Manson's appearance had been cited as the reason for the cancelation. In November 1997, Manson's lyrical content was examined during congressional hearings led by Lieberman and Sam Brownback, in an attempt to determine the effects—if any—of violent lyrics on young listeners. The subcommittee heard testimony from Raymond Kuntz, who blamed his son's suicide on "Antichrist Superstar"—specifically the song "The Reflecting God". Lieberman went on to claim that the band's music was driving young listeners to commit suicide, and called the band the "sickest group ever promoted by a mainstream record company."


title: Marilyn Manson

text: On April 20, 1999, Columbine High School students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed thirteen people and wounded twenty-one others before committing suicide. At the time, it was the deadliest school shooting in US history. In the immediate aftermath of the massacre, media reports surfaced that were heavily critical of Goth subculture, alleging the perpetrators were wearing Marilyn Manson T-shirts during the massacre, and that they were influenced by violence in entertainment, specifically movies, video games and music. Five days after the incident, William Bennet and Joseph Lieberman – longtime critics of the vocalist – appeared on "Meet the Press", where they cited his music as a contributing factor to the shooting. Soon after, sensationalist headlines such as "Killers Worshipped Rock Freak Manson" and "Devil-Worshipping Maniac Told Kids To Kill" began appearing in media coverage of the tragedy. Despite confirmation that the pair were fans of German industrial bands such as KMFDM and Rammstein, and had "nothing but contempt" for Manson's music, mainstream media continued to direct the majority of blame for the shooting at Manson.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: The Mayor of Denver, Wellington Webb, successfully petitioned for the cancelation of KBPI-FM's annual "Birthday Bash", at which Manson was scheduled to appear on April 30. Webb said the concert would be "inappropriate" because the two gunmen were fans of Marilyn Manson. Coloradoan politicians Bill Owens and Tom Tancredo accused Manson of promoting "hate, violence, death, suicide, drug use and the attitudes and actions of the Columbine High School killers." On April 29, ten US senators led by Brownback sent a letter to the head of Seagram, the conglomerate which owned Manson's record label, requesting they stop distributing music to children that "glorifies violence". The letter named Manson, accusing him of producing songs that "eerily reflect" the actions of Harris and Klebold.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Manson canceled the final four dates of the Rock Is Dead Tour out of respect for the victims while criticizing the media for their irresponsible coverage of the tragedy. He elaborated on this point in an op-ed written for "Rolling Stone" titled "Columbine: Whose Fault Is It?". In the article, Manson castigated America's gun culture and the political influence of the National Rifle Association, but was heavily critical of news media. He argued the media should be blamed for the next school shooting, as it was them who propagated the ensuing hysteria and "witch hunt", and said that instead of debating more relevant societal issues, the media instead facilitated the placing of blame on a scapegoat.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: On May 4, Brownback chaired a congressional hearing of the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation on the distribution and marketing of supposedly violent content to children by the film, music, television and video-game industries. The committee heard testimony from Bennett, the Archbishop of Denver Charles J. Chaput, as well as professors and mental health professionals; they criticized Manson, his label mates Nine Inch Nails, and the 1999 film "The Matrix" for their alleged contribution to a cultural environment enabling violence such as the Columbine shootings. Recording Industry Association of America executive Hilary Rosen said she refused to participate in the hearing as it was "staged as political theater. They just wanted to find a way to shame the industry, and I'm not ashamed." The committee eventually requested the Federal Trade Commission and the United States Department of Justice investigate the entertainment industry's marketing practices to minors. The lyrical content of the band's 2000 album "Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death)" was largely inspired by the massacre, with Manson saying it was a rebuttal to the accusations leveled against him by mainstream media. He also discussed the massacre and its aftermath in Michael Moore's 2002 documentary "Bowling for Columbine".


title: Marilyn Manson

text: In 2000, an elderly nun was murdered by three schoolgirls in Italy, with their diaries reportedly containing numerous references to and pictures of Manson. Soon after, he was arrested following a concert in Rome for allegedly "tearing off his genitals". Manson said the arrest was politically motivated following his implication in the murder by Italian tabloids. In 2003, French media blamed Manson when several teenagers vandalized the graves of British war heroes in Arras, France.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: On June 30, 2003, 14-year old schoolgirl Jodi Jones was brutally murdered in Scotland. Her mutilated body was discovered in woodland near her home, with her injuries said to closely resemble those of Elizabeth Short, commonly referred to by media as the Black Dahlia. Ten months later, Jones's boyfriend Luke Mitchell, then-fifteen years old, was arrested on suspicion of her murder. Police confiscated a copy of "The Golden Age of Grotesque" containing the short film "Doppelherz" during a search of Mitchell's family home, which had been purchased by Mitchell two days after Jones's death. A ten-minute excerpt from the film, as well as several paintings created by Manson depicting the Black Dahlia's mutilated body, were presented as evidence during the trial. Mitchell was found guilty of her murder and was sentenced to a minimum of twenty years in prison. In his closing summation, Lord Nimmo Smith said he believed Mitchell "carried an image of [Manson's] paintings in your memory when you killed Jodi." Mitchell continues to profess his innocence.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: The controversy connecting Manson to school shootings continued on October 10, 2007, when fourteen-year old Asa Coon shot four people at SuccessTech Academy in Cleveland, Ohio, before committing suicide. While exiting a bathroom, Coon was punched in the face by another student, and responded by shooting his attacker in the abdomen. Coon then walked down the hallway and shot in to two occupied classrooms – wounding two teachers and a student – before entering a bathroom and committing suicide. Coon was wearing a Marilyn Manson T-shirt during the shooting. A photograph of Coon's dead body was circulated online by Cleveland police officer Walter Emerick. On May 18, 2009, Justin Doucet, a fifteen-year-old student at Larose-Cut Off Middle School in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana, entered the school with a semi-automatic pistol. After a teacher refused to comply with Doucet's demand to say "Hail Marilyn Manson", he fired two shots that narrowly missed the teacher's head, before shooting himself. Doucet died from his injuries a week later.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Several of Manson's former acquaintances began communicating with one another in September 2020. In a letter dated January 21, 2021, California State Senator Susan Rubio wrote to the director of the FBI and the U.S. Attorney General, asking them to investigate allegations several women had made against Manson. On February 1, former fiancée Evan Rachel Wood wrote on Instagram and in a statement to "Vanity Fair", accusing Manson of being abusive during their relationship a decade earlier. Four other women simultaneously issued statements also accusing Manson of abuse. Wood continued to make allegations against Manson and his wife Lindsay Usich on Instagram, claiming that his alleged abuse included antisemitism, and said she filed a report with the Los Angeles Police Department against Usich for threatening to leak photographs of Wood dressed in a Nazi uniform while wearing an Adolf Hitler-style toothbrush moustache. A total of sixteen people have made various allegations against Manson on Instagram.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Manson was immediately dropped by distributing record label Loma Vista Recordings, his talent agency Creative Artists, and his long-time manager Tony Ciulla. He was also removed from future episodes of TV series "American Gods" and "Creepshow", in which he was scheduled to appear. On February 2, Manson issued a statement via Instagram, saying, "Obviously, my art and my life have long been magnets for controversy, but these recent claims about me are horrible distortions of reality. My intimate relationships have always been entirely consensual with like-minded partners", and claimed the accusers were "misrepresenting the past". His former wife Dita Von Teese stated that "the details made public do not match my personal experience during our 7 years together as a couple." Former girlfriend Rose McGowan said that Manson was not abusive during their relationship but that her experience had "no bearing on whether he was like that with others before or after". On February 3, the LAPD performed a "welfare check" at Manson's home after receiving a call from a purported friend who was concerned for his wellbeing. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department confirmed on February 19 that they were investigating Manson due to allegations of domestic violence.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Four women filed civil lawsuits against Manson in the months that followed Wood's allegations, Esmé Bianco, Ashley Morgan Smithline, Ashley Walters, and an anonymous woman. Manson's legal team issued statements denying the allegations. They filed a motion to dismiss these lawsuits, calling the claims "untrue, meritless" and alleging that several of the accusers "spent months plotting, workshopping, and fine-tuning their stories to turn what were consensual friendships and relationships with Warner from more than a decade ago, into twisted tales that bear no resemblance to reality". The lawsuit filed by the anonymous woman was initially dismissed because it exceeded the statute of limitations, although an amended complaint was refiled soon after. Manson's legal team also sought to have Bianco's lawsuit dismissed because it exceeded the statute of limitations, although a federal judge denied that motion. Walters's lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice in May.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: Manson filed a lawsuit against Wood and Ashley "Illma" Gore for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, violations of the California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, as well as the impersonation of an FBI agent and falsifying federal documents. In the suit, it is alleged that Wood and Gore spent three years contacting his former girlfriends and provided "checklists and scripts" to prospective accusers in order to corroborate Wood's claims, and that the pair impersonated and falsified documents from an FBI agent. The suit additionally claims Gore hacked into Manson's computers and social media, and created fake email accounts to manufacture evidence he had been distributing "illicit pornography". It is also alleged that Gore swatted Manson by calling the FBI claiming to be a friend concerned about an "emergency" at his home. As a result of the call, several police officers were dispatched to his property, where "there was no emergency". He is seeking a jury trial.


title: Marilyn Manson

text: The LACSD presented the findings of their 19-month investigation of the sexual assault allegations made against Manson to California district attorney George Gascón in September 2022. Gascón called the file "partial" and said more evidence was needed in order to file charges.


title: Hayden Christensen

text: Hayden Christensen (; born April 19, 1981) is a Canadian actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader in the "Star Wars" media franchise. He first appeared in the prequel trilogy films, "" (2002) and "" (2005), and later reprised his role with a voice cameo in "" (2019), and as the main antagonist in the Disney+ series "Obi-Wan Kenobi" (2022). He will also reprise his role in the upcoming Disney+ series "Ahsoka" (2023).


title: Hayden Christensen

text: Christensen began his career on Canadian television at the age of 13, then diversified into American television in the late 1990s. His early work includes Sofia Coppola's "The Virgin Suicides" (1999), "Life as a House" (2001), and "Shattered Glass" (2003), to which he earned critical acclaim for his performances as Sam in "Life as a House" and as Stephen Glass in "Shattered Glass". Christensen's honours include the nominations for a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, as well as the Cannes Film Festival's Trophée Chopard. His other notable works in both blockbuster and independent films include "Awake" (2007), "Jumper" (2008), "Takers" (2010), and "Little Italy" (2018).


title: Hayden Christensen

text: Christensen was born in Vancouver, British Columbia to Alie, an American speechwriter, and David Christensen, a Canadian computer programmer and communications executive. His father is of Danish descent, and his mother has Swedish and Italian ancestry. Christensen is one of four children, with three actor siblings: older brother Tove, older sister Hejsa, and younger sister Kaylen. He spent summers on Long Island with his maternal grandmother, Rose Schwartz.


title: Hayden Christensen

text: Christensen attended Unionville High School in Markham, Ontario. He was an athlete in high school, playing hockey competitively and tennis on a provincial level. He attended the Actors Studio in New York City; he studied as well at the Arts York drama program in high school. After accompanying his older sister to her agent's office after she landed a role in a Pringles commercial, he began being cast in commercials as well, including for Triaminic cough syrup in 1988.


title: Hayden Christensen

text: Christensen made his acting debut in September 1993, when, at the age of 12, he played a supporting role on the German-Canadian television series "Macht Der Leidenschaft/Family Passions." The following year, he had a minor role in John Carpenter's "In the Mouth of Madness". From 1995 through 1999, he appeared in several films and television series, including "Harrison Bergeron", "Forever Knight", "Goosebumps", "The Virgin Suicides", and "Are You Afraid of the Dark?"


title: Hayden Christensen

text: He acquired wider notice while starring in Fox Family Channel's television series "Higher Ground" in 2000, portraying a teen who was sexually molested by his stepmother, and then turned to drugs in his despair.


title: Hayden Christensen

text: Christensen's critically acclaimed portrayal of a misunderstood teenager in "Life as a House" (2001) earned him Golden Globe and SAG Award nominations, as well as the National Board of Review's award for "Breakthrough Performance of the Year". However, the performance did not receive widespread public notice. In 2002, Christensen made his London theatre debut with Jake Gyllenhaal and Anna Paquin in "This Is Our Youth".


title: Hayden Christensen

text: He went on to receive positive reviews for 2003's "Shattered Glass", which tells the true story of journalist Stephen Glass, who was discovered to be fabricating stories as a writer for "The New Republic" and other publications. Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" wrote, "Hayden Christensen is sensational as Glass, finding the wonder boy and the weasel in a disturbed kid flying high on a fame he hasn't earned." In 2005, Christensen made his Broadway debut when he appeared briefly in a 10-minute play.


title: Hayden Christensen

text: In 2005, he took part in the fifth annual "24 Hour Plays" benefit, which raises cash for nonprofit groups in the Big Apple.


title: Hayden Christensen

text: On May 12, 2000, Christensen announced that he would be starring as an adult Anakin Skywalker in "" (2002) and "" (2005), Skywalker was previously portrayed by Jake Lloyd as a child in "" (1999). The casting director reviewed about 1,500 other candidates before director George Lucas selected Christensen. Lucas is quoted as saying that he chose Christensen because he "needed an actor who has that presence of the Dark Side". This was essential to solidify the story that Lucas was trying to tell: Anakin Skywalker's fall from grace and transformation into Darth Vader.


title: Hayden Christensen

text: During the production of "Revenge of the Sith", Christensen asked Lucas if a special Vader suit could be constructed to fit his own body, rather than have a different actor don one of the original sets of Vader armour worn by David Prowse. Lucas agreed, and a suit was engineered to fit Christensen's frame, even including extensions to allow for the actor to attain Vader's height. His voice as the "robotic" Vader, however, was dubbed over by James Earl Jones, who first made the voice famous in the original trilogy.


title: Hayden Christensen

text: Stock footage of Christensen was used in the 2004 DVD-release edition of "Return of the Jedi", where he was inserted to replace Sebastian Shaw as the force ghost of the redeemed Anakin Skywalker. This was one of the most controversial changes. Lucas wanted Anakin's inner person to return to who he was before he turned to the dark side. Christensen insisted this was done without his knowledge, an act that was confirmed by Lucasfilm itself in the featurette "Return of the Jedi: What has changed?" as seen on the official website to commemorate the 2006 DVDs.


title: Hayden Christensen

text: Christensen's performance in both "" and "" received generally mixed reviews from critics, although contemporary reviews note that his performance was mostly affected by Lucas' directing and the dialogue, and has since seen positive reappraisal in retrospect.


title: Hayden Christensen

text: Christensen was named in both "People" magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People and "Teen People"s 25 Hottest Stars under 25. For his performance in "Episode III", he won the MTV Movie Award for Best Villain.


title: Hayden Christensen

text: Between 2006 and 2007, he starred in "Awake", with Jessica Alba, which tells the story of a man who remains awake but paralyzed during heart surgery, and co-starred in "Factory Girl", opposite Sienna Miller and Guy Pearce. Christensen next co-starred with Samuel L. Jackson, Jamie Bell, and Rachel Bilson in the film "Jumper", the story of a young man who discovers he has the ability to teleport; the film was released on February 14, 2008. Bilson and Christensen co-starred again in the same segment of the film "New York, I Love You". Christensen appeared opposite Mischa Barton in "Virgin Territory", which was released directly-to-DVD in North America on August 26, 2008. The film, based on "The Decameron", is about a group of people who escape the Black Plague epidemic by hiding out in a Tuscan villa in Italy.


title: Hayden Christensen

text: In October 2009, Christensen started shooting the horror film "Vanishing on 7th Street", directed by Brad Anderson, with Thandiwe Newton and John Leguizamo. Christensen appeared in the crime drama "Takers" with Idris Elba and Paul Walker, released in the United States on August 27, 2010. "" is the fourth film in which Christensen stars with Samuel L. Jackson.


title: Hayden Christensen

text: In 2010, Christensen sued USA Network over allegations that they stole his idea for the TV show "Royal Pains". The suit alleges that Christensen met with USA to pitch a similar series entitled "Housecalls". During the meeting, Christensen alleges, he was never informed that a similar program was in development. Although a federal judge at first dismissed Christensen's lawsuit in 2011, in June 2012, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals reversed this decision and remanded the case back to the district court for further proceedings, in what was considered a legal victory for Christensen.


title: Hayden Christensen

text: On May 20, 2013, during the Cannes Film Festival, the Russian company Enjoy Movies announced the creation of Glacier Films, an alliance company with Christensen and his brother Tove. Over a three-year period, "Glacier Films" intends to make 11 "micro-budget" movies costing $1.5M each. The first project, "American Heist", starring Christensen, Adrien Brody and Jordana Brewster, started filming in June 2013. It is a remake of Steve McQueen's "The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery." In 2014, he starred in the American-Chinese-Canadian film "Outcast", an action drama, alongside Nicolas Cage.


title: Hayden Christensen

text: In 2015, Christensen starred in the film "90 Minutes in Heaven" co-starring Kate Bosworth and directed by Michael Polish based on the best-selling novel by the same name. In 2015, filming began of an unreleased World War II Nazi zombies horror movie titled "Untöt", set to star Christensen. In 2017, he was in the film "First Kill" alongside Bruce Willis. In 2018 he appeared in the Canadian-American romantic comedy "Little Italy" with Emma Roberts and in the same year was in "The Last Man".


title: Hayden Christensen

text: In 2019, Christensen returned to the role of Anakin Skywalker, providing a voice cameo of the character's voice in "". Christensen also received a voice credit as Anakin Skywalker jointly alongside Matt Lanter for the penultimate episode of the final season of the animated television series "" entitled "Shattered" despite the fact the dialogue used for the episode spoken by Christensen was reused archival audio from "". On October 22, 2021, it was reported that Christensen would also reprise the role for the Disney+ series "Ahsoka".


title: Hayden Christensen

text: In May of 2022, Christensen reprised his role of Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader for the "Obi-Wan Kenobi" limited series on Disney+. His portrayal earned positive reviews from critics, noting a huge improvement from his performance in the prequel trilogy. He appeared in the documentary special "Obi-Wan Kenobi: A Jedi's Return" which premiered on September 8, 2022, Disney+ Day.


title: Hayden Christensen

text: In 2007, Christensen began dating actress Rachel Bilson, with whom he starred in the movie "Jumper". They became engaged on December 25, 2008. In mid-2010, they broke up, but began dating again a few months later. On October 29, 2014, Bilson gave birth to their daughter. Christensen and Bilson separated in September 2017.


title: Hayden Christensen

text: In 2007, Christensen bought a farm near Uxbridge, Ontario. He noted in 2008 that he had been renovating the property himself and devoting time to learning about "livestock, crops, and agricultural machinery". In November 2013, Christensen collaborated with Canadian fashion chain RW&Co to release a men's clothing line inspired by his farm.


title: Hayden Christensen

text: An avid Toronto Maple Leafs fan, Christensen performed a public service announcement for Do Something's Teens for Jeans Campaign in 2008. He modelled in Louis Vuitton's advertising, and was also named as the face of Lacoste's newest fragrance, Lacoste Challenge. He was featured in RED's "Lazarus Effect Campaign", which is intended to increase awareness for its efforts to fight AIDS in Africa.


title: Holodomor

text: The Holodomor (, ; derived from ), also known as the Terror-Famine or the Great Famine, was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. The Holodomor was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1932–1933 which affected the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union.


title: Holodomor

text: While scholars universally agree that the cause of the famine was man-made, whether the Holodomor constitutes a genocide remains in dispute. Some historians conclude that the famine was planned and exacerbated by Joseph Stalin in order to eliminate a Ukrainian independence movement. This conclusion is supported by Raphael Lemkin. Others suggest that the famine arose because of rapid Soviet industrialisation and collectivization of agriculture.


title: Holodomor

text: Ukraine was one of the largest grain-producing states in the USSR and was subject to unreasonably higher grain quotas, when compared to the rest of the country. This caused Ukraine to be hit particularly hard by the famine. Early estimates of the death toll by scholars and government officials vary greatly. A joint statement to the United Nations signed by 25 countries in 2003 declared that 7–10 million died. However, current scholarship estimates a range significantly lower, with 3.5 to 5 million victims. The famine's widespread impact on Ukraine persists to this day.


title: Holodomor

text: Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by the European Parliament, Ukraine} alongside 22 countries, as a genocide against the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet regime.


title: Holodomor

text: "Holodomor" literally translated from Ukrainian means "death by hunger", "killing by hunger, killing by starvation", or sometimes "murder by hunger or starvation." It is a compound of the Ukrainian ; and . The expression means "to inflict death by hunger." The Ukrainian verb () means "to poison, to drive to exhaustion, or to torment." The perfective form of is In English, the Holodomor has also been referred to as the "artificial famine", "famine genocide", "terror famine", and "terror-genocide".


title: Holodomor

text: It was used in print in the 1930s in Ukrainian diaspora publications in Czechoslovakia as "Haladamor", and by Ukrainian immigrant organisations in the United States and Canada by 1978; in the Soviet Union, of which Ukraine was a constituent republic, any references to the famine were dismissed as anti-Soviet propaganda, even after de-Stalinization in 1956, until the declassification and publication of historical documents in the late 1980s made continued denial of the catastrophe unsustainable


title: Holodomor

text: Discussion of the Holodomor became possible as part of the "glasnost" policy of openness. In Ukraine, the first official use of "famine" was a December 1987 speech by Volodymyr Shcherbytskyi, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, on the occasion of the republic's 70th anniversary. Another early public usage in the Soviet Union was in a February 1988 speech by Oleksiy Musiyenko, Deputy Secretary for ideological matters of the party organisation of the Kyiv branch of the Union of Soviet Writers in Ukraine.


title: Holodomor

text: The term "holodomor" may have first appeared in print in the Soviet Union on 18 July 1988, when Musiyenko's article on the topic was published. "Holodomor" is now an entry in the modern, two-volume dictionary of the Ukrainian language, published in 2004, described as "artificial hunger, organised on a vast scale by a criminal regime against a country's population."


title: Holodomor

text: According to Elazar Barkan, Elizabeth A. Cole, and Kai Struve, the Holodomor has been described as a “Ukrainian Holocaust". They assert that since the 1990s the term "Holodomor" has been widely adopted by anti-communists in order to draw parallels to the Holocaust. However this term has been criticized by some academics, as the Holocaust was a heavily documented, coordinated effort by Nazi Germany and its collaborators to eliminate certain ethnic groups such as Jews, Slavs, and Romani, ultimately killing 11 million people. By contrast, the Holodomor does not have definitive documentation that Stalin directly ordered the mass murder of Ukrainians. Barkan et al. state that the term "Holodomor" was "introduced and popularized by the Ukrainian diaspora in North America before Ukraine became independent" and that the term 'Holocaust' in reference to the famine "is not explained at all."


title: Holodomor

text: The famine affected the Ukrainian SSR as well as the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (a part of the Ukrainian SSR at the time) in spring 1932, and from February to July 1933, with the most victims recorded in spring 1933. The consequences are evident in demographic statistics: between 1926 and 1939, the Ukrainian population increased by only 6.6%, whereas Russia and Belarus grew by 16.9% and 11.7%, respectively.


title: Holodomor

text: From the 1932 harvest, Soviet authorities were able to procure only 4.3 million tons as compared with 7.2 million tons obtained from the 1931 harvest. Rations in towns were drastically cut back, and in winter 1932–1933 and spring 1933, people in many urban areas starved. Urban workers were supplied by a rationing system and therefore could occasionally assist their starving relatives in the countryside, but rations were gradually cut. By spring 1933, urban residents also faced starvation. At the same time, workers were shown agitprop movies depicting peasants as counterrevolutionaries who hid grain and potatoes at a time when workers, who were constructing the "bright future" of socialism, were starving.


title: Holodomor

text: The first reports of mass malnutrition and deaths from starvation emerged from two urban areas of the city of Uman, reported in January 1933 by Vinnytsia and Kyiv oblasts. By mid-January 1933, there were reports about mass "difficulties" with food in urban areas, which had been undersupplied through the rationing system, and deaths from starvation among people who were refused rations, according to the December 1932 decree of the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party. By the beginning of February 1933, according to reports from local authorities and Ukrainian GPU (secret police), the most affected area was Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, which also suffered from epidemics of typhus and malaria. Odessa and Kyiv oblasts were second and third, respectively. By mid-March, most of the reports of starvation originated from Kyiv Oblast.


title: Holodomor

text: By mid-April 1933, Kharkov Oblast reached the top of the most affected list, while Kiev, Dnipropetrovsk, Odessa, Vinnytsia, and Donetsk oblasts, and Moldavian SSR were next on the list. Reports about mass deaths from starvation, dated mid-May through the beginning of June 1933, originated from raions in Kiev and Kharkov oblasts. The "less affected" list noted Chernihiv Oblast and northern parts of Kyiv and Vinnytsia oblasts. The Central Committee of the CP(b) of Ukraine Decree of 8 February 1933 said no hunger cases should have remained untreated. "The Ukrainian Weekly", which was tracking the situation in 1933, reported the difficulties in communications and the appalling situation in Ukraine.


title: Holodomor

text: Local authorities had to submit reports about the numbers suffering from hunger, the reasons for hunger, number of deaths from hunger, food aid provided from local sources, and centrally provided food aid required. The GPU managed parallel reporting and food assistance in the Ukrainian SSR. Many regional reports and most of the central summary reports are available from present-day central and regional Ukrainian archives.


title: Holodomor

text: Survival was a moral as well as a physical struggle. A woman doctor wrote to a friend in June 1933 that she had not yet become a cannibal, but was "not sure that I shall not be one by the time my letter reaches you." The good people died first. Those who refused to steal or to prostitute themselves died. Those who gave food to others died. Those who refused to eat corpses died. Those who refused to kill their fellow man died. Parents who resisted cannibalism died before their children did.


title: Holodomor

text: The Soviet regime printed posters declaring: "To eat your own children is a barbarian act." More than 2,500 people were convicted of cannibalism during the Holodomor.


title: Holodomor

text: The overlying causes for the famine are still disputed. Some scholars suggest that the famine was a consequence man-made and natural factors. The most prevalent man-made factor was the economic problems associated with changes implemented during the period of Soviet industrialisation. There are also those who blame a systematic set of policies perpetrated by the Soviet government under Stalin designed to exterminate the Ukrainians. According to historian Stephen G. Wheatcroft, the grain yield for the Soviet Union preceding the famine was a low harvest of between 55 and 60 million tons, likely in part caused by damp weather and low traction power, yet official statistics mistakenly reported a yield of 68.9 million tons. Historian Mark Tauger has suggested that drought and damp weather were a causes of the low harvest. Mark Tauger suggested that heavy rains would help the harvest while Stephen Wheatcroft suggested it would hurt it which Natalya Naumenko notes as a disagreement in scholarship. Another factor which reduced the harvest suggested by Tauger included endemic plant rust. However in regard to plant disease Stephen Wheatcroft notes that the Soviet extension of sown area may have exacerbated the problem.


title: Holodomor

text: According to Natalya Naumenko, collectivization in the Soviet Union and lack of favored industries were primary contributors to famine mortality (52% of excess deaths), and some evidence shows there was discrimination against ethnic Ukrainians and Germans. Lewis H. Siegelbaum, Professor of History at Michigan State University, states that Ukraine was hit particularly hard by grain quotas which were set at levels which most farms could not produce. The 1933 harvest was poor, coupled with the extremely high quota level, which led to starvation conditions. The shortages were blamed on kulak sabotage, and authorities distributed what supplies were available only in the urban areas.


title: Holodomor

text: According to a Centre for Economic Policy Research paper published in 2021 by Andrei Markevich, Natalya Naumenko, and Nancy Qian, regions with higher Ukrainian population shares were struck harder with centrally planned policies corresponding to famine such as increased procurement rate, and Ukrainian populated areas were given lower amounts of tractors which the paper argues demonstrates that ethnic discrimination across the board was centrally planned, ultimately concluding that 92% of famine deaths in Ukraine alone along with 77% of famine deaths in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus combined can be explained by systematic bias against Ukrainians.


title: Holodomor

text: The collectivization and high procurement quota explanation for the famine is somewhat called into question by the fact that the oblasts of Ukraine with the highest losses being Kyiv and Kharkiv which produced far lower amounts of grain than other sections of the country. Oleh Wolowyna comments that peasant resistance and the ensuing repression of said resistance was a critical factor for the famine in Ukraine and parts of Russia populated by national minorities like Germans and Ukrainians allegedly tainted by "fascism and bourgeois nationalism" according to Soviet authorities.


title: Holodomor

text: In Ukraine collectivisation policy was enforced, entailing extreme crisis and contributing to the famine. In 1929–1930, peasants were induced to transfer land and livestock to state-owned farms, on which they would work as day-labourers for payment in kind. Collectivization in the Soviet Union, including the Ukrainian SSR, was not popular among the peasantry, and forced collectivisation led to numerous peasant revolts. The first five-year plan changed the output expected from Ukrainian farms, from the familiar crop of grain to unfamiliar crops like sugar beets and cotton. In addition, the situation was exacerbated by poor administration of the plan and the lack of relevant general management. Significant amounts of grain remained unharvested, and—even when harvested—a significant percentage was lost during processing, transportation, or storage.


title: Holodomor

text: In the summer of 1930, the government instituted a program of food requisitioning, ostensibly to increase grain exports. Food theft was made punishable by death or 10 years imprisonment. Food exports continued during the famine, albeit at a reduced rate. In regard to exports, Michael Ellman states that the 1932–1933 grain exports amounted to 1.8 million tonnes, which would have been enough to feed 5 million people for one year.


title: Holodomor

text: It has been proposed that the Soviet leadership used the man-made famine to attack Ukrainian nationalism, and thus it could fall under the legal definition of genocide. For example, special and particularly lethal policies were adopted in and largely limited to Soviet Ukraine at the end of 1932 and 1933. According to Timothy Snyder, "each of them may seem like an anodyne administrative measure, and each of them was certainly presented as such at the time, and yet each had to kill."


title: Holodomor

text: Under the collectivism policy, for example, farmers were not only deprived of their properties but a large swath of these were also exiled in Siberia with no means of survival. Those who were left behind and attempted to escape the zones of famine were ordered to be shot. There were foreign individuals who witnessed this atrocity and its effects. For example, the account of Arthur Koestler, a Hungarian-British journalist, described the peak years of Holodomor in these words:At every [train] station there was a crowd of peasants in rags, offering icons and linen in exchange for a loaf of bread. The women were lifting up their infants to the compartment windows—infants pitiful and terrifying with limbs like sticks, puffed bellies, big cadaverous heads lolling on thin necks.


title: Holodomor

text: The collectivization and high procurement quota explanation for the famine is called into question by the fact that the oblasts of Ukraine with the highest losses being Kyiv and Kharkiv which produced far lower amounts of grain than other sections of the country. A potential explanation for this was that Kharkiv and Kyiv fulfilled and over fulfilled their grain procurements in 1930 which led to raions in these Oblasts having their procurement quotas doubled in 1931 compared to the national average increase in procurement rate of 9%. While Kharkiv and Kyiv had their quotas increased, the Odesa oblast and some raions of Dnipropetrovsk oblast had their procurement quotas decreased.


title: Holodomor

text: According to Nataliia Levchuk of the Ptoukha Institute of Demography and Social Studies, "the distribution of the largely increased 1931 grain quotas in Kharkiv and Kyiv oblasts by raion was very uneven and unjustified because it was done disproportionally to the percentage of wheat sown area and their potential grain capacity.”


title: Holodomor

text: Several repressive policies were implemented in Ukraine immediately preceding, during, and proceeding the famine, including but not limited to cultural-religious persecution the Law of Spikelets, Blacklisting, the internal passport system, and harsh grain requisitions.


title: Holodomor

text: Coiner of the term genocide, Raphael Lemkin considered the repression of the Orthodox Church to be a prong of genocide against Ukrainians when seen in correlation to the Holodomor famine. Collectivization did not just entail the acquisition of land from farmers but also the closing of churches, burning of icons, and the arrests of priests. Associating the church with the tsarist regime, the Soviet state continued to undermine the church through expropriations and repression. They cut off state financial support to the church and secularized church schools. By early 1930 75% of the Autocephalist parishes in Ukraine were persecuted by Soviet authorities. The GPU instigated a show trial which denounced the Orthodox Church in Ukraine as a "nationalist, political, counter-revolutionary organization" and instigated a staged "self-dissolution." However the Church was later allowed to reorganize in December 1930 under a pro-Soviet cosmopolitan leader of Ivan Pavlovsky yet purges of the Church reignited during the Great Purge.


title: Holodomor

text: Changes in cultural politics also occurred. An early example was the 1930 show trial of the "Union for the Freedom of Ukraine" at which 45 intellectuals, higher education professors, writers, a theologian and a priest were publicly prosecuted in Kharkiv, then capital of Soviet Ukraine. Fifteen of the accused were executed, many more with links to the defendants (248) were sent to the camps. (This was one of a series of contemporary show trials, held in the North Caucasus, 1929 in Shakhty, and in Moscow, the 1930 Industrial Party Trial and the 1931 Menshevik Trial.) The total number is not known, but tens of thousands of people are estimated to have been arrested, exiled, and/or executed during and after the trial including 30,000 intellectuals, writers, teachers, and scientists. In this vein the secretary of the Kharkiv Oblast referred to "bourgeois-nationalistic rabble" as "class enemies" near the end of the famine.


title: Holodomor

text: The "Decree About the Protection of Socialist Property", nicknamed by the farmers the Law of Spikelets, was enacted on 7 August 1932. The purpose of the law was to protect the property of the kolkhoz collective farms. It was nicknamed the Law of Spikelets because it allowed people to be prosecuted for gleaning leftover grain from the fields. There were more than 200,000 people sentenced under this law.


title: Holodomor

text: The blacklist system was formalized in 1932 by the November 20 decree "The Struggle against Kurkul Influence in Collective Farms"; blacklisting, synonymous with a board of infamy, was one of the elements of agitation-propaganda in the Soviet Union, and especially Ukraine and the ethnically Ukrainian Kuban region in the 1930s. A blacklisted collective farm, village, or raion (district) had its monetary loans and grain advances called in, stores closed, grain supplies, livestock, and food confiscated as a penalty, and was cut off from trade. Its Communist Party and collective farm committees were purged and subject to arrest, and their territory was forcibly cordoned off by the OGPU secret police.


title: Holodomor

text: Although nominally targeting collective farms failing to meet grain quotas and independent farmers with outstanding tax-in-kind, in practice the punishment was applied to all residents of affected villages and raions, including teachers, tradespeople, and children. In the end 37 out of 392 districts along with at least 400 collective farms where put on the "black board" in Ukraine, more than half of the blacklisted farms being in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast alone. Every single raion in Dnipropetrovsk had at least one blacklisted village, and in Vinnytsia oblast five entire raions were blacklisted. This oblast is situated right in the middle of traditional lands of the Zaporizhian Cossacks. Cossack villages were also blacklisted in the Volga and Kuban regions of Russia. In 1932, 32 (out of less than 200) districts in Kazakhstan that did not meet grain production quotas were blacklisted. Some blacklisted areas in Kharkiv could have death rates exceeding 40% while in other areas such as Vinnytsia blacklisting had no particular effect on mortality.


title: Holodomor

text: The passport system in the Soviet Union (identity cards) was introduced on 27 December 1932 to deal with the exodus of peasants from the countryside. Individuals not having such a document could not leave their homes on pain of administrative penalties, such as internment in labour camps (Gulag). Joseph Stalin signed the January 1933 secret decree named "Preventing the Mass Exodus of Peasants who are Starving", restricting travel by peasants after requests for bread began in the Kuban and Ukraine; Soviet authorities blamed the exodus of peasants during the famine on anti-Soviet elements, saying that "like the outflow from Ukraine last year, was organized by the enemies of Soviet power."


title: Holodomor

text: There was a wave of migration due to starvation and authorities responded by introducing a requirement that passports be used to go between republics and banning travel by rail. During March of 1933 GPU reported that 219,460 people were either intercepted and escorted back or arrested at it's checkpoints meant to prevent movement of peasants between districts. It has been estimated that there were some 150,000 excess deaths as a result of this policy, and one historian asserts that these deaths constitute a crime against humanity. In contrast, historian Stephen Kotkin argues that the sealing of the Ukrainian borders caused by the internal passport system was in order to prevent the spread of famine-related diseases.


title: Holodomor

text: Between January and mid-April 1933, a factor contributing to a surge of deaths within certain regions of Ukraine during the period was the relentless search for alleged hidden grain by the confiscation of all food stuffs from certain households, which Stalin implicitly approved of through a telegram he sent on the 1 January 1933 to the Ukrainian government reminding Ukrainian farmers of the severe penalties for not surrendering grain they may be hiding.


title: Holodomor

text: In order to make up for unfulfilled grain procurement quotas in Ukraine, reserves of grain were confiscated from three sources including, according to Oleh Wolowyna, "(a) grain set side for seed for the next harvest; (b) a grain fund for emergencies; (c) grain issued to collective farmers for previously completed work, which had to be returned if the collective farm did not fulfill its quota."


title: Holodomor

text: In Ukraine, there was a widespread purge of Communist party officials at all levels. According to Oleh Wolowyna, 390 "anti-Soviet, counter-revolutionary insurgent and chauvinist" groups were eliminated resulting in 37,797 arrests, that led to 719 executions, 8,003 people being sent to Gulag camps, and 2,728 being put into internal exile. 120,000 individuals in Ukraine were reviewed in the first 10 months of 1933 in a top-to-bottom purge of the Communist party resulting in 23% being eliminated as perceived class hostile elements. Pavel Postyshev was set in charge of placing people at the head of Machine-Tractor Stations in Ukraine which were responsible for purging elements deemed to be class hostile.


title: Holodomor

text: By the end of 1933, 60% of the heads of village councils and raion committees in Ukraine were replaced with an additional 40,000 lower-tier workers being purged. Purges were also extensive in the Ukrainian populated territories of the Kuban and North Caucasus. 358 of 716 party secretaries in Kuban were removed, along with 43% of the 25,000 party members there; in total, 40% of the 115,000 to 120,000 rural party members in the North Caucasus were removed. Party officials associated with Ukrainization were targeted, as the national policy was viewed to be connected with the failure of grain procurement by Soviet authorities.


title: Holodomor

text: Despite the crisis, the Soviet government refused to ask for foreign aid for the famine and persistently denied the famine's existence. What aid was given was selectively distributed to preserve the collective farm system. Grain producing oblasts in Ukraine such as Dnipropetrovsk were given more aid at an earlier time than more severely affected regions like Kharkiv which produced less grain. Joseph Stalin had quoted Vladimir Lenin during the famine declaring: "He who does not work, neither shall he eat."


title: Holodomor

text: This perspective is argued by Michael Ellman to have influenced official policy during the famine, with those deemed to be idlers being disfavored in aid distribution as compared to those deemed "conscientiously working collective farmers". In this vein, Olga Andriewsky states that Soviet archives indicate that the most productive workers were prioritized for receiving food aid.


title: Holodomor

text: Food rationing in Ukraine was determined by city categories (where one lived, with capitals and industrial centers being given preferential distribution), occupational categories (with industrial and railroad workers being prioritized over blue collar workers and intelligentsia), status in the family unit (with employed persons being entitled to higher rations than dependents and the elderly), and type of workplace in relation to industrialization (with those who worked in industrial endeavors near steel mills being preferred in distribution over those who worked in rural areas or in food).


title: Holodomor

text: Areas depopulated by the famine were resettled by Russians in the Zaporizhzhya, Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, but not as much so in central Ukraine. In some areas where depopulation was due to migration rather than mortality, Ukrainians returned to their places of residence to find their homes occupied by Russians, leading to widespread fights between Ukrainian farmers and Russian settlers. Such clashes caused around one million Russian settlers to be returned home.


title: Holodomor

text: Ukrainians in other parts of the Soviet Union also experienced famine and repressive policies. Rural districts with Ukrainian populations in parts of the Soviet Union outside of Ukraine had higher mortality rates in Russia and Belarus than other districts, this discrepancy did not however apply to urban Ukrainians in these areas. This is sometimes viewed as being connected to the Holodomor in Ukraine. In 1932–1933, the policies of forced collectivization of the Ukrainian population of the Soviet Union, which caused a devastating famine that greatly affected the Ukrainian population of the Kuban. According to the All-Union census of 1926–1937, the rural population in the North Caucasus decreased by 24%. In the Kuban alone, from November 1932 to the spring of 1933, the number of documented victims of famine was 62,000. According to other historians, the real death toll is many times higher.


title: Holodomor

text: During the Soviet famine of 1932–1933 Krasnodar lost over 14% of its population. The mass repressions of the 1930s also resulted in the arrest and execution of over 1,500 Ukrainian speaking intellectuals from Krasnodar. Many teachers of the Ukrainian language were arrested and exiled from the region. By 1932, all Ukrainian language education establishments were closed. The professional Ukrainian theatre in Krasnodar was closed. All Ukrainian toponyms in the Kuban, which reflected the areas from which the first Ukrainians settlers had moved, were changed.


title: Holodomor

text: The names of Stanytsias such as the rural town of Kiev, in Krasnodar, was changed to "Krasnoartilyevskaya", and Uman to "Leningrad", and Poltavska to "Krasnoarmieiskaya". The physical destruction of all aspects of Ukrainian culture and the Ukrainian population, and the resultant ethnic cleansing of the population, the Russification, the Holodomor of 1932–1933 and 1946–1947 and other tactics used by the Union government led to a catastrophic fall in the population that self-identified as being Ukrainian in the Kuban. Official Soviet Union statistics of 1959 state that Ukrainians made up 4% of the population, in 1989 – 3%. The self-identified Ukrainian population of Kuban decreased from 915,000 in 1926, to 150,000 in 1939. and to 61,867 in 2002.


title: Holodomor

text: Ethnic minorities in Kazakhstan were significantly affected by the Kazakh famine of 1931–1933 in addition to the Kazakhs. Ukrainians in Kazakhstan had the second highest proportional death rate after the Kazakhs themselves. The Ukrainian population in Kazakhstan decreased from 859,396 to 549,859 (a reduction of almost 36% of their population) while other ethnic minorities in Kazakhstan lost 12% and 30% of their populations.


title: Holodomor

text: Despite attempts by the Soviet authorities to hide the scale of the disaster, it became known abroad thanks to the publications of journalists Gareth Jones, Malcolm Muggeridge, Ewald Ammende, Rhea Clyman, photographs made by engineer Alexander Wienerberger, and others. To support their denial of the famine, the Soviets hosted prominent Westerners such as George Bernard Shaw, French ex-prime minister Édouard Herriot, and others at Potemkin villages, who then made statements that they had not seen hunger.


title: Holodomor

text: During the German occupation of Ukraine, the occupation authorities allowed the publication of articles in local newspapers about Holodomor and other communist crimes, but they also did not want to pay too much attention to this issue in order to avoid stirring national sentiment. In 1942, Stepan Sosnovy, an agronomist in Kharkiv, published a comprehensive statistical research on the number of Holodomor casualties, based on documents from Soviet archives.


title: Holodomor

text: In the post-war period, the Ukrainian diaspora disseminated information about the Holodomor in Europe and North America. At first, the public attitude was rather cautious, as the information came from people who had lived in the occupied territories, but it gradually changed in the 1950s. Scientific study of the Holodomor, based on the growing number of memoirs published by survivors, began in the 1950s.


title: Holodomor

text: The Soviet Union long denied that the famine had taken place. The NKVD (and later KGB) controlled the archives for the Holodomor period and made relevant records available very slowly. The exact number of the victims remains unknown and is probably impossible to estimate even within a margin of error of a hundred thousand. However, by the end of 1933, millions of people had starved to death or otherwise died unnaturally in the Soviet republics. In 2001, based on a range of official demographic data, historian Stephen G. Wheatcroft noted that official death statistics for this period were systematically repressed and showed that many deaths were un-registered.


title: Holodomor

text: Estimates vary in their coverage, with some using the 1933 Ukraine borders, some of the current borders, and some counting ethnic Ukrainians. Some extrapolate on the basis of deaths in a given area, while others use archival data. Some historians question the accuracy of Soviet censuses, as they may reflect Soviet propaganda.


title: Holodomor

text: Other estimates come from recorded discussions between world leaders. In an August 1942 conversation, Stalin gave Winston Churchill his estimates of the number of "kulaks" who were repressed for resisting collectivisation as 10 million, in all of the Soviet Union, rather than only in Ukraine. When using this number, Stalin implied that it included not only those who lost their lives but also those who were forcibly deported.


title: Holodomor

text: There are variations in opinion as to whether deaths in Gulag labour camps should be counted or only those who starved to death at home. Estimates before archival opening varied widely such as: 2.5 million (Volodymyr Kubiyovych); 4.8 million (Vasyl Hryshko); and 5 million (Robert Conquest).


title: Holodomor

text: In the 1980s, dissident demographer and historian Alexander P. Babyonyshev (writing as Sergei Maksudov) estimated officially non-accounted child mortality in 1933 at 150,000, leading to a calculation that the number of births for 1933 should be increased from 471,000 to 621,000 (down from 1,184,000 in 1927). Given the decreasing birth rates and assuming the natural mortality rates in 1933 to be equal to the average annual mortality rate in 1927–1930 (524,000 per year), a natural population growth for 1933 would have been 97,000 (as opposed to the recorded decrease of 1,379,000). This was five times less than the growth in the previous three years (1927–1930). Straight-line extrapolation of population (continuation of the previous net change) between census takings in 1927 and 1936 would have been +4.043 million, which compares to a recorded −538,000 change. Overall change in birth and death amounts to 4.581 million fewer people but whether through factors of choice, disease or starvation will never be fully known.


title: Holodomor

text: In the 2000s, there were debates among historians and in civil society about the number of deaths as Soviet files were released and tension built between Russia and the Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko. Yushchenko and other Ukrainian politicians described fatalities as in the region of seven to ten million. Yushchenko stated in a speech to the United States Congress that the Holodomor "took away 20 million lives of Ukrainians,". Former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a public statement giving the death toll at about 10 million.


title: Holodomor

text: Some Ukrainian and Western historians use similar figures. Historian David R. Marples gave a figure of 7.5 million in 2007. During an international conference held in Ukraine in 2016, "Holodomor 1932–1933 loss of the Ukrainian nation", at the National University of Kyiv Taras Shevchenko, it was claimed that during the Holodomor 7 million Ukrainians were killed, and in total, 10 million people died of starvation across the USSR.


title: Holodomor

text: However, the use of the 7 to 20 million figures has been criticized by historians Timothy D. Snyder and Stephen G. Wheatcroft. Snyder wrote: "President Viktor Yushchenko does his country a grave disservice by claiming ten million deaths, thus exaggerating the number of Ukrainians killed by a factor of three; but it is true that the famine in Ukraine of 1932–1933 was a result of purposeful political decisions, and killed about three million people." In an email to Postmedia News, Wheatcroft wrote: "I find it regrettable that Stephen Harper and other leading Western politicians are continuing to use such exaggerated figures for Ukrainian famine mortality" and "[t]here is absolutely no basis for accepting a figure of 10 million Ukrainians dying as a result of the famine of 1932–1933." In 2001, Wheatcroft had calculated total population loss (including stillbirth) across the Union at 10 million and possibly up to 15 million between 1931 and 1934, including 2.8 million (and possibly up to 4.8 million excess deaths) and 3.7 million (up to 6.7 million) population losses including birth losses in Ukraine.


title: Holodomor

text: In 2002, Ukrainian historian , using demographic data including those recently unclassified, narrowed the losses to about 3.2 million or, allowing for the lack of precise data, 3 million to 3.5 million. The number of recorded excess deaths extracted from the birth/death statistics from Soviet archives is contradictory. The data fail to add up to the differences between the results of the 1926 Census and the 1937 Census. Kulchytsky summarized the declassified Soviet statistics as showing a decrease of 538,000 people in the population of Soviet Ukraine between 1926 census (28,926,000) and 1937 census (28,388,000).


title: Holodomor

text: Similarly, Wheatcroft's work from Soviet archives showed that excess deaths in Ukraine in 1932–1933 numbered a minimum of 1.8 million (2.7 including birth losses): "Depending upon the estimations made concerning unregistered mortality and natality, these figures could be increased to a level of 2.8 million to a maximum of 4.8 million excess deaths and to 3.7 million to a maximum of 6.7 million population losses (including birth losses)".


title: Holodomor

text: A 2002 study by French demographer Jacques Vallin and colleagues utilising some similar primary sources to Kulchytsky, and performing an analysis with more sophisticated demographic tools with forward projection of expected growth from the 1926 census and backward projection from the 1939 census estimates the number of direct deaths for 1933 as 2.582 million. This number of deaths does not reflect the total demographic loss for Ukraine from these events as the fall of the birth rate during the crisis and the out-migration contribute to the latter as well. The total population shortfall from the expected value between 1926 and 1939 estimated by Vallin amounted to 4.566 million.


title: Holodomor

text: Of this number, 1.057 million is attributed to the birth deficit, 930,000 to forced out-migration, and 2.582 million to the combination of excess mortality and voluntary out-migration. With the latter assumed to be negligible, this estimate gives the number of deaths as the result of the 1933 famine about 2.2 million. According to demographic studies, life expectancy, which had been in the high forties to low fifties, fell sharply for those born in 1932 to 28 years, and for 1933 fell further to the extremely low 10.8 years for females and 7.3 years for males. It remained abnormally low for 1934 but, as commonly expected for the post-crisis period peaked in 1935–36.


title: Holodomor

text: According to historian Snyder in 2010, the recorded figure of excess deaths was 2.4 million. However, Snyder claims that this figure is "substantially low" due to many deaths going unrecorded. Snyder states that demographic calculations carried out by the Ukrainian government provide a figure of 3.89 million dead, and opined that the actual figure is likely between these two figures, approximately 3.3 million deaths to starvation and disease related to the starvation in Ukraine from 1932 to 1933. Snyder also estimates that of the million people who died in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from famine at the same time, approximately 200,000 were ethnic Ukrainians due to Ukrainian-inhabited regions being particularly hard hit in Russia.


title: Holodomor

text: As a child, Mikhail Gorbachev, born into a mixed Russian-Ukrainian family, experienced the famine in Stavropol Krai, Russia. He recalled in a memoir that "In that terrible year [in 1933] nearly half the population of my native village, Privolnoye, starved to death, including two sisters and one brother of my father."


title: Holodomor

text: Wheatcroft and R. W. Davies concluded that disease was the cause of a large number of deaths: in 1932–1933, there were 1.2 million cases of typhus and 500,000 cases of typhoid fever. Malnourishment increases fatality rates from many diseases, and are not counted by some historians. From 1932 to 1934, the largest rate of increase was recorded for typhus, commonly spread by lice. In conditions of harvest failure and increased poverty, lice are likely to increase.


title: Holodomor

text: Gathering numerous refugees at railway stations, on trains and elsewhere facilitates the spread. In 1933, the number of recorded cases was 20 times the 1929 level. The number of cases per head of population recorded in Ukraine in 1933 was already considerably higher than in the USSR as a whole. By June 1933, the incidence in Ukraine had increased to nearly 10 times the January level, and it was much higher than in the rest of the USSR.


title: Holodomor

text: Estimates of the human losses due to famine must account for the numbers involved in migration (including forced resettlement). According to Soviet statistics, the migration balance for the population in Ukraine for 1927–1936 period was a loss of 1.343 million people. Even when the data were collected, the Soviet statistical institutions acknowledged that the precision was less than for the data of the natural population change. The total number of deaths in Ukraine due to unnatural causes for the given ten years was 3.238 million. Accounting for the lack of precision, estimates of the human toll range from 2.2 million to 3.5 million deaths.


title: Holodomor

text: According to Babyonyshev's 1981 estimate, about 81.3% of the famine victims in the Ukrainian SSR were ethnic Ukrainians, 4.5% Russians, 1.4% Jews and 1.1% were Poles. Many Belarusians, Volga Germans and other nationalities were victims as well. The Ukrainian rural population was the hardest hit by the Holodomor. Since the peasantry constituted a demographic backbone of the Ukrainian nation, the tragedy deeply affected the Ukrainians for many years. In an October 2013 opinion poll (in Ukraine) 38.7% of those polled stated "my families had people affected by the famine", 39.2% stated they did not have such relatives, and 22.1% did not know.


title: Holodomor

text: There was also migration in to Ukraine as a response to the famine: in response to the demographic collapse, the Soviet authorities ordered large-scale resettlements, with over 117,000 peasants from remote regions of the Soviet Union taking over the deserted farms.


title: Holodomor

text: Scholars continue to debate whether the man-made Soviet famine was a central act in a campaign of genocide, or a tragic byproduct of rapid Soviet industrialization and the collectivization of agriculture. Whether the Holodomor is a genocide is a significant and contentious issue in modern politics. There is no international consensus on whether Soviet policies would fall under the legal definition of genocide. A number of governments, such as Canada, have recognized the Holodomor as an act of genocide. The decision was criticized by David R. Marples, who claimed that states who recognize the Holodomor as a genocide are motivated by emotion, or on pressure by local and international groups rather than hard evidence.


title: Holodomor

text: Scholarly positions are diverse. Raphael Lemkin (who coined the term "genocide" and was an initiator of the Genocide Convention), James Mace, Norman Naimark, Timothy Snyder and Anne Applebaum have called the Holodomor a genocide and the intentional result of Stalinist policies.


title: Holodomor

text: According to Lemkin, Holodomor "is a classic example of the Soviet genocide, the longest and most extensive experiment in Russification, namely the extermination of the Ukrainian nation". Lemkin stated that, because Ukrainians were very vulnerable to the racial murder of its chosen parts and way too populous, the government could not follow the pattern of the Holocaust. Instead the extermination consisted of four steps: 1) extermination of the Ukrainian national elite 2) liquidation of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church 3) extermination of a significant part of the Ukrainian peasantry as "custodians of traditions, folklore and music, national language and literature 4) populating the territory with other nationalities with intent of mixing Ukrainians with them, which would eventually lead to the dissolvance of the Ukrainian nation.


title: Holodomor

text: Other historians such as Michael Ellman consider the Holodomor a crime against humanity, but do not classify it as a genocide. Robert Conquest, a historian and outspoken anti-communist considers the death toll to be primarily due to state policy, not poor harvests. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Conquest was granted access to the Soviet state archives alongside other western academics. Drawing upon evidence from the archives, Conquest would later write that the Holodomor was not purposefully inflicted by Stalin but his inadequate response did worsen the famine. Robert Davies, Stephen Kotkin, Stephen Wheatcroft and J. Arch Getty reject the notion that Stalin intentionally wanted to kill Ukrainians, but conclude that Stalinist policies and widespread incompetence among government officials set the stage for famine in Ukraine and other Soviet republics. In 1991, American historian Mark Tauger considered the Holodomor primarily the result of natural conditions and failed economic policy, not intentional state policy.


title: Holodomor

text: Scholars consider Holodomor denial to be the assertion that the 1932–1933 famine in Soviet Ukraine did not occur. Denying the existence of the famine was the Soviet state's position and reflected in both Soviet propaganda and the work of some Western journalists and intellectuals including George Bernard Shaw, Walter Duranty, and Louis Fischer. In Britain and the United States, eye-witness accounts by Welsh freelance journalist Gareth Jones and by the American Communist Fred Beal were met with widespread disbelief.


title: Holodomor

text: In the Soviet Union, any discussion of the famine was banned entirely. Ukrainian historian Stanislav Kulchytsky stated the Soviet government ordered him to falsify his findings and depict the famine as an unavoidable natural disaster, to absolve the Communist Party and uphold the legacy of Stalin.


title: Holodomor

text: Whether the Holodomor was a genocide or ethnicity-blind, was man-made or natural, and was intentional or unintentional are issues of significant modern debate. The event is considered a genocide by Ukraine and the European Parliament, and the lower house of parliament of Russia condemned the Soviet regime "that has neglected the lives of people for the achievement of economic and political goals".


title: Holodomor

text: On 10 November 2003 at the United Nations, 25 countries, including Russia, Ukraine, and United States signed a joint statement on the seventieth anniversary of the Holodomor with the following preamble:


title: Holodomor

text: In the former Soviet Union millions of men, women and children fell victims to the cruel actions and policies of the totalitarian regime. The Great Famine of 1932–1933 in Ukraine (Holodomor), took from 7 million to 10 million innocent lives and became a national tragedy for the Ukrainian people. In this regard, we note activities in observance of the seventieth anniversary of this Famine, in particular organized by the Government of Ukraine.


title: Holodomor

text: Honouring the seventieth anniversary of the Ukrainian tragedy, we also commemorate the memory of millions of Russians, Kazakhs and representatives of other nationalities who died of starvation in the Volga River region, Northern Caucasus, Kazakhstan and in other parts of the former Soviet Union, as a result of civil war and forced collectivisation, leaving deep scars in the consciousness of future generations.


title: Holodomor

text: The Ukrainian parliament first recognized the Holodomor as a genocide in 2003, and criminalized both Holodomor denial and Holocaust denial in 2006. In 2010, the Kyiv Court of Appeal ruled that the Holodomor was an act of genocide and held Joseph Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov, Lazar Kaganovich, Stanislav Kosior, Pavel Postyshev, Mendel Khatayevich, Vlas Chubar and other Bolshevik leaders responsible.


title: Holodomor

text: The "Holodomor" has been compared to the Irish Famine of 1845–1849 that took place in Ireland under British rule, which has been the subject of similar controversy and debate.


title: Holodomor

text: After campaigns from the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the recognition of the Holodomor as a genocide, parliaments and governments of various countries have issued statements recognizing the Holodomor as genocide including Ukraine and 14 other countries, , including Australia, Canada, Colombia, Georgia, Mexico, Peru and Poland.


title: Holodomor

text: In November 2022, the Holodomor was recognized as a genocide by Germany, Ireland, Moldova, Romania, and the Belarusian opposition in exile. Pope Francis compared the Russian war in Ukraine with its targeted destruction of civilian infrastructure to the "terrible Holodomor Genocide", during an address at St. Peter's Square.


title: Holodomor

text: To honour those who perished in the Holodomor, monuments have been dedicated and public events held annually in Ukraine and worldwide.


title: Holodomor

text: Since 1998, Ukraine has officially observed a Holodomor Memorial Day on the fourth Saturday of November, established by a presidential decree of Leonid Kuchma. In 2006, customs were established for a minute of silence at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, flags flown at half-mast, and restrictions on entertainment broadcasting. In 2007, three days of commemorations on the Maidan Nezalezhnosti included video testimonies of communist crimes in Ukraine and documentaries, scholarly lectures, and the National Bank of Ukraine issued a set of commemorative coins.


title: Holodomor

text: The National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide was erected on the slopes of the Dnieper river, welcoming its first visitors on 22 November 2008. The ceremony of the memorial's opening was dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Holodomor.


title: Holodomor

text: In an October 2013 opinion poll, 33.7% of Ukrainians fully agreed and 30.4% rather agreed with the statement "The Holodomor was the result of actions committed by the Soviet authorities, along with Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, and was the result of human actions". In the same poll, 22.9% of those polled fully or partially agreed with the view that the famine was caused by natural circumstances, but 50.5% disagreed with that. Furthermore, 45.4% of respondents believed that the Holodomor was "a deliberate attempt to destroy the Ukrainian nation" and 26.2% rather or completely disagreed with this.


title: Holodomor

text: In a November 2021 poll, 85% agreed that the Holodomor was a genocide of Ukrainians. A poll undertaken in Ukraine in 2022 recorded 93% agreeing that the Holodomor was a genocide with 3% disagreeing.


title: Holodomor

text: On 19 October 2022, Russian occupation authorities dismantled a Holodomor monument in the destroyed city of Mariupol on the basis that it was not a monument but a symbol of "disinformation at the state level". Ukrainian culture minister Oleksandr Tkachenko said "such acts signifies that the current Russian regime is a true successor to the one guilty of crimes against humanity and the Ukrainian people".