In most countries of the world and for most of history, people have been extremely frowned upon to eat their own kind. However, there were many more such cases than it might seem. In our review of 10 horrific examples of cannibalism in modern society, and we will not talk about ritual victims at all.

The Donner Party was the name given to the case of a group of 87 American pioneers who, during their tour of America, became trapped in snowdrifts. By the time help arrived, only 48 people survived. Although the details of what happened have remained a mystery, the most common version is that some members of the group, driven to despair by hunger, ended up eating the corpses of other people who died from the cold.

2. Dudley and Stevens

The case of Dudley and Stevens became a landmark in British law in 1884 and has since been used as a precedent in cases of defense of people who committed murder out of necessity. Four sailors found themselves in a boat in the middle of the ocean without food or water. Dudley and Stevens suggested that in order for some of them to survive, someone had to be sacrificed for the common good. They ended up killing the cabin boy (who everyone claimed was already in a coma) and eating him. When the sailors were picked up by rescuers, they stated that they had gone to the murder because of hunger. The court sentenced them to execution by hanging, but in the end the sentence was revised to six months in prison (although it is worth noting that by the time the case was finally closed, they had already served 17 years).

3. Crusades

The Crusades are one of the darkest moments in the history of Christianity. After the crusaders, burnt settlements and thousands of corpses remained on their way. But the huge armies could not feed on the Spirit of God alone, and so when provisions began to run out, both sides began to eat the corpses of their enemies, whom they had just killed. Although cannibalism was most likely out of necessity, it also served as an act of intimidation for the enemy.

4. Tang Dynasty

The Tang Dynasty is known as one of the most expansive in Chinese history. And she got on this list due to the fact that at that time they allowed cannibalism for the sake of revenge. Also, there were often cases when, with the help of cannibalism, the Chinese fought corruption. Corrupt officials were beaten to death and eaten. Criminals were often executed by tearing out their hearts, after which a crowd of spectators could taste a piece of this heart.

5. Leningrad

It is safe to say that the blockade of Leningrad revealed the limits of human hunger. There was so little food that the townspeople tore off the wallpaper from the walls to scrape off and eat the glue. Left completely without food, some people began to resort to cannibalism. This phenomenon has become so widespread that the authorities had to create a whole working group to combat cannibals. Parents did not allow children to leave the house, fearing that they would be killed and eaten.

6The Japanese During World War II

While Soviet residents were forced to eat their own kind in Leningrad, Japanese soldiers during World War II did the same. The only difference was that the Japanese did this not only because of hunger. The victims (who were always prisoners of war) were killed in cold blood and then eaten all of their flesh (usually leaving only their hands and feet). Some victims were completely cut off the meat from their hands and feet while they were still alive, after which they were thrown into pits to die. Some Japanese soldiers and officers did such things not out of hunger and desperation, but purely for the purpose of intimidation.

This famine is believed to have been almost caused by human error. The year 1932 was marked by the fact that almost all food products produced by Ukrainian rural residents were expropriated for the needs of the state. Thus, millions of people were left without a livelihood, after which most of them died of starvation. It has not yet been established how many Ukrainian citizens resorted to cannibalism. Everyone knows the story of the man who killed his wife and made soup out of her. They also talk about how people ate children and babies.

Mao Zedong's "Great Leap Forward" campaign had tragic consequences for the Chinese people. Mao wanted to build an industrial state while China was 90% agrarian. As a result, millions of people in the country were left without food. Between 20 and 40 million people died in the country, and for some people the hunger was so unbearable that cannibalism became their only choice. Human meat has become a staple in the market, and (according to rumours) people often switch children to avoid eating their own child.

9 St Francis Raid

In the village of St. Francis in Canada in the second half of 1759, during the war, a battle took place between the French colonialists and local Indians. The raid on this village became famous because Robert Rogers and a squad of thugs carried out one of the most brutal raids in history. Not only did they sack the village and kill all the captives, hunger and madness drove Rogers and his raiders to eat the dead.

10. Siege of Ma "ara and Antioch

Although this list has already mentioned the Crusades, it is worth highlighting two of the most famous sieges among them. Starving Christian troops, mad with hunger during the blockade, cut off pieces of the buttocks of their slain opponents and roasted them. Sometimes, in a hurry, they ate half-baked meat, after which they became very sick. Other stories tell that the Crusaders boiled living adults and even fried children. Like, when God is on your side, you can do whatever you want.

However, cannibalism still occurs today. They, for example, do not disdain - hermits akhgori from Varanasi, who can be seen in a heartfelt series of photographs on our website.

The famine in the Volga region is one of the most tragic events in Russian history of the 20th century. When you read about him, it's hard to believe that it was real. It seems that the photographs taken at that time are shots from a Hollywood trash-horror. Cannibals appear here, and the future Nazi criminal, and the robbers of churches, and the great polar explorer. Alas, this is not fiction, but real events that took place less than a century ago on the banks of the Volga.

The famine in the Volga region was very severe both in 1921-22 and in 1932-33. However, the reasons for it were different. In the first case, the main one was weather anomalies, and in the second, the actions of the authorities. We will describe these events in detail in this article. You will learn about how severe the famine was in the Volga region. The photos presented in this article are living evidence of a terrible tragedy.

In Soviet times, "news from the fields" was held in high esteem. Many tons of grain found their place in the frames of news programs and on newspaper pages. Even now you can see stories on this topic on regional TV channels. However, spring and winter crops are just obscure agricultural terms for the majority of city dwellers. Farmers from the TV channel may complain about severe drought, heavy rainfall and other surprises of nature. However, we usually remain deaf to their troubles. The presence of bread and other products today is considered an eternal given, beyond doubt. And agrarian disasters sometimes raise its price by only a couple of rubles. But less than a century ago, the inhabitants of the Volga region were at the epicenter. At that time, bread was worth its weight in gold. Today it is difficult to imagine how severe the famine was in the Volga region.

Causes of the famine of 1921-22

The lean year of 1920 was the first precondition for the disaster. In the Volga region, only about 20 million poods of grain were harvested. For comparison, its quantity in 1913 reached 146.4 million pounds. The spring of 1921 brought an unprecedented drought. Already in May, winter crops perished in the Samara province, and spring crops began to dry out. The appearance of locusts that ate the remains of the crop, as well as the lack of rain, caused the death of almost 100% of the crops by early July. As a result, famine began in the Volga region. 1921 was a very difficult year for most people in many parts of the country. In the Samara province, for example, about 85% of the population was starving.

In the previous year, as a result of the "surplus appraisal," almost all food supplies were confiscated from the peasants. From the kulaks, the seizure was carried out by requisition, on a "gratuitous" basis. Other residents were paid money for this at rates set by the state. "Food detachments" were in charge of this process. Many peasants did not like the prospect of confiscation of food or its forced sale. And they began to take preventive "measures". All stocks and surpluses of bread were subject to "utilization" - they sold it to speculators, mixed it into animal feed, ate it themselves, brewed moonshine based on it, or simply hid it. "Prodrazverstka" initially spread to grain fodder and bread. In 1919-20, meat and potatoes were added to them, and by the end of 1920, almost all agricultural products were added. After the surplus appropriation of 1920, the peasants were forced to eat seed grain already in the fall. The geography of the famine-stricken regions was very wide. These are the Volga region (from Udmurtia to the Caspian Sea), the south of modern Ukraine, part of Kazakhstan, the Southern Urals.

Actions of the authorities

The situation was critical. The government of the USSR did not have food reserves in order to stop the famine in the Volga region in 1921. In July of this year, it was decided to ask for help from the capitalist countries. However, the bourgeois were in no hurry to help the Soviet Union. Only at the beginning of autumn did the first humanitarian aid arrive. But it was also insignificant. In late 1921 and early 1922, the amount of humanitarian aid doubled. This is a great merit of Fridtjof Nansen, the famous scientist and polar explorer, who organized an active campaign.

Help from America and Europe

While Western politicians were pondering what conditions to put forward to the USSR in exchange for humanitarian aid, religious and public organizations in America and Europe got down to business. Their help in the fight against hunger was very great. The activities of the American Relief Administration (ARA) have reached a particularly large scale. It was headed by the US Secretary of Commerce (by the way, an ardent anti-communist). As of February 9, 1922, the contribution of the United States to the fight against hunger was estimated at $42 million. By comparison, the Soviet government spent only $12.5 million.

Activities carried out in 1921-22

However, the Bolsheviks were not idle. By decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets in June 1921, the Pomgol Central Committee was organized. This commission was endowed with special powers in the field of food distribution and supply. And similar commissions were created locally. Abroad, an active purchase of bread was carried out. Special attention was paid to helping peasants sow winter crops in 1921 and spring crops in 1922. About 55 million poods of seeds were purchased for these purposes.

Used hunger to deal a crushing blow to the church. On January 2, 1922, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee decided to liquidate church property. At the same time, a good goal was declared - funds from the sale of valuables belonging to the church should be directed to the purchase of medicines, food and other necessary goods. During 1922 property was confiscated from the church, the value of which was estimated at 4.5 million gold rubles. It was a huge amount. However, only 20-30% of the funds were directed to the stated goals. The main part was "spent" on kindling the fire of the world revolution. And the other is simply corny plundered by local officials in the process of storage, transportation and seizure.

The Horrors of the Famine of 1921-22

About 5 million people died from hunger and its consequences. Mortality in the Samara region increased four times, reaching 13%. Children suffered the most from hunger. There were frequent cases at that time when parents deliberately got rid of extra mouths. Even cannibalism was noted during the famine in the Volga region. Surviving children became orphans and replenished the army of homeless children. In the villages of Samara, Saratov, and especially Simbirsk province, residents attacked local councils. They demanded that they be given rations. People ate all the cattle, and then turned to cats and dogs, and even people. Famine in the Volga region forced people to take desperate measures. Cannibalism was just one of them. People sold all their property for a piece of bread.

Prices during a famine

At that time, a house could be bought for a bucket of sauerkraut. Residents of the cities sold their property for next to nothing and somehow held on. However, in the villages the situation became critical. Food prices skyrocketed. The famine in the Volga region (1921-1922) led to the fact that speculation began to flourish. In February 1922, a pound of bread could be purchased at the Simbirsk market for 1,200 rubles. And by March, they were already asking for a million. The cost of potatoes reached 800 thousand rubles. for a pud. At the same time, the annual earnings of a simple worker amounted to about a thousand rubles.

Cannibalism during the famine in the Volga region

In 1922, with increasing frequency, reports of cannibalism began to arrive in the capital. Reports for January 20 mentioned his cases in the Simbirsk and Samara provinces, as well as in Bashkiria. It was observed wherever there was famine in the Volga region. The cannibalism of 1921 began to gain new momentum in the following year, 1922. The Pravda newspaper on January 27 wrote that rampant cannibalism was observed in the starving regions. In the districts of the Samara province, people driven by hunger to madness and despair ate human corpses and devoured their dead children. This is what the famine in the Volga region led to.

Cannibalism in 1921 and 1922 was documented. For example, in the report of a member of the Executive Committee of April 13, 1922, on checking the village of Lyubimovka, located in the Samara region, it was noted that "wild cannibalism" takes mass forms in Lyubimovka. In the stove of one inhabitant, he found a cooked piece of human flesh, and in the hallway - a pot of minced meat. Many bones were found near the porch. When the woman was asked about where she got the flesh from, she admitted that her 8-year-old son died and she cut him into pieces. Then she also killed her 15-year-old daughter while the girl was sleeping. Cannibals during the famine in the Volga region of 1921 admitted that they did not even remember the taste of human meat, as they ate it in a state of unconsciousness.

The newspaper "Nasha Zhizn" reported that in the villages of the Simbirsk province, corpses were lying on the streets, which no one removed. The famine in the Volga region of 1921 claimed the lives of many people. Cannibalism was the only way out for many. It got to the point that the inhabitants began to steal supplies from each other, and in some volosts they dug up the dead for food. Cannibalism during the famine in the Volga region of 1921-22. no longer surprised anyone.

Consequences of the famine of 1921-22

In the spring of 1922, according to the GPU, there were 3.5 million starving people in the Samara province, 2 million in Saratov, 1.2 in Simbirsk, 651.7 thousand in Tsaritsyn, 329.7 thousand in Penza, 2.1 million - in the Republic of Tatarstan, 800 thousand - in Chuvashia, 330 thousand - in the German Commune. In only the end of 1923, the famine was overcome. The province received assistance with food and seeds for the autumn sowing, although until 1924 surrogate bread remained the main food of the peasants. According to the census conducted in 1926, the population of the province has decreased by about 300 thousand people since 1921. 170 thousand died from typhus and starvation, 80 thousand were evacuated and about 50 thousand fled. In the Volga region, according to the most conservative estimates, 5 million people died.

Famine in the Volga region of 1932-1933

In 1932-33. hunger returned. Note that the history of its occurrence in this period is still shrouded in darkness and distorted. Despite the huge amount of published literature, the debate about it continues to this day. It is known that in 1932-33. there was no drought in the Volga region, Kuban and Ukraine. What then are its causes? Indeed, in Russia, famine has traditionally been associated with crop shortages and droughts. Weather in 1931-32 was not very favorable for agriculture. However, it could not cause mass crop shortages. Therefore, this famine was not the result of natural disasters. It was a consequence of the agrarian policy pursued by Stalin and the reaction of the peasantry to it.

Famine in the Volga region: causes

The immediate cause can be considered the anti-peasant policy of grain procurement and collectivization. It was carried out to solve the problems of strengthening the power of Stalin and the forced industrialization of the USSR. Ukraine, as well as the main grain regions of the Soviet Union, zones of complete collectivization, were struck by famine (1933). The Volga region again experienced a terrible tragedy.

Having carefully studied the sources, one can note a single mechanism for creating a famine situation in these areas. Everywhere it is forced collectivization, dispossession of kulaks, forced procurement of grain and state deliveries of agricultural products, suppression of the resistance of the peasants. The inextricable link between famine and collectivization can be judged, if only by the fact that in 1930 the period of stable development of the countryside, which began after the hungry years of 1924-25, ended. The year 1930 was already marked by food shortages, when food difficulties arose in a number of regions of the North Caucasus, Ukraine, Siberia, the Middle and Lower Volga because of the grain procurement campaign of 1929. This campaign became a catalyst for the collective farm movement.

The year 1931, it would seem, should have been full for grain growers, since a record harvest was gathered in the grain regions of the USSR due to favorable weather conditions. According to official data, this is 835.4 million centners, although in reality - no more than 772 million However, it turned out differently. The winter-spring of 1931 was a harbinger of a future tragedy.

The famine in the Volga region of 1932 was the logical outcome of Stalin's policy. Many letters from the collective farmers of the North Caucasus, the Volga region and other regions about the difficult situation were received by the editors of the central newspapers. In these letters, the policy of collectivization and grain procurement was cited as the main cause of the difficulties. At the same time, the responsibility was often assigned to Stalin personally. The Stalinist collective farms, as the experience of the first 2 years of collectivization showed, in essence were in no way connected with the interests of the peasants. The authorities considered them mainly as a source of marketable bread and other agricultural products. At the same time, the interests of grain growers were not taken into account.

Under pressure from the Center, local authorities raked out all available grain from individual farms and collective farms. Through the "conveyor method" of harvesting, as well as counter plans and other measures, tight control was established over the crop. Activists and dissatisfied peasants were mercilessly repressed: they were expelled, dispossessed of kulaks, and put on trial. The initiative in this case came from the top leadership and from Stalin personally. Thus, from the very top there was pressure on the village.

Migration of peasants to the cities

Large-scale migration to the cities of the peasant population, its youngest and healthiest representatives, also significantly weakened the production potential of the countryside in 1932. People left the villages, first because of fear of the threat of dispossession, and then, in search of a better life, they began to leave the collective farms. In the winter of 1931/32 due to the difficult food situation, the most active part of the individual farmers and collective farmers began to flee to the cities and to work. First of all, this concerned men of working age.

Mass exits from collective farms

Most of the collective farmers sought to get out of them and return to individual farming. The first half of 1932 saw the peak of mass withdrawals. At that time, the number of collectivized farms in the RSFSR decreased by 1,370.8 thousand.

The undermined sowing and harvesting campaign of 1932

By the beginning of the sowing season in the spring of 1932, the village found itself with undermined animal husbandry and a difficult food situation. Therefore, this campaign could not be carried out on time and with high quality for objective reasons. Also in 1932, it was not possible to harvest at least half of the grown crop. A large shortage of grain in the USSR after the end of the harvesting and grain procurement campaign of this year arose due to both subjective and objective circumstances. The latter include the above-mentioned consequences of collectivization. Firstly, the resistance of the peasants to collectivization and grain procurements, and secondly, the policy of repressions and grain procurements pursued by Stalin in the countryside became subjective.

Horrors of hunger

The main granaries of the USSR were gripped by famine, which was accompanied by all its horrors. The situation of 1921-22 was repeated: cannibals during the famine in the Volga region, countless deaths, huge food prices. Numerous documents paint a terrible picture of the suffering of many rural residents. The epicenters of famine were concentrated in the grain-growing regions subjected to complete collectivization. The situation of the population in them was approximately equally difficult. This can be judged from the data of the OGPU reports, eyewitness accounts, closed correspondence with the Center for Local Authorities, and reports from the political departments of the MTS.

In particular, it was found that in the Volga region the following settlements located on the territory of the Lower Volga Territory were almost completely depopulated: the village of Starye Grivki, the village of Ivlevka, the collective farm named after. Sverdlov. Cases of corpse eating were revealed, as well as burials of victims of hunger in common pits in the villages of Penza, Saratov, Volgograd and Samara regions. Similar was observed, as is known, in Ukraine, Kuban and on the Don.

Actions of the authorities

At the same time, the actions of the Stalin regime to overcome the crisis were reduced to the fact that the inhabitants who found themselves in the famine zone were allocated significant seed and food loans, with the personal consent of Stalin. from the country by decision of the Politburo in April 1933 was discontinued. In addition, emergency measures were taken to strengthen the collective farms in terms of organizational and economic with the help of the political departments of the MTS. The grain procurement planning system changed in 1933: fixed delivery rates began to be set from above.

Today it is proved that the Stalinist leadership in 1932-33. quelled the hunger. It continued to export grain abroad and ignored the attempts of the public of the whole world to help the population of the USSR. Recognition of the fact of famine would mean recognition of the collapse of the model of modernization of the country, chosen by Stalin. And this was unrealistic in the conditions of the strengthening of the regime and the defeat of the opposition. However, even within the framework of the policy chosen by the regime, Stalin had opportunities to mitigate the scale of the tragedy. According to D. Penner, he could hypothetically take advantage of the normalization of relations with the United States and buy surplus food from them at cheap prices. This step could be regarded as evidence of US goodwill towards the Soviet Union. The act of recognition could "cover" the political and ideological costs of the USSR if it agreed to accept America's help. This move would also benefit American farmers.

Memory of the victims

At the Assembly of the Council of Europe on April 29, 2010, a resolution was adopted to commemorate the memory of the inhabitants of the country who died in 1932-33. due to hunger. This document says that this situation was created by the "deliberate" and "brutal" actions and policies of the regime at that time.

In 2009, a "Memorial to the memory of the victims of the Holodomors in Ukraine" was opened in Kyiv. In this museum, in the Hall of Remembrance, the Book of Memory of the Victims is presented in 19 volumes. It recorded 880 thousand names of people who died of starvation. And these are only those whose death is documented today. N. A. Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan, on May 31, 2012 in Astana opened a memorial dedicated to the victims of the Holodomor.

Throughout history, cannibalism has followed hand in hand with man. This ominous phenomenon reminds us that life can be cruel and contradictory. It even gives the impression that cannibalism is created by nature itself. Take, for example, the fact that the female tarantula, after mating, kills the male and eats him whole. Female pigs or rats eat their brood during hunger. And there are many examples of this. Not escaped this, alas, and man. It is not known how other inhabitants of the planet are, but a person who has tasted human meat, without noticing it, becomes a passionate admirer of human flesh. And getting rid of it is almost impossible.

GULAG on an allied scale

Where did the zekovskaya "tradition" to eat each other in difficult times come from? It must be assumed that all this began in the distant pre-war years, when the whole country was turned into a huge Gulag. It was then, after the brutal purges, that thousands and thousands of most often innocent people found themselves in places of detention without heat and without food. One such place was Nazino Island in Siberia. In May 1933, about seven thousand prisoners from among the deported element were landed here.

If we discard isolated cases of cannibalism, then it was there that mass cannibalism was first recorded. Here is a quote from one book: "All over the island you could see how they cut, tear and eat human flesh. Everything around was littered with disfigured corpses." Indeed, in order to somehow survive, the prisoners ate human corpses scattered around the island.

Immediately there appeared those who "worked ahead of the curve" - ​​they killed the first one who fell and immediately, almost alive, ate him. It was from those nightmarish times that words appeared in criminal use that are usually put in quotation marks: calves, cows, canned food. It was not customary for us to talk about this for many years - after all, there could not be cannibalism in the Soviet country!

"Canned food" for a convict

Cannibalism did not disappear even when everything was settled with food. The history of escapes from taiga camps is full of tragic examples, when a fugitive, not knowing the local conditions, found himself face to face with the taiga, and died of cold and hunger, a slow and painful death. Usually, they prepared for the escape for a long time and thoroughly - they stocked up with warm and durable clothes, some kind of edged weapons, and always a supply of food. But how much food can a fugitive take with him?!

There is no need to talk about getting food in the forest, because he himself becomes a game. That is why an experienced prisoner, as a rule, took with him on his escape the same inmate as himself. Took to be eaten, as a "cow". While still in the zone, he fed him, counting on soft and tasty meat. After all, he will have to eat this meat for more than one day, and even more than one week.

If a whole group leaves for such an escape, then each of them risks their lives to one degree or another. Each of those who escaped can become a cow - after all, a convict who is hungry to madness does not care whether you are a friend, an authority, or a small fry. In this case, having finished with the first cow, the next one is "appointed", then the next one.

In Kolyma, escaping in the winter is equal to suicide, but in the summer or in the fall, some of the prisoners still try to go free. Once a recidivist Semyon Bolotnikov, nicknamed Boloto, fled. He was hopelessly ill with tuberculosis, and in the depths of his soul he even dreamed of getting a bullet from the tower. But, on reflection, he nevertheless decided to accept death in the wild, where neither the barking of dogs nor the shouts of the guards are heard. As canned meat, he took with him Fyodor, a young prisoner, winding up a term for robbery. He persuaded him to escape, crushing him with his authority and heady air of freedom. On the third day of wandering through the tundra, Semyon felt a brutal appetite. "You're sorry, sidekick," he muttered and stuck a sharp sharpener in Fedka's chest...

Private Prokopiev was then part of the search group, and he ran into Bolotnikov simply by accident. By this time, he had already butchered the body of his "sidekick", and fried large pieces of meat on a fire. One of them, champing loudly, he held in his hand. Taken aback by what he saw, the soldier even forgot about his duties. Coming to his senses, he rushed at the fugitive prisoner, ready to strangle him with his bare hands. Boloto was an experienced criminal, besides, the meat he had just eaten gave him additional strength. Seeing a soldier flying at him, he simply put forward the sharpening ...

Death to the peasant!

So, in a country that is a large Gulag, the rules were also appropriate. The reason for the famine in the villages and villages was the most banal. The peasant, as you know, is fed by the earth. When the communists came to power, the slogan "Land to the peasants!" appeared. But it was only a slogan! In fact, many peasants not only did not receive the promised land, but also lost what they had. Naturally, mass discontent arose, threatening to develop into a peasant war. The most restless in this regard were Ukraine, the North Caucasus and some regions of the Black Earth region. Terrible repressions followed - by the end of 1931, about two million members of the "kulak" families were evicted without a livelihood. Half of them died of starvation on the way to the places of exile or already in the place of exile. But the Soviet government did not stop there - on August 7, 1932, a murderous law was adopted: for theft of collective farm property - 10 years in the camps or the death penalty!

By the way, if a hungry peasant grabbed a few spikelets left after harvesting from the field, he fell under the same law. As terrible statistics testify, then several thousand children under the age of 12 were shot for stealing spikelets. But these children simply did not want to die of hunger! And how many of their fathers and grandfathers were shot, one can only guess. And on January 22, 1933, a circular signed by Stalin and Molotov was issued. He instructed the local authorities, and in particular the organs of the OGPU, to prevent the mass outflow of peasants to the cities. This step cannot be called otherwise than a sentence to starvation. And the peasant had no choice but to replenish the already numerous army of cannibals.

In the famine years, real raids were carried out on cannibals. First of all, they were searched for in the villages, often destroyed on the spot. So, in the collective farm. Stalin, Elanetsky district, a 10-year-old girl disappeared. Literally the next day, cannibals were detained in the house of a 34-year-old widow. A dead child was also found, from which the woman was going to cook food. The accused confessed that together with her cohabitant they killed four children within two weeks. With the help of her 8-year-old daughter, the woman invited them to her apartment, where she killed them. After that, she cooked food for herself, her roommate and her daughter.

Hunger is not an aunt

The constant, maddening feeling of hunger drove people to madness and pushed them not only to eat the dead, but also to kill even their own children. Here is a terrible confession: “In 1932, together with my wife and son Zakhary, we worked 400 workdays on the collective farm, for which we received five kilograms of millet and 4 kg of flour in the fall. This was enough for my family only for five days, and for the winter we were left without funds for existence. So I killed the youngest daughter Christia - she was so emaciated that she could not even stand up. I chopped the body, or rather the bones, into pieces and cooked it. I ate it myself and fed the eldest daughter Nastya. A week later I killed Nastya - from exhaustion she I would have died anyway. I killed both the eldest and the youngest daughter when they were sleeping. I took them off the bed, laid them on the floor and chopped off their heads with an ax blow. Then I chopped them into pieces ... ".

And here is an extract from the protocol of interrogation of a peasant woman Chugunova: “I am a widow, I have four children in my arms. The youngest, 7-year-old daughter, was very ill. ", and I decided to kill her. I stabbed her at night, sleeping. Sleepy and weak, she did not scream and did not resist even when she realized that they would cut her. Then my eldest daughter began to cut her into pieces."

According to another cannibal, Ekaterina Rubleva, at one time she and her daughter lived with a peasant woman in the village of Kamenki, Pugachevsky district. Eight people lived with them in the house. The famine was unbearable, and when small children began to die, a large family, eating them, was able to survive. Once, when there was absolutely nothing to eat, a grandmother of about 70 years old asked for a lodging for the night. At night, when she was sleeping, the hostess, with a knife in her hand, called Ekaterina and her daughter, and with the words: “Now we will have meat again,” she ordered to keep the old woman. Rubleva began to refuse, but she threatened: "I do not intend to remain without meat - either she or you!" The sleeping grandmother was slaughtered and chopped into pieces, from which soup was cooked for several days. When the hostess herself fell ill and died, the Rublevs sawed her into pieces and ate all Christmas.

Not only GPU workers with a wide network of informers, but also rural activists and doctors were involved in the neutralization of cannibals. There was even a secret directive of the GPU on the imputation of the duty of medical workers to kill cannibals, while documenting the facts of their death. In the spring of 1933, the OGPU in the North Caucasus region reported: "From February to April 1, 108 cases of cannibalism were detected. In total, 244 people engaged in cannibalism were identified, of which 49 were men, 130 were women, and 65 were accomplices (underage family members)."

Who are all these people - criminals, mentally deranged? Neither one nor the other! Here is an extract from the act of a forensic medical examination signed by a Privatdozent of Samara University: “All the examined signs of mental disorder were not found. ".

Will the war write everything off?

Little has changed during the Great Patriotic War. Particularly then, the areas suffered, where everything was taken to the last grain for the front and the Victory. On the one hand, this is how it should be - everything for the army, everything for victory. But on the other hand - after all, people in the rear also forged victory! There is a saying that war will write everything off. Will she write off what happened in besieged Leningrad? Mass cases of cannibalism in the so-called cradle of the revolution were strictly classified. This, of course, is understandable: the recognition of this nightmare is insulting to the participants in the heroic defense of the city. Judging by a secret report sent to the regional party committee, in February 1942 more than 600 people were convicted of cannibalism, and in March more than a thousand people.

It should be noted that there were quite objective reasons for the appearance of mass cannibalism in the city. From constant hunger, many people lost their minds, and they, as they say, did not know what they were doing. The next reason can be called a sharp jump in crime. Hungry criminals, deserters and similar rabble could no longer feed on raids and thefts, because the only value was food, which was practically non-existent. They also could not surrender to the authorities: according to the laws of wartime, they were expected to be shot. And the last reason for cannibalism - a huge number of ownerless corpses appeared on the streets of the city. It was they who became at the same time the main reason for the appearance of numerous cannibals, and their desired object.

The situation was no better in other regions. The first case of cannibalism in the Chelyabinsk region occurred in the city of Zlatoust. On January 1, 1943, a male dismembered corpse was discovered in the house of a certain Grigory Antonov. It was neatly folded into a bag and buried in the underground. Detained on suspicion of murder, Antonov confessed to the crime. Mikhail Leontiev, who lives with him, was killed, whom he hacked to death with an ax in order to take possession of his bread card. But bread without meat, allegedly, is not food, and Antonov cut off the head of the murdered man, but he sawed him into pieces and hid him in the underground for a rainy day. He ate his heart, lungs, kidneys and liver along with his wife and children.

In total, several dozen cases of cannibalism were investigated on the territory of the Chelyabinsk region in 1943. Perhaps the most terrible of them occurred in the Nyazepetrovsky district. Polina Shulgina, having two young children in her arms, was left without a job and a livelihood. She found herself in such a difficult situation, she and her children ate slop - there was not even a dried crust of bread in the house. Having reached complete despair, the woman strangled six-year-old Dima and eleven-year-old Igor, and for some time consumed their meat for food.

Vladimir Lotokhin, Mr. Zlatoust

#cannibals,#lotokhin,#rainbow

TO HOME

Touching upon such an eternally relevant topic as cannibalism, one cannot but recall Vladimir Semenovich Vysotsky:

But why did the natives eat Cook?

For what? It is not clear - science is silent.

It seems to me a very simple thing - they wanted to eat and ate Cook.

But there is, however, another assumption,

That Cook was eaten out of great respect.

That the sorcerer, the sly and the evil one incited everyone:

- Atu, guys, grab Cook.

Who will gobble it up without salt and without onions,

He will be strong, brave, kind, like Cook.

But jokes aside, this is a serious matter. It should be noted that Vysotsky, being neither an ethnographer nor a biologist, in fact correctly named here the two main motives for cannibalism: hunger and ritual customs.

HUNGER NOT Aunt

The name "cannibals" comes from the word " caniba"- so in pre-Columbian times, the inhabitants of the Bahamas called the inhabitants, terrible cannibals. Subsequently, the name "cannibal" became equivalent to an anthropophagus (from the Greek anthropos- "man" and fagein - "to absorb"). It should be noted that a cannibal is always a cannibal, but not every cannibal, such as a predatory beast, is a cannibal. This "title" is awarded only to a person.

Cannibalism has been around since the Stone Age. With the increase in food resources obtained by man, it has been preserved, but only as an exceptional phenomenon caused by famine in certain periods (crop failure, etc.). In particular, the lack of food explains the cannibalism of Neanderthals. Ritual cannibalism persisted longer. It was expressed in the eating of various parts of the body of killed enemies, dead relatives, and was based on the belief that the strength and other virtues of the slain person passed to the eater of his flesh. Sometimes, however, the results were the opposite: for example, in some tribes where the eating of the brain of the victim was customary, the incurable disease kuru spread. But one should not assume that the times of cannibalism have sunk forever into eternity, and the traditions of cannibalism have remained attributes of ancient times. No, they successfully survived all the stages of the formation of human society and have survived to this day. The geography of cannibalism is still wide.

HABITS ARE SECOND NATURE

In modern times (since the 16th century), cannibalism was noted among many peoples, in all parts of the world (including Europe). It was practiced in inner Africa, in Papua New Guinea, on some islands of the Malay Archipelago, in the interior regions. Until the 20th century, cannibalism was not uncommon on many of the islands of Polynesia, and in South Africa. There are many examples of this.

In the 17th century, the natives of one of the islands of Oceania completely ate all the crew of the pirate John Davis Jr. who was captured by them as a result of a shipwreck. The captain himself miraculously escaped this fate.

In 1772, the French traveler M. Marion-Dufren, along with 14 of his associates, was captured by the New Zealand Maori. All of them were killed and eaten.

In the same way, the famous navigator, who completed three round-the-world trips, James Cook, the same one whom V. Vysotsky recalled, ended his life. It happened in 1779 in Hawaii. Cook had already encountered cannibals during his first trip around the world. Then he gave them pigs, sheep and goats to wean them from cannibalism. But the experiment failed: the natives could not understand what the whites still wanted from them. They quickly ate the cattle, and then returned to eating captured enemies and travelers who wandered into their region. And how many missionaries were eaten who came to convert savages into the bosom of the church, and do not count!

Anthropologist G. Eremin commented on this as follows: “On the islands, where there was enough animal food, cannibalism was not known. On other islands, cannibalism is explained by the lack of animal proteins in the body of the natives, with an excess of vegetable proteins obtained by eating sweet potatoes and corn.

MY RELATIVE - I WILL TAKE IT!

Historical sources have survived that tell about mass cannibalism during a famine caused by a protracted drought (1200-1201). There were rumors of cannibalism during the First Crusade, when the crusaders allegedly fed on the bodies of enemies from the captured Arab city of Maarra. Later, historians tried to remove these shameful facts from the descriptions of campaigns, but ... you can’t erase a word from a song.

The historian K. Valishevsky wrote about the Poles and Lithuanians besieged in the Kremlin in 1612: “They began to kill their captives, and with the intensification of feverish delirium, they reached the point that they began to devour each other. And this is a fact that cannot be doubted: the eyewitness Budzilo told terrible details about the last days of the siege - the strongest used the weak, and the healthy - the sick. They quarreled over the dead, and the most amazing ideas of justice were mixed with the strife generated by cruel madness. So, one soldier complained that people from another company ate his relative, while in fairness he himself should have eaten. The accused referred to the rights of the entire regiment to the corpse of a fellow soldier, and the colonel did not dare to stop this strife, fearing that the losing side would eat him out of revenge.

And yet the reader has the right to notice that all this is a matter of old. Let's see what happened later.

CURRENT REALITIES

In New Zealand in 1809, 66 passengers and crew members of the Boyd brigantine were killed and eaten by Maori tribes.

In November 1820, sailors escaping from the sunken whaling ship Essex resorted, by common consent, to cannibalism so that at least someone could survive (this story was partly included in G. Melville's novel Moby Dick).

In the 1920-1930s, numerous cases of cannibalism were recorded in the Volga region, and during the mass famine.

There is documentary evidence of cannibalism in Japanese troops during World War II. When they ran out of food, Japanese soldiers killed and dismembered enemy soldiers. A well-known incident occurred in 1945, when Japanese soldiers killed and ate eight captured American pilots. This case was investigated in 1947, 30 Japanese were put on trial, including five senior officers, including a general and an admiral, who were hanged.

In the terrible years of the Leningrad blockade, already in December 1941, the first cases of cannibalism were recorded. It is known from the archives of the NKVD: in December 1941, 26 cannibals were prosecuted, and in January-February 1942 - already 860. Later, until January 1943, their number only increased. Most of the detainees were shot. In January 2014, Daniil Granin, himself a blockade fighter and a militia fighter, spoke about this in his emotional speech in the German Bundestag.

The World War ended, but cannibalism did not end there. More recently, in Yakutia, fishermen, getting lost in the taiga and starving, killed and ate one of their company. The court sentenced each of the survivors to 3.5 years of probation. Why such liberalism? The fact of the murder was not unambiguously proven - perhaps the victim died himself, and there is no article for cannibalism in the Russian Criminal Code. The motive for the crime in this story is clear: hunger. And how to qualify the story that happened 10 years ago in the Bavarian Rotenburg? Its resident, adhering to non-traditional sexual inclinations, a certain Armin Meiwes, found a masochist partner via the Internet and invited him to his place, where he was castrated by mutual consent. While drinking, they ate genitals together, after which the owner killed the guest and ate him almost entirely. Today, the cannibal is serving time, in prison he heads the green party cell and enjoys authority.

These are the realities of today's civilized Europe.

Hunger is an acute shortage of food. Starvation leads to malnutrition and increased mortality among the population. The main reasons for this disaster may be too rapid population growth, crop failure, cold weather, or even government policy. Nowadays, people have learned to deal with this with the help of advanced agriculture.

Thanks to progress, it became easier to feed people, but in the Middle Ages this was difficult: hunger often raged all over the world, in addition, people died due to various diseases and from the cold. It is estimated that even in the enlightened 20th century, about 70 million people died of starvation. The worst thing is that people can go crazy from hunger and start eating other people in order to survive - there are many similar cases described in history.

Kanava labor camp

Kanawa is a former labor camp located in the northwestern desert region of Gansu Province, China. In the period from 1957 to 1961, 3,000 political prisoners were kept here - people who were suspected of being "right" were sent to a kind of concentration camp for re-education.
Initially, the prison was designed for only 40-50 criminals. Starting in the autumn of 1960, mass starvation raged in the camp: people ate leaves, tree bark, worms, insects, rats, waste, and finally resorted to cannibalism.
By 1961, 2,500 out of 3,000 prisoners had died, and the 500 who survived had to feed on dead people. Their stories are recorded in the book of Yan Xianhui, who then traveled throughout the northwestern region of the Chinese desert to interview survivors of this nightmare. The book is somewhat fictionalized and includes graphic sections in which people eat other people's body parts or feces.
However, the cannibalism in The Ditch was real, too much so. In most cases, the corpses were so thin that it was difficult to feed on them. The events in The Ditch are reflected in the film of the same name, which tells about people who are forced to cope with physical exhaustion, hypothermia, hunger and death.

Famine in Jamestown

Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in America. The settlement was established on May 24, 1607 as part of the London Campaign. Jamestown served as the capital of the colony until 1699, when it was moved to Williamsburg.
The town was located on the territory of the Powhatan Confederation of Indian Tribes - about 14 thousand native Indians lived here, and European settlers had to rely on trade with them, there was nowhere else to buy food. But after a series of conflicts, the trade ended.

In 1609, disaster struck when a third food ship bound for Jamestown from England was wrecked and stuck on the reefs of Bermuda. The ship was carrying food to the village, but due to the wreck, Jamestown was left without food for the winter. Later it became known that Captain Samuel Argall returned to England and warned officials about the plight of Jamestown, but no more ships were sent to the shores of America.
In the winter of 1609, a massive famine broke out: hundreds of colonists died a terrible death, and by 1610, out of 500 people, only 60 survived. Excavations show that the survivors resorted to cannibalism - notches were found on human bones, indicating the cutting of muscles from bones . A female skull was also found with holes in the forehead and back of the head, which suggests that someone tried to literally eat her brain. How widespread cannibalism was in Jamestown remains unclear.

Great Famine 1315–1317

During the Middle Ages in Europe, famine was very common, usually due to poor harvests, overpopulation, and diseases like the plague. Britain, for example, during the Middle Ages experienced 95 cases of mass famine. Between 1348 and 1375, life expectancy in England averaged only 17.33 years.
From 1310 to 1330 the weather in Northern Europe was very bad and completely unpredictable. In 1315, the price of food rose sharply, which caused the spread of famine. In some places, prices have tripled, and people have had to eat wild plants, roots, herbs, nuts, and bark. In 1317, thousands of people died every week, and in three years, a famine killed millions.
Social rules ceased to operate during the famine - many parents abandoned their children. In fact, such a time formed the basis of the famous fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel". Some parents at that time killed their children and ate them. There is also evidence that prisoners had to eat the corpses of other prisoners, and some people even stole bodies from graves.

Leningrad blockade

In June 1941, Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, launching Plan Barbarossa, the largest military invasion in history. According to the plan, it was necessary to first capture Leningrad, then the Donets Basin, and then Moscow.
Hitler needed Leningrad because of its military importance, industry, and symbolic past. With the help of the Finnish army, the Nazis surrounded the city and kept it under siege for 872 days. The Germans wanted to force the people to surrender the city by starving them to death and cut off all food supplies.
People had to live without any utilities (water and energy). In modern history, the blockade is the largest cause of death. It has been estimated that about 1.5 million people died as a direct result of the siege. Of the original 3.5 million people who lived in Leningrad, only 700,000 survived the war.
Shortly after the siege began, all shops in the city closed. As expected, the money was no longer worth anything. To steal food, people even strayed into groups. As a result, people had to eat leather, furs, lipsticks, spices and medicines, but the hunger became more and more ferocious. Social rules gradually mattered less and there were reports of the spread of cannibalism.
During the siege, cannibalism reached such proportions that the police had to organize a special unit to catch the "predators". Despite the fact that everyone already lived in fear of a potential bombing, families were forced to deal with this threat as well. After the war, scientists began to use this information to study hunger, malnutrition, and related diseases.

Great Famine in Ireland

The Great Famine was a period of massive famine that broke out in Ireland between 1845 and 1852. It is also known as the Irish Potato Famine because potato blight was a direct cause of food shortages.
As in many cases, this was due to stupid government reforms that led some historians to call the event a genocide. Despite the fact that about a million people died of starvation and another million fled from Ireland, the British government could not help.
The famine forever changed the demographic and political landscape of Ireland. It caused tensions between Ireland and the British crown, and eventually led to Irish independence. During the famine, the vast majority of people in Ireland were malnourished, causing terrible infections to spread. Some of the deadliest diseases were measles, tuberculosis, respiratory tract infections, whooping cough, and cholera.

In 2012, Professor Cormac O'Grada of the University of Dublin suggested that cannibalism was common during the Great Famine. O'Grada relied on a number of written accounts, such as the story of John Connolly from the west of Ireland, who ate meat from the body of his dead son.
Another case was published on May 23, 1849, and told of a hungry man "pulling out the heart and liver from a drowned man who was thrown ashore after a shipwreck." In some cases, severe hunger forced people to eat family members.

Battle of Suiyan

In 757, the battle of Suiyan took place between the Yang rebel army and the loyal forces of the Tang army. During the battle, the Yan tried to besiege the Suiyan region in order to take control of the territory south of the Huai River. The Yan greatly outnumbered the Tang in strength, but to defeat the enemy, they needed to penetrate thick walls. General Zhang Xun was in charge of protecting the city.
Zhang Xun had 7,000 soldiers to defend Suiyan, while Yang's army had 150,000. Despite the siege and daily assaults, the Tang army managed to hold off Yang's onslaught for many months. However, by August 757, all the animals, insects, and plants in the city had been eaten. Zhang Xun tried several times to get food from nearby fortresses, but no one came to help. The deathly hungry people tried to convince Zhang Xun to surrender, but he refused.
According to the Old Book of Tang, when the food in Suiyan ran out, "people began to eat the bodies of the dead, and sometimes killed their own children." Zhang Xun admitted that the situation had become critical, so he killed his assistant and invited others to eat his body. At first the soldiers refused, but soon they ate the flesh without a twinge of conscience. So at first they ate all the women in the city, and when the women ran out, the soldiers began to hunt the old men and young men. In total, according to the Book of Tang, the soldiers killed and ate between 20,000 and 30,000 people.
There were too many cannibals in Suiyan, and by the time the Yang took the city, only 400 people remained alive. Yang tried to convince Zhang Xun to join his ranks, but he refused and was killed. Three days after the fall of Suiyan, a large Tang army arrived and retook the area, beginning the fall of Great Yang.

Famine in North Korea

In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union demanded compensation from North Korea for all of its assistance, past and present. In 1991, when the USSR collapsed, trade between the two countries ceased, and this had a deplorable effect on the economy of North Korea - the country could no longer produce enough food to feed the entire population, and in the DPRK between 1994 and 1998 there was a massive famine that killed between 250,000 and 3.5 million people. It was especially difficult for women and young children.
Meat was difficult to obtain, and some people resorted to cannibalism. People became extremely suspicious of the food vendors, and children were not allowed out into the streets at night. There are reports that "people went crazy from hunger and even killed and ate their own babies, robbed graves and ate corpses." Parents were in a panic: their children could be kidnapped, killed and sold in the form of meat.
In 2013, reports began to surface that famine broke out again in North Korea due to economic sanctions. The lack of food was the reason that people were forced to resort to cannibalism again. One report says that a man and his grandson were caught digging up a corpse for food. According to another report, a group of men were caught boiling children. Due to the fact that North Korea keeps everything that happens inside the country a secret, the government has not confirmed or denied recent reports of cannibalism.

Holodomor

In the early 1930s, the government of the Soviet Union decided that it would be more profitable to replace all individual peasant farms with collective ones. This was supposed to increase food supplies, but instead led to one of the biggest famine outbreaks in history. The collectivization of the land meant that the peasants were forced to sell most of their crops at a very low price. The workers were forbidden to eat their own crops. In 1932, the Soviet Union was unable to produce enough grain, and the country experienced a massive famine that killed millions. The most affected areas are Ukraine, the North Caucasus, Kazakhstan, the South Urals and Western Siberia. In Ukraine, the famine was particularly severe. In history, it has been preserved under the name Holodomor. The famine killed three to five million people, and according to the Kyiv Court of Appeal, there were ten million deaths, including 3.9 million victims and 6.1 million birth defects.
During the Holodomor, cannibalism was widespread in Ukraine. People formed gangs, killed their family members and ate dead children. Soviet officials issued posters reading: "Feeding your own children is barbaric."
There was a case where a man named Miron Yemets and his wife were caught cooking their children and sentenced to ten years in prison. It has been estimated that some 2,500 people were arrested for cannibalism during the Holodomor, with the vast majority driven insane by the massive famine.

Famine in the Volga region

In 1917, at the end of the First World War, a civil war broke out in Russia between the Bolshevik Red Army and the White Army. During this time, political chaos, extreme violence, and Russia's economic isolation have fueled the spread of disease and food shortages in many areas.
By 1921, in Bolshevik Russia, limited food supplies and drought caused widespread famine that threatened the lives of more than 25 million people in the Volga and Ural regions. By the end of 1922, the famine had killed about five to ten million people.
During the famine, thousands of Soviet citizens left their homes in search of food. People had to eat grass, dirt, insects, cats, dogs, clay, horse harness, carrion, animal skins, and eventually resort to cannibalism. So many people ate their family members and hunted for human flesh.
Cases of cannibalism were reported to the police, but they did nothing, since cannibalism was considered a method of survival. According to one report, a woman was caught cooking human meat. She later admitted that she killed her daughter for food.
It was reported that policemen were forced to defend cemeteries attacked by hungry crowds. People started selling human organs on the black market and cannibalism became a problem in prisons. Unlike most historical cases of cannibalism, there are even photographs of cannibals, which depict starving people sitting next to tormented human bodies. There is also evidence that people killed abandoned children to eat.

Great Chinese Famine

Between 1958 and 1961, a massive famine broke out in China. The food shortage was caused by drought, bad weather, and the Great Leap Forward, an economic and political campaign by the Chinese government. According to official statistics, about 15 million people died.
Historian Frank Dikotter suggested that at least 45 million people died. Almost all Chinese citizens did not have enough food, the birth rate was reduced to a minimum. In China, this period is called the Three Bitter Years.

When the situation got worse, the Chinese leader Mao Zedong committed crimes against the people: he and his subordinates stole food and left millions of peasants to starve. Doctors were forbidden to list "starvation" as the cause of death.
A man named Yu Dehong said, “I went to a village and saw 100 corpses. In another village, there were 100 more corpses. Nobody paid any attention to them. People said that the corpses were eaten by dogs. Not true, I said. The people have already eaten the dogs.” A huge number of citizens went crazy from hunger and violence.
During the great famine, there were numerous reports of cannibalism. People lost all moral principles and often ate human flesh. Some ate their own children, others switched children so as not to feel terrible about eating their own. Most of the food in China was human, and some parts of the country were inhabited by cannibals. Cannibalism during this famine has been called "an unprecedented event in the history of the 20th century." In the photo - Frank Dikotter