Local Filmmaker: Zina Poletz Gutmanis

Article by Becky Fillinger

Zina Poletz GutmanisThe current Russian aggression against Ukraine is not a new development. As our local community seeks ways to help Ukraine, we are fortunate to have in our community local Ukrainian-Americans who are telling the broader historical narrative of violence against Ukraine. Meet Zina Poletz Gutmanis – a local documentary filmmaker. We spoke to her about Holodomor, growing up as a Ukrainian-American in the Twin Cities and current projects.  

Q:  You’ve been part of several national and local Holodomor commemorative events. Minnesota recognizes Holodomor as a genocidal event. What do you want all Minnesota citizens to know about the man-made famine of 1932-33?  

A:  The current invasion of Ukraine should be viewed as a continuation of centuries of Russian attempts to erase the Ukrainian national identity. The Holodomor (which means "murder by starvation" in Ukrainian) was an artificial famine engineered by Stalin to break the spirit of the Ukrainian people. To provide some historical context, under the Romanov tsars, most ethnic Ukrainians lived under serfdom, a form of slavery abolished only in 1861 - the time of our own Civil War. They farmed small plots of land owned by a foreign lord. Teaching or publishing or even acting in a play in the Ukrainian language was strictly forbidden. Even with this high level of repression, within days after Tsar Nicholas II was dethroned in 1917, Ukrainian leaders organized a government in Kyiv. On January 22, 1918, the Ukrainian People's Republic declared itself an independent nation. Independent Ukraine lasted only a few years. Outnumbered by onslaughts from the Red and White armies, Ukrainian lands ended up partitioned between the Bolsheviks and Poland.  

Lenin's policies gave Ukrainians cultural and economic freedom, but when Stalin came to power, these policies were reversed and people were pushed onto collective farms. The communist regime deliberately used terror and mass starvation to break the resistance of Ukrainian farmers to Soviet authority in general and to the confiscation of their land, grain, and animals in particular. Communist activists went door to door searching for grain and other food, leaving people with nothing. At the height of the famine in June 1933, an estimated 28,000 Ukrainians were dying each day. Concurrently, the Communist party arrested and executed or exiled Ukraine's finest minds - poets, musicians, writers, religious figures, historians. In 1988, the U.S. Commission on the Ukraine Famine reported to Congress that “Joseph Stalin and those around him committed genocide against Ukrainians in 1932-1933. To learn more about this horrific chapter in history, Red Famine by Anne Applebaum is an excellent resource.

Protesting Ukrainian famine in Minneapolis, 1955

Two Minnesotans played important roles in documenting and calling the world's attention to this genocide. The first, Dmytro Solovey, arrived in St. Paul after World War II. His book Golgotha of Ukraine, issued in 1953, contained the first English-language set of Holodomor survivor stories, which he carefully compiled while living in a displaced persons camp in Germany. Copies of the book were sent to members of Congress and other leaders and public libraries.

In the 1980s, Slavko Nowytski, also of St. Paul, co-produced and directed Harvest of Despair, the first documentary film about the Holodomor.

Q:  Thank you for that overview. You recommend "compassionate conversations” in Ukrainian communities to deal with the trauma of Holodomor; but also World War II, displaced persons camps and now the Russian invasion. Why is it important to deal with the unspoken traumas, across generations?  

A:  I represent Minnesota on the U.S. Committee for Ukrainian Holodomor Genocide Awareness. One thing I've noticed in this role is that most discussion on the topic is academic. There was no culture in the community for survivors to share their own stories, maybe because it was so horrible to live through. I myself didn't know I was a descendant of a Holodomor survivor until a few years ago. In 2019, thanks to a grant from the Minnesota Historical Society, I recorded a set of oral histories with local Holodomor survivors, and children and grandchildren of survivors, which are now housed at the U of M. I was so honored that people trusted me enough to tell some deeply painful family stories. Sharing in a safe environment makes us feel supported and less alone. The Holodomor Descendants Network is an international organization recently set up for that purpose. There is a lot of attention and study taking place right now on the transmission of generational trauma. 

St. Constantine Dance Group, circa 1970s

Q:  You speak of your Ukrainian heritage as an “extra” enrichment to your childhood. What does that mean to you?  

A: Growing up in the 1970s and 80s, I lived in two worlds - the typical American world during the week and my Ukrainian world on the weekends. Friday nights was Ukrainian folk dancing. Saturday mornings we had heritage school followed by youth group and Sundays we went to church. My home base was St. Michael’s (now St. Michael’s and St. George’s) Ukrainian Orthodox Church. That’s where I went to church and Saturday school. But the other churches and organizations held events and activities all the time that I attended also. There were so many concerts, lectures, holidays, historic commemorations - it was a very positive experience. However, underlying it all was an unsaid expectation, maybe, that my generation had to carry the spark or the seed of the Ukrainian nation because Ukraine was not free under the Soviets. It was a captive nation.

Q:  You’re making a film on Ukrainians in Minnesota. Where are you at with the project? Will you go back to the earliest Ukrainians who settled here? What are plans for the film’s distribution?  

A:  With a second grant from the Minnesota Historical Society, I am partnering with three local Ukrainian parishes on a documentary that explores Minnesota's Ukrainian community, with a focus on the impact of the Holodomor. We are currently wrapping up the Research and Writing phase and moving on to seek funding for Implementation. It will cover the time frame from the founding of St. Constantine Ukrainian Catholic Church in 1913 to Ukraine's independence in 1991. Ukrainian immigrants to Minnesota were intimately connected to events happening in Ukraine during those years - lobbying, raising money - just like the community has jumped into action now, when Ukraine is once again in peril.

Q:  We will follow your progress - how may we follow your news?  

A:  To join our mailing list, please email HolodomorMN@gmail.com.