New on the Cultural Freedom Project Substack: “Ukraine and the Legal Scholar Who Coined the Term for the World’s Darkest Crime”

Raphael Lemkin is best known as one of the founders of modern international law, having coined the term “genocide”. However, fewer people know that Ukraine was central to his thinking, and that his understanding of the Holodomor helps explain Russia’s violence against Ukraine today. 

In a recent article for the Cultural Freedom Project Substack, an initiative of the Penn Cultural Heritage Center at the University of Pennsylvania, Raphael Lemkin Society Digital Communication Manager Viktoriia Savchuk Kennet explores Lemkin’s connection to Ukraine, his understanding of the Holodomor as “a classic example of Soviet genocide,” and the continued relevance of his work amid Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine.

The article also highlights how Ukrainian institutions and the Ukrainian diaspora in the United States have preserved Lemkin’s legacy and carried it forward as part of Ukraine’s contemporary struggle for justice, memory, and accountability.