The format of Voice from Chernobyl

The impact of Svetlana Alexievich’s Voice from Chernobyl is helped by the book’s unique form. The first part is told in a series of unrelated monologues all circling around personal experience of the disaster. Each incredibly intimate and horrifying monologue begins to add to a collective voice about the event without minimizing or generalizing any single experience.

Alexievivh’s prologue titled “a solitary human voice” (5) begins to justify her unique form. This staring monologue is longer than the rest, taking pages to tell the two-week long suffering and eventual death of one of the first responders to the reactors. The repeat theme of this narrative is the growing de-humanization of Vasily, the narrator’s husband. Once taken away from their home and moved to a hospital in Moscow, the narrator is told multiple times that, “You have to understand: this is not your husband anymore, not a beloved person, but a radioactive object with a strong density of poisoning” (16).  The narrator is instructed to look past the humanity of her husband, ignore him as a victim and instead view him as an object.

Just as the narrator is asked to distance themselves from the humanity of her husband, the Soviet government asked citizens to distance themselves from the human horror of Chernobyl and instead focus their attention on the environmental impact. The rest of Alexievich monologues are an attempt to destroy this crafted blind spot.

Voices of Reflection

Though we have studied many dire historical situations throughout this course, such as the flood at St. Petersburg or time spent imprisoned at the Gulag, Voices From Chernobyl is the first time I noticed any serious intrapersonal reflections on death. I think that this reflection on death is shown in conjunction with the repeated theme throughout the testimony about any lack of choice. Whether it be the lack of choice of when to live or die or whether or not to stay in the town despite the numerous warnings, having choice removed seems to encourage deep self reflection.

The loss of control that many near Chernobyl felt is first described in the “Monologue on Why We Remember:” “I’ve been there many times now. And understood how powerless I am. I’m falling apart. My past no longer protects me. There aren’t any answers there. They were there before, but now they’re not. The future is destroying me, not the past” (27). Instead of focussing on description of the events at hand, this novel focuses more on how the events affected the people involved. In a situation as dire as that at Chernobyl it seemed that “death is the fairest thing in the world. No one’s ever gotten out of it. The earth takes everyone—the kind, the cruel, the sinners” (27). The testimonies continue to beg these big questions: ones that question how to move forward when you have no choice but to run away. Leaving homes is described as emotionally and physically disruptive, but staying put is dangerous and isolating.

The presentation of testimony in retrospect is striking and different than much of the literature we have read so far. It is also important that the novel uses so much evidence from different perspectives. Within the first two sections countless testimony are introduced from both those who fled Chernobyl and those who returned. I am interested to see all the other angles that Alexievich introduces throughout the rest of the novel.

When Nature Finally Wins in the Battle of Man vs. Nature

Throughout this class, we have looked at cases of humans going up against the natural world. Whether it be them attempting not to freeze in a raging blizzard, or attempting to dig a canal through difficult terrain, the natural state of humans existing in nature seemed to be one of conflict, specifically, a conflict that humans were often winning. However, throughout the parts of Voices from Chernobyl that we read, I was struck by how this terrible tragedy of a nuclear meltdown flipped that script, and put humans in the weaker position.

This shift in dynamic is shown all throughout the book, mainly in how the residents begin to interact with each other and with the land. Their fears manifest themselves through the humans suddenly being on the defensive, always seeming to be worried that their actions would lead to illness or death. This existential fear, the fear that something terrible is just waiting to happen and without any provocation is the opposite of how nature and humans usually interact. Normally, nature is the more passive entity, with humans being the aggressors, spontaneously attacking the natural world which has no mechanism to defend itself.

And what exactly happens when humans start losing this war? The whole way they have structured society begins to erode. They start to lose trust in each other (the soldiers in conflict with the residents simply trying to survive), their sustenance (the food that is keeping them alive is also what is killing them), and generally their normal way of life. It makes one realize how fragile human society really is, and how it completely hinges on man’s domination over nature.

A shift in fear

A reoccurring theme I picked up on in Alexievich’s Voices from Chernobyl was the greater fear humans had of fellow humans than of the natural environment and creatures within it. The quote that captured my attention initially was the following: “Any animal is afraid of a human. If you don’t touch him, he’ll walk around you. Used to be, you’d be in the forest and you’d hear human voices, you’d run toward them. Now people hide from one another. God save me from meeting a person in the forest!” (44). The first part, “any animal is afraid of a human” seems accurate and nondebatable to me – humans typically sit above most animals on the food chain and have historically displayed dominance over lesser species. The last part of this quote is what I found most striking. The voice of this quote claims that where humans were once unbothered by, and maybe even comforted by, the sound of human voice, we now fear it. Not only do we fear fellow humans in this situation, but we also retreat from them, which is the opposite, this quote claims, from what used to be true of mankind. The last part, “God save me from meeting a person in the forest!” really shows the fear of this person, and others in his situation, have of other humans. Considering the context of this time and their experiences in Chernobyl, fear of others humans can be understood.

Another woman discusses her level of comfort with humans in the forest, explaining that upon leaving home each day she dressed in “clean clothes, a freshly laundered blouse, skirt, underthings” (60) in preparation for if she were to be killed that day. She explains further, “Now I walk through the forest by myself and I’m not afraid of anyone. There aren’t any people in the forest, not a soul” (60). We have seen in some of the past literature we’ve read a fear of the elemental forces of nature, the sublimity, and the unknown; however, the fear this woman refers to regards humans, those of her very own species. We further learn, “I can’t be afraid of the earth, the water. I’m afraid of people” (60). This clearly shows the shift from a fear of nature to the fear of humans. She did not expand on what fear of the earth, water, and nature more generally entails, but we might speculate that fear of these things might have to do with their vastness, elemental force, unpredictability, etc.

Another man shares, “And I’ll say this: birds, and trees, and ants, they’re closer to me now than they were. I think about them, too. Man is frightening. And strange” (66). His current relationship with nature – what he defines as birds, trees, and ants – is more evident than it was before, in part to do with the decline in his relationship with humans. More broadly we might consider society as a whole and how this decline in human-to-human relations may be applicable more broadly. Lastly, one man states, “I am afraid of man. And also I want to meet him. I want to meet a good person. Yes” (67). This quote has a different tone than the rest. The ones discussed previously more directly point out the fear of humans and lack of fear of nature. However, the tone of the latter quote is more hopeful – while the man fears humans, he does want to meet someone that can disprove his fear of humans. The experiences of the people in this book are horrifying and the trauma and terrible mistreatment they have endured under the supervision and leadership of fellow humans makes it abundantly clear why they may be conditioned to fear humans. This last quote, while more hopeful, reinforces that idea.

Drawing the Battle Lines

Similarly to the Gorky excerpts from last class, “Voices from Chernobyl” on numerous occasions focuses on the warlike interactions between humans and nature in the 20th century Soviet Union. While the canal construction depicted in Gorky’s work focuses on a war with humans on the offensive, the Chernobyl disaster puts humans on the defense as they are faced with an invisible threat rarely encountered in the past.

Unlike conventional conflict, where the aggressors and defenders are clearly defined, the battle lines of Chernobyl are not clearly drawn given the nature of the disaster. As one of the individuals who returned to Chernobyl after the catastrophe claims, “Chernobyl is like the war of all wars. There’s nowhere to hide. Not underground, not underwater, not in the air” (45). Interestingly, although many of the people affected by this disaster have connections to previous wars, like World War Two, they approach the radiation with the exact same outlook despite the foe fundamentally being different. Radiation is a foreign opponent to people living near the reactor given its invisibility, the scientific knowledge required to understand it, and the inability to escape its destructive power. The uncertainty surrounding the radiation is highlighted not only by a boy’s question of “what’s radiation?,” but also by its characterization as “like God” (everywhere and invisible) (50-51). Given the unique warlike situation, some Chernobyl area residents adopt the steadfast attitude that “we lived through the war, now it’s radiation. Even if we have to bury ourselves, we’re not going!” (37). Not knowing how else to respond, some resort to holding onto their land and believing that where they currently are is where they need to be (38).

Ironically, while the Gorky excerpts depict a warlike approach to control and conquer nature, the attempt to completely control one of the smallest components of the natural world (the atom) prompts a retaliatory attack from nature itself in “Voices From Chernobyl.” Perhaps as a sign that humans are overstepping their bounds, Chernobyl serves as a reminder that the natural world is “not anyone’s land,” and that the disaster is only “God [taking] it back” (58). Perhaps this view of the catastrophe explains why some refused to evacuate, though it would be interesting to further discuss what prompted some people to think that their lives became better because of the fallout.

Nature in Collusion with “The Enemy”

While reading the portion of Alexievich’s book for class, I found myself returning to the question we discussed when reading Shalamov’s short stories: which side is nature on? Is it colluding with the “enemy” or whoever is bringing the most pain to a large group of people? Or is it siding with the victim? In “A Child’s Drawings,” Shalamov accuses nature, “Nature in the north is not impersonal or indifferent; it is in conspiracy with those who sent us here” (Shalamov, 136). In this work, Shalamov reveals the cruelties of this northern environment and of the Soviet government in subjecting even an innocent child to these horrors to the point where this cruel corner of the world was all he knew: “The child saw nothing, remembered nothing but the yellow houses, barbed wire, guard towers, German shepherds, guards with submachine guns, and a blue, blue sky” (Shalmov, 138).

Alexievich presents a variety of different views, many of which also express a sense of betrayal towards nature and humanity in the aftermath of the disaster. Simple acts of sustenance were suddenly dangerous: “We’d always lived off our potatoes, and then suddenly—we’re not allowed to!…They advised us to work in our gardens in masks and rubber gloves” (Alexievich, 26). In this case, it seemed that nature and the government were colluding to deprive citizens of their food, nourishment, and homes. One person recalls, “The order of things was shaken. A woman would milk her cow, and next to her there’d be a soldier to make sure that when she was done milking, she poured the mild out on the ground…The farmers were raising their precious potatoes, harvesting them very quietly, but in fact they had to be buried” (Alexievich, 37). Now the soldiers are enforcing the new order, despite the fact that it is the radiation in the ground and animals that would harm these people. Although they are only trying to help, and keep the populace healthy to a degree, it nonetheless appears that nature and the soldiers are conspiring to spread hunger and attack the populace. The situations in the two authors’ works originate under very different conditions, as Shalamov describes an purposefully derived method of imprisonment and Chernobyl was an accident; yet the parallels indicate a distrust of the government and the truly confused and disastrous times for a large swathe of the Russian population.

Silent Darkness versus Natural Imagery of Sound and Movement in the works of Zabolotsky and Rasputin

In his poem “I Do Not Look For Harmony In Nature,” Zabolotsky uses imagery of the river’s stillness and the sunset’s silence when describing the pain and isolation he feels amidst the dark Russian forest. The dark waters that grow quiet and “drop into exhaustion” are said to magnify a sense of pain for the narrator (Zabolotsky 177). Here, it seems that darkness and desolation transcend the boundary between nature and man through the elements of the environment itself: “human pain rises” up to the narrator “from the dark waters” around him (177). However, this is a passive and weak sense of connection between man and nature compared to man-made components of the landscape, which have expressive description, such as “glittering turbines, voices of labour, electric power,” and “construction” (177). It is man’s artificial impact, namely factory and production that supply the energy to the setting of this piece, rather than the silence and darkness of the natural environment.

In contrast to Zabolotsky, Valentin Rasputin characterize the Russian waterscape by the natural sounds and lively movements of its constituents in “Baikal.” These sounds and movements successfully transcend the boundary between man and nature. “Crying seagulls, falling snow,” and “fish playing in lavish abundance” are three distinct images that independently speak to the liveliness of nature around Lake Baikal (Rasputin 191). These sensory elements have a direct effect on Rasputin’s colleague, and in a similar sense to the still, dark images that cause pain to Zabolotsky’s narrator, transcend the boundary between man and nature, yet do so more actively by “lifting his spirits” (191). Whereas nature pales in comparison to industrialization in “I Do Not Look For Harmony In Nature,” and thus falls short of reaching harmony with man, an opposite result is achieved here, as Baikal, “created as a mystery of nature not for industrial requirements,” functions more actively in transcending boundary and thus inspiring the Colleague. It seems that Lake Baikal and its natural movement and sound extend far beyond the stifled attempts of Zabolotsky’s setting, largely due to the energy of nature itself, rather than the artificial energy of man’s industrialization in Zabolotsky’s poem.

The Fires that Forged Socialism

Nature, to the burgeoning Soviet Union, is a means to a righteous end. The documentary “Magnitogorsk: Forging the New Man” shows the idea that, when combined with the hard work of men, natural resources can be used to change the world. This is summed up early in the documentary when the narrator says that “In 1932, the Soviet Union was characterized by two things: idealism and action. The goal: victory for mankind. This idea is shown throughout the film, specifically in the words the subjects of the film and the narrator choose to use, such as using metaphor to combine industry with nationalism: “Workers brigades are building furnaces for our glorious nation” or how Magnitorosk is frequently defined through its “magnificence” and “strength”.

Viktor Kalmykov, the prolific worker profiled early in the film, is described as a “new man forged by socialism.” The use of the word ‘forged’ is significant because it ties his work manipulating elements of nature to the idea of birthing a new world. An idea central to the Soviet ethos and one creates a complex precedent for how humans are supposed to interact with nature. These terms are not implying a symbiotic relationship, instead they are saying that humans can use nature to make a better world for everyone. While this involves man’s dominion over nature, it is still an idea distinct from a more Cartesian capitalist ethos, where nature is meant to be manipulated for personal gain. No, in Magnitorosk the humans manipulating nature almost seem to mirror nature itself, acting not as individuals thinking primarily of themselves, but rather as parts of a larger process, all working together to keep the Soviet world progressing.

This is complimented by Zabolosky’s perspective in I do not look for harmony in nature, as this poem shows a perspective of nature as something that is not profound on its own, it is described as something that is “puny’ and “weary”, This characterization neatly fits into the narrative of Mangitogorsk, that the grandness of nature is not inherent to the natural world, but rather is created by how humans choose to manipulate it.

Mayakovsky’s Conflict

After reading the Mayakovsky poems, I did a little research about his political views. I found many of his poems ambiguous in interesting ways given the subheading “Soviet Aspirations and Environmental Disasters.” I was not surprised to find out that Mayakovsky had a very complicated relationship with the soviet state— he was a strong soviet supporter, specifically he was a big fan of Lenin, yet he also questioned the state’s involvement in cultural censorship.

I saw this conflict in the poems assigned. Where I believe the most obvious contradictions appear are in his poem “Vladimir Mayakovsky Rented a Dacha One Summer; You Won’t Believe What Happened Next.” He begins the poem with his contempt for the sun. He shows this anger through his frustration with the sun’s constant rising and setting: “The next day he would rise again/ to flood the world with light./ This happened day after day after day:/ what a load of… rubbish!” (97). The sun clearly represents more than just the physical sun because, after the speaker loses his patience and calls the sun a “parasite,” the speaker and the sun engage in a dialogue. Though at first the speaker is angry at the sun, the tone of their conversation quickly changes: “I end up sitting comfy, chatty,/ absolutely normal./ I talk about that,/ I talk about this,/ how work’s driving me crazy (nearly)” (98). The different tones of conversation I believe emulate Mayakovsky’s relationship with the Soviet State.

Mayakovsky’s “Love” also shows the complexity of his relationship with the Soviet State. Though the poem is entitled “Love,” the body of the poem argues a relationship more complicated than positive love. The speaker describes himself as “a melting July pavement,/ where she throws her kisses like the butts of cigarettes” (10). That line transitions into the third and most disturbing stanza:

Come on then, walk out on the city,
go naked in the sun, you dumb fucks!
Pour drunken wines into wineskin-titties
pour, rain-kisses onto your coal-cheeks.

This stanza portrays what I think might be Mayakovsky’s relationship to the Soviet State as an incredibly turbulent relationship.

Redefining the Human-Nature Power Dynamic

Vladimir Mayakovsky’s poem “Vladimir Mayakovsky Rented a Dacha One Summer; You Won’t Believe What Happened Next” focuses on the theme of human’s exerting power over nature and upsetting a natural order that had existed up until the industrialization of the early 1900s in Russia. At the beginning of the poem, the narrator expresses his dismay with the summertime conditions of the countryside, describing it as “a mazy heat” as if there were a “hundred and forty” suns (97). He also observes that “past the village was a hole where the sun sank surely, every evening without fail, slowly and securely,” creating a sense of natural regularity and inevitability that humans have no control over (97).  However, this power dynamic of the narrator consistently being subjected to the sun’s rays changes when he calls the sun a “parasite” and bids it to come into his house (98). Once the sun enters the house, the narrator thinks to himself “I’ve forced the fires of heaven back for the first time since creation,” implying that he has the unusual power to control nature that no one has ever possessed in the past (98). The fact that the narrator shouts at and makes demands of the sun highlights a shifting power dynamic from one where the sun has unrestrained power over all people to another where people are at least on the same level as the sun (or nature as a whole).

While the first half of this poem points towards the balance of power tilting towards the humans in their relationship to nature, it is interesting how the narrator and sun engage in conversation and become friends. At the end of their conversation, the sun claims they have become “like a couple of brothers,” which curiously suggests that the narrator’s gain of power in relation to nature allows him to see eye to eye with the sun and better understand it. By engaging directly with nature, even from a place of self-perceived authority, the narrator realizes how both he as a poet and the sun have the important job of lighting the “shadowy walls” of the world (99). The core message remains ambiguous as the narrator surprisingly makes demands of the sun (which may relate to industrialization becoming a formidable force against nature), all while they both achieve a higher level of clarity and understanding through their close interaction.