Kazakh famine of 1930–1933
The Kazakh famine of 1930–1933, also known as the Asharshylyk, was a famine during which approximately 1.5 million people died in the Kazakh Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic, then part of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic in the Soviet Union, of whom 1.3 million were ethnic Kazakhs. An estimated 38 to 42 percent of all Kazakhs died, the highest percentage of any ethnic group killed by the Soviet famine of 1930–1933. Other research estimates that as many as 2.3 million died. A committee created by the Kazakhstan parliament chaired by Historian Manash Kozybayev concluded that the famine was "a manifestation of the politics of genocide", with 1.75 million victims.
| Asharshylyk Ашаршылық | |
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The cube at the site for the future monument for victims of the famine (dated 1931–1933) in the center of Almaty, Kazakhstan. The monument itself was built in 2017. | |
| Country | Soviet Union |
| Location | Kazakhstan, Russian SFSR |
| Period | 1930–1933 |
| Total deaths | 1.5–2.3 million |
| Refugees | 665,000 to 1.1 million |
| Causes | Forced collectivization under Filipp Goloshchyokin |
| Effect on demographics | 38-42% of the entire Kazakh population died |
| Consequences | Kazakhs reduced from 60% to 38% of the republic's population; sedentarization of the nomadic Kazakh people |
| Preceded by | Kazakh famine of 1919–1922 |
| Mass repression in the Soviet Union |
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| Economic repression |
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| Political repression |
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| Ideological repression |
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| Ethnic repression |
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| History of Kazakhstan |
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The famine began in the winter of 1930, a full year before the famine in Ukraine, termed the Holodomor, which was at its worst in the years 1931–1933. The famine made Kazakhs a minority in the Kazakh ASSR; it caused the deaths or migration of large numbers of people, and it was not until the 1990s, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, that the Kazakhs became the largest ethnicity group in Kazakhstan again. Before the famine, around 60% of the republic's residents were ethnic Kazakhs, a proportion greatly reduced to around 38% of the population after the famine. The famine is seen by some scholars to belong to the wider history of forced collectivization in the Soviet Union and part of the Soviet famine of 1932–1933. Soviet authorities engaged in repressive policies during the famine such as blacklisting entire districts from trading with other areas and shooting thousands of Kazakhs dead during attempts to flee across the border to China.
Some historians describe the famine as legally recognizable as a genocide perpetrated by the Soviet state, under the definition outlined by the United Nations; however, some argue otherwise. In Kazakhstan, it is sometimes termed as Goloshchyokin's genocide (Kazakh: Голощёкин геноциді, romanized: Goloşekin genotsidı, Kazakh pronunciation: [ɡɐləˌʂʲokʲin ɡʲinɐˈt͡sɪdɪ̞̃]) after Filipp Goloshchyokin, who was the First Secretary of the Communist Party in the Kazakh ASSR, to emphasize its man-made nature.