Ukraine: A Selected Bibliography

Books 

Applebaum, Anne. Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine. Doubleday, 2017. 

The book details Stalin’s intent to destroy Ukrainian peasantry through famine.  

Conquest, Robert. The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine. Oxford University Press, 1987.  

Conquest provides a comprehensive history of Soviet policies of dekulakization and collectivization which starved 14.5 million Ukrainians.  

Gamache, Ray. Gareth Jones: Eyewitness to the Holodomor. Welsh Academic Press, 2016.  

This is the biography of a Welsh journalist who reported the truth of the Holodomor in Ukraine.  

Igort and Jamie Richards. The Ukrainian and Russian Notebooks: Life and Death Under Soviet Rule. Simon & Schuster, 2016.  

The authors present Illustrated English translation of investigations into crimes committed by Stalin and Putin. 

Klid, Bohdan. The Holodomor Reader: A Sourcebook on the Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine. CIUS Press, 2012.  

This is a collection of texts and source materials about the genocidal famine in Ukraine.  

Naimark, Norman N. Stalin’s Genocides.  Princeton University Press, 2011. 

The author argues that Stalin’s mass murders constituted genocide.   

Snyder, Timothy. Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Writing. Tim Duggan Books, 2016.  

A study of the Holocaust, specifically in Eastern Europe, gives important lessons for today.  

Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. Basic Books, 2012.  

Snyder’s analysis examines the atrocities committed by both Hitler and Stalin in Europe.  

Snyder, Timothy. Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist’s Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine. Yale University Press, 2007.  

This book is about the director of Polish intelligence in Ukraine working against Soviet power and espionage. 

Snyder, Timothy. The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999. Yale University Press, 2004.  

This history of Ukrainian nationhood provides information against Russian propaganda. 

Snyder, Timothy. The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke. Basic Books, 2010.  

This narrative history focuses on an Austrian prince who chose a Ukrainian identity and tried to be their king, followed by various other identities that played out across several nations. 

Snyder, Timothy. The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America. Tim Duggan Books, 2018.  

This historical analysis explains Russia’s return to authoritarianism, the invasion of Crimea, and the state of democracy today.  

Smith, Tom R. Child 44. Grand Central Publishing, 2011.  

This thrilling novel is set in Soviet Ukraine with the Holodomor as the backdrop.  

Please click here to access a list of 71 additional books about the Holodomor.

Films 

Freedom on Fire, 2022.

Documentary which goes beyond the headlines to cover stories from the frontline of the Ukraine war.

Genocide Revealed, 2011.  

Documentary exposing the Soviet policies of genocide and the Ukrainian movement for independence.  

Harvest of Despair, 1985. 

Award-winning documentary featuring interview footage from survivors.  

Holodomor: Voices of Survivors, 2015.  

Stories of the Holodomor from Ukrainian survivors.  

Mr. Jones, 2019.  

We strongly recommend this thrilling docu-drama based on the true story of Gareth Jones reporting on the famine in Soviet Ukraine. 

The Living, 2009.  

A reconstruction of the reporting done by Gareth Jones. 

The Soviet Story, 2008.  

A documentary about mass murder in the Soviet Union beginning with the Holodomor.  

Stalin’s Secret Genocide, 2016. 

Short documentary featuring some of above authors including Anne Applebaum, Timothy Snyder, and Norman Naimark.  

When We Starve, 2019. 

Documentary explaining Stalin’s dehumanizing and genocidal policies.  

Winter on Fire, 2015.

A documentary about civil unrest over European integration in 2013 and 2014 which grew into a violent revolution.