TEHRAN – An Iranian play named “Holodomor” premiered at Tehran’s Neauphle-le-Chateau Theater on Friday, recapitulating the Holodomor, a famine planned by Joseph Stalin in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians.

Ali Safari is the writer of the play, which is being performed by the Seganeh Troupe with director Raha Hajizeinal.

This play is the final part of a trilogy, which has been produced by Safari and Hajizeinal about World War II. “Women's Auschwitz” and “Berlin 10:10” were other parts of the set, which were performed in 2019 and 2020.

The word Holodomor literally translated from Ukrainian means “killing by starvation”. The term Holodomor emphasizes the famine’s man-made and intentional aspects such as rejection of outside aid, confiscation of all household foodstuffs and restriction of population movement. 

As part of the wider Soviet famine of 1932–33, which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country, millions of inhabitants of Ukraine, the majority of whom were ethnic Ukrainians, died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine.

Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by Ukraine and 15 other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet government.

Some scholars believe that the famine was planned by Joseph Stalin to eliminate a Ukrainian independence movement.

A cast composed of Sarina Azad-Milani, Farshad Ayyubi, Mohammad Pasandideh, Tima Taqizadeh, Farzaneh Seiri, Ahu Shafiei, Milad Salehvand, Mehdi Abbasi, Nika Qasemi, Atefeh Musavi and Alireza Valipur perform the paly, which will remain on stage until March 12.    

The troupe has earlier performed “Women’s Auschwitz” about women in the Auschwitz concentration camp operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II and the Holocaust.

The second part of the trilogy was “Berlin 10:10”, which centers on the event occurred one minute before the outbreak of WWII. 

Photo: A scene from Seganeh Troupe’s latest production “Holodomor”. (Photo by Reza Javidi)

MMS/YAW