Red Harvest
| Modern Age |
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 Red Harvest
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World History > Modern Age > Soviet Union
Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin waged a brutal war against the Soviet peasantry leading to the Holodomor, the terror-famine that killed at least 4 million Ukrainians during the fall and winter of 1932-33. Red Harvest is based on the tragic events that took place in Soviet Ukraine and other parts of the Soviet Union from 1929 to 1933. Stalin and the ruling Communist Party began their program of forced large-scale collectivization of individual farms and farmers, including the seizure of livestock, farm implements, crops, seed stock, and other property. Red Harvest is the fictional story, based on true stories as related to the Ukranian-Canadian author, of Mykola Kovalenko, a Ukrainian immigrant to Canada, who was the only member of his family to have survived the famine. Through his memories, we witness the horrors of what happened to his family and fellow villagers in the “breadbasket of Europe” as they struggled—not only to make sense of the war that was being waged against them—but, ultimately, to survive.
Emily's Review
This was a powerful piece of fiction. We meet Kolya as an elderly man. He's the only surviving member of his large Ukrainian family. Now living in Canada, he recounts his experiences during the famine. The story begins in 1927, and we see that he was growing up in a prosperous farming village. But when Stalin enacts a collectivization plan the entire village, and many more like it across Ukraine are wiped out due to starvation.
I appreciate the way this story was told, in that we aren't only seeing it from Kolya's perspective, but we see what happened to each of his family members through their perspectives. Through each of their stories, the author exposes the corruption and misguided idealism that lead to the horrors of the Holodomor. I think this graphic novel makes for a great introduction to this period and gives a very good understanding of what happened then, and why the Ukrainians are fighting so hard against Russia now. The artwork was stark and it fit the story incredibly well.
I also appreciated that the author included a glossary at the beginning of the story to help with all of the Russian and Ukrainian terminology throughout.
I found this to be a very difficult but important read.
Other Similar Books
Other suggestions on the subject of the Soviet Union.
- Breaking Stalin's Nose (by: Yelchin, Eugene, MG)
- The Blackbird Girls (by: Blankman, Anne, UMG)
- The Impossible Journey (by: Whelan, Gloria, UMG)
- The Lost Year (by: Marsh, Katherine, UMG)
- Joseph Stalin (A Wicked History 20th Century) (by: McCollum, Sean, UMG, YA)
- In The Shadow of the Moon (by: Cherrix, Amy, UMG, YA)
- Red Harvest (by: Cherkas, Michael, YA, A)
- The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin (by: Hochschild, Adam, YA, A)
- Atomic Anna (by: Barenbaum, Rachel, YA, A)