I tend to write here a lot, don’t I? Anyway I’m going to try to not post as frequently so I don’t clog up the timeline.
So a bit of context: I am taking a genocide history course and I will have to write a research paper for it. The paper is the biggest part of the grade and we can choose any topic as long as the professor approves of it. We have to book a “consultation” with him where we present our research topic and question, if he thinks it’s good enough we can go ahead and begin research and writing. The topic I want to write about is what was/is happening in the Donbas. I know many of us have referred to it as a genocide and I figured it’d be a good topic to write about since no one really talks about it. I could choose other issues but I’m almost certain other students will write about them, the Donbas situation is just never brought up enough for my liking.
My real question is: how do I present this to my professor?
I know I want to look into the how and why it happened, and how it’s being talked about now. If that’s makes sense. Yes it’s messy and not elegant enough, I’ll work on it, but I feel very passionate about this, especially with an event that is being hosted at my school today, it’s lit a fire in me. One that’s been there for a while but it’s just gotten hotter, it that makes sense.
I don’t want my professor to think my paper is going to be a weird defence of Putin or whatever, he seems quite set in stone on his position of the war so I’m trying to tread lightly without sacrificing my principles. All I’m asking is help in my wording as I don’t know how to say this without potentially screwing myself over. I think I low-key have to convince him that it was/is a genocide.
Just to say, I’ve never felt you were clogging up anything and always appreciated your posts.
That does make me feel better, thanks. I just get very self conscious sometimes and worry I may be taking up space.
Has someone or is someone already tackling the genocide of Gaza/Palestine? Because if not i would strongly suggest that you pick it instead, as it’s the more urgently pressing issue at the moment and it is also much more straightforward and obviously a genocide. With Donbass you will have a more difficult time getting through the anti-Russia narrative that has been manufactured since 2014.
It’s also easier to dismiss the label of genocide in the Donbass case where the number of victims is relatively small than it is for the case of Palestine. There has never been a better time to write a paper on the Palestinian genocide as the South African proceedings against the Zionist entity at the ICJ have done a very good job of laying out the factual evidence, statements of intent, etc… they’ve basically done half your work for you.
That being said if you still want to go with Donbass instead i would include things like Poroshenko’s comments about Donbass children living in cellars. Also the various dehumanizing comments made in the Ukrainian media about the Donbass separatists and their oftentimes explicit calls for the entire population of the Donbass republics (who are viewed by Ukrainian nationalists as at best traitors and terrorists if not outright subhuman) to be either killed or induced to flee to Russia.
I would cite the many, many instances of Ukraine terror bombing civilians in Donetsk since 2015. I would point to laws passed by the Kiev regime that essentially aim at eradicating the Russian language from Ukraine, and i’d also mention the persecution of the Orthodox Church and its replacement with a political creation of the Maidan regime.
This is where it becomes clear that just speaking of a genocide in Donbass doesn’t present the whole picture. The project of ethnic cleansing by the post-Maidan regime in Kiev is not just aimed at the Donbass but at the entire ethnic Russian population of Ukraine.
While I don’t know for sure, I am almost certain someone will be writing about Palestine. It’s brought up in class quite a bit by both the professor and students. Next time I see him for office hours I’ll ask if someone is going to write about it.
When it comes to the death count I did actually ask him about this previously just in case and he said that it doesn’t matter. A genocide can have zero casualties and still be categorized as one. It seems to me more about intent and actions taken rather than results, if that makes sense.
In any case, thank you for all the advice, it’s very helpful!
I forgot to add my answer to the actual question!
Considering the academic context, I would approach this in the same way as you would approach it with any other research question.
Have a look at the requirements for the paper, the marking criteria, etc, and write a question they will allow you to meet those criteria.
You’ll want a refined question that can be answered within the word/page limit. And a clear plan as to how you will research the answer.
If you pick Donbass, have a think about what sources you might rely on. If they’re in Russian or Ukrainian and you can translate them, explain that in the proposal. Relying on Google Translate or DeepL might not be sufficient but it depends on what your professor and school say. I don’t know if there’s been any but there could be some ECHR jurisprudence on an issue related to Donbas: https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng (hopefully that link works but if not, delete ‘hudoc.’ and go through the menu to HUDOC). There’s at least one UN report.
I’m unsure on your disciplinary requirements but I’d also consider whether you can get the right balance between primary and secondary sources. If you can phrase your proposal as an analysis/evaluation of certain sources, it could persuade your prof that your project is appropriately academic.
Another option would be to frame the project as a critical application of a theory. The idea being that you’ll consider whether there’s been a genocide according to so and so’s model, or Mearsheimer’s realism, etc. Maybe something you’ve studied for this class, as your professor may appreciate your applying what you’ve been learning about. You can criticise the theory/model as you apply it to your sources.
Tagging @[email protected] because you might both be thinking about a similar option.
I went back and looked at the requirements for sources and I need at least three primary sources and three secondary. I went to check JSTOR for some primary sources and all of them are from the 1800s or 1940s, I got very confused by this so I guess JSTOR is out of the question. Finding secondary sources is way easier. I will be talking to him today during office hours to see if I’m allowed to use sources that are not in English (I know I was allowed to use Portuguese sources for my polisci paper last semester as long as I translated them) so hopefully he says yes. I’ll also ask him about video footage, this could work for both Donbas and Palestine as we know Palestinians have been documenting their deaths on video and posting it to social media, I wonder if the same can be said about the Donbas… I’ll have to get his approval first. Doing a paper exploring whether it can be labeled a genocide sounds like a good idea and was definitely an angle I was thinking about. When I searched up “Donbas genocide” the first result is Wikipedia denying the situation and saying there’s no evidence, I wonder if I can find some that contradicts their narrative (obviously I won’t be arguing with Wikipedia in my paper but denial is might be something I should touch on…). I guess right now I’m worried about primary sources, JSTOR kind of sucks and I doubt my library holds any but I could try looking anyway.
Also thank you so much for giving me the HUDOC link, I’ve genuinely never heard of it before. There doesn’t seem to be much on there about the Donbas, especially cases on and after 2014 but I’ll have to read through the files to see if they’re relevant. Bringing up Mearsheimer might be relevant for my polisci paper but maybe not for this history one, though it may help explain behaviours!
I forgot to say thank you! I really appreciate the effort and detail you provide in your posts, they really do help a lot!
You’re very welcome. It’s always a pleasure.
Ah, so they’re for different classes. That makes sense. I knew you were taking a couple of courses but wasn’t sure which work went with which one. Both topics could be covered in either, from different perspectives. You probably said, but I missed the significance.
One thing that might help… You’re probably going to have to define genocide before you can decide whether there has been one (or an attempt). If you do some of that definitional work now (to be returned to in more depth later), it might give you some clues as to what sources you’ll need to be looking into.
What counts as a primary source in history?
Law reports and legislation would count in some fields but I’m unsure, here. The University of Birmingham tells me ‘official reports’ count. The University of South Carolina tells me that ‘almost any kind of material can be used as a primary source as long as it was created during the time period that you are researching or was created by someone who participated’.
If law does count, I can think of a few options. The UN OHCHR report, ‘Accountability for killings in Ukraine from January 2014 to May 2016 (PDF)’ (or site with link/summary) includes several useful references, such as to the Ukrainian Constitution, international criminal law, and Ukrainian criminal law (that’s if the UN report isn’t a primary source in itself). This document doesn’t always make it clear who is doing the killing, so be careful if you rely on it.
Looks like Ukraine derogated from several international instruments over the past decade or so. There’s this, in relation to Russia’s taking Crimea (I found a link but it’s not necessarily the right one): Resolution of the Parliament of Ukraine ‘On derogation from certain obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (PDF))’ of 21 May 2015 (cited in the UN report, above). This may be the UN’s receipt (PDF)? And the Council of Europe (for the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 1950 (ECHR), not the European Union) reported that Ukraine may derogate but ECHR standards still apply – there must be an official record somewhere, about what the news item refers to. You might have to go to the relevant websites (for Ukrainian Parliament, UN, European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR, related to the Council of Europe (coe) i.e. HUDOC) and browse by year to find things; searching is mysteriously unhelpful (imagine that).
It’s weasel-wordy and maybe too recent for a history paper, but there could be some useful links in this kind of thing: ‘Ukraine: UN rights office deplores attack in Russian-occupied Donetsk’.
Search HUDOC for ‘donetsk’ brings up some interesting cases. For example, in YS and OS v Russia (http/not secure link), a mother (Russian) left her husband (Ukrainian) and daughter in Donetsk. After the civil war started, the mother went back to Ukraine, ‘kidnapped’ her daughter, and moved to Russia. A Russian District Court ruled in favour of the husband, saying the daughter had to be returned under the ‘Hague Convention’. The ECtHR criticised the Russian court for failing to consider the ‘grave risk’ of ‘physical or psychological harm’ and ‘an intolerable situation’. The Russian court could, apparently,
-
have easily … ascertained [the facts] by a wide number of sources, which had unanimously attested to serious human rights violations and abuses in eastern Ukraine of which Donetsk was part, including thousands of conflict related civilian casualties and deaths counting both adults and children, the vast majority of which had been caused by shelling, including from artillery and large-caliber mortars. Nor had the District Court assessed whether the circumstances pertaining in Donetsk at that time had been more than isolated incidents in an unsettled political environment to reach the threshold for “grave risk”. It had failed to consider the views of the second applicant expressed in a report by the chief inspector of the local childcare authority, which had mentioned, in particular, that she had been afraid to return because she had feared gunfire and exploding bombs.
(Quotes are from the summary (http/not secure site).)
All of this would be true even if Donetsk was ‘only’ in a horrid civil war (i.e. not suffering a genocide). But it’s interesting to see that the ECtHR knew how bad it was in Donetsk, and thought the Russian Court violated the mother’s and the daughter’s right to a private and family life for insufficiently ‘assess[ing] as to [the] existence of [a] “grave risk” in returning [an] abducted child under the Hague Convention to a conflict zone in eastern Ukraine’. (That’s the strange world of law: kidnap your own kid to save them from a war zone and you’ll still be counted as abducting them but can rely on your right to a private and family life to keep them safe! Baffling, but there you are.)
Some more cases, here (they won’t all be relevant): http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/#{“fulltext”:[“donetsk”],“documentcollectionid2”:[“GRANDCHAMBER”,“CHAMBER”]}
And searching ‘Luhansk’ reveals (again, not all the cases will be relevant): http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/#{“fulltext”:[“luhansk”],“documentcollectionid2”:[“GRANDCHAMBER”,“CHAMBER”]}
EDIT: I wasn’t finished typing!
EDIT #35 because I kept on clicking the wrong button after previewing the text!: There is one case that mentions ‘Donetsk’ and ‘genocide’ but I can’t work out easily if it’s connected in the way that you’re looking for (I don’t think so but it’s a long case about Russia banning Jehovah’s Witnesses and I’m not motivated enough to read it in depth): https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/?i=001-217535.
EDIT #39: The Foreign Policy Research Institute wrote a report, ‘Five Years of War in the Donbas’ in 2019. The FPRI talks of an ‘accidental’ civil war 😐 and talks explicitly of neo-nazism as Ukraine’s Achilles’ Heel. But JFC look at this:
Hopefully, the absorption of the volunteer units into the formal Ukrainian armed forces will serve to moderate their views, rather than infect the larger body with them. One OSCE monitor believes that this is starting to happen. She believes the Ukrainian military leadership has directed members of the former volunteer units to cut ties with—or at a minimum not publicly proclaim their association with—extreme right- wing groups. She says, “I can see Facebook profiles of soldiers of Azov. Last year [2018] they were posting to mark the birthday of Hitler, but this year it didn’t happen.”147 While neglecting to congratulate Hitler on his birthday is small progress in cutting ties between these units and the far-right, it is progress nevertheless.
In other words, ‘Ukrainian neonazism is a problem because they’re open about it and it makes them look bad’.
First I want to apologize for my incredibly late response. I have three midterms this week and spent my time studying and dying lol. I finished two and have one more tomorrow, my fourth is next week so not nearly as bad. Okay, with that out of the way I just wanted to thank you so much for all of this, you really did not need to go this hard! This is more than I could ever ask for! I honestly don’t know what to say. The UN documents and such do work well as primary sources, documentaries work as well as long as I’m not quoting an academic, second language sources are good too but only as primary sources. Secondary sources, according to my professor, are made by academic institutions/people. First hand accounts and interviews work (I mean, for our holodomor week we’re required to watch interviews with people who lived through it, so if they can use that I can use interviews with people in the Donbas). I saw recently that the ICJ was going to see a case about Ukraine being pissed about Russia claiming they were committing genocidal acts in the east so I know the results of that will help with my paper. I know I will have to be very careful with my wording when I finally start writing, though I have to admit its hard to reign in my annoyances and other feelings. Anyway, enough with my rambling, again thank you so much for this, I have it saved and it really does help in general and for when I do more searches on my own (so many resources I wasn’t aware of!).
No worries about the delay! You’re right to focus on your midterms. Glad to be of help. It’s an interesting question and once I got it in my head, I had to have a look for myself 😁
One more thing (not necessarily the ‘final’ thing as I’m in no rush to draw this to a close), which I wouldn’t be surprised if you already know. It’s a trick to help with careful wording: don’t make too much of each source. By this I mean, present the source as accurately as you can, as evidence only of whatever it can evidence. It’s easy to see a source as providing a lot more evidence than it actually does when you’re in the flow and seeing all these dots connect. Be critical of the sources that support the argument that you want to make. You can challenge your sources with your own arguments or with arguments that others have made (crediting and being critical of those sources, too). That way, when you make your potentially controversial argument, it’s harder to accuse you of e.g. cherry picking or lack of criticism or unfounded bias, etc. I mean, they may try anyway, but you’ve done what you can.
Thank you, again I’m late since I had one last midterm (political science) but I’m back. This is all very helpful, most of your comments I end up saving because they’re always great and I want to make sure I have easy access to them for reference. I guess I’ll have to keep reminding myself to be critical, sometimes I get “too into it” when writing that I can come across as flippant, annoyed/frustrated, or cynical. I think the language I use is… different from the typical academic paper (I don’t use cuss words but I have made “jokes,” like lowkey making fun of Salazar and the mafia in my last paper) and I’ll need to be careful especially with this paper, it being about genocide and all. I like to think I’m good at managing my language when it comes to certain people (those in power vs those not) and situations but I know I’ll need to be careful. Thankfully I have quite a bit of time to actually write it (this paper is due in April) and fix my language.
-
Saw this post in my federate feed, so not a lemmygrad native but thought it was interesting. Depending on how confrontational you want to be:
- You could have the paper premise be on “both sides” of the conflict making claims. I.e., “both Ukrainian-aligned and Russian-aligned accuse each other of genocide during the 2014-present day conflict in Ukraine/Donbas. How do they justify those claims and how do those claims hold up against international law concerning genocide?”
- You could just make it more focused on the 2014-2022 period. “Did the violence in the Donbas in the post-Maidan, pre-invasion period rise to the level of genocide?”
IDK about your professor, but most professors should be accepting of such a research paper as long as you present a “neutral” outlook as opposed to a polemical one.
You don’t have to be from lemmygrad, everyone is welcome to give me insight and I really appreciate it! This helps a lot in me approaching my professor about the issue, I hesitate to talk about this stuff with them due to my school being a Canadian institution and the fact that I can’t really gauge whether he’ll be chill or not. Plus recent events at my school make me nervous about broaching the subject. Anyway, thank you so much for this!
Post less if you need a break or need the time for studying. But don’t worry about the feed. Your posts are good and I get the sense that others appreciate them, too.
Thankfully posting here doesn’t take up much of my time, and my posts specific to my polisci class does help with studying. I just get self conscious sometimes about spamming, I just have a lot of thoughts that I can’t keep all in one post.
