Tag Archives: Chernobyl

A Matter of Trust

One topic that comes up in both Voices from Chernobyl and The Babushkas of Chernobyl is the rift between farmers living near Chernobyl and the scientists/officials responsible for the nuclear reactor. The difference between these groups lies primarily in their respective relationships to nature. A monologue by an environmental inspector reveals that “[f]armers didn’t invent Chernobyl, they had their own relations with nature, trusting relations, not predatory ones, just like they had one hundred years ago, and one thousand years ago”  (Alexievich 173). This stands in sharp contrast to the “educated [people],” whom, after causing the Chernobyl disaster through their predatory approach to nature, ensured the farmers that “[t]here’s nothing to fear” (173). Despite the gradual shift since the emergence of the Soviet Union towards a hostile relationship with nature, the farmer’s fundamental relationship to nature has not changed. While historian Aleksandr Revalskiy claims that “Chernobyl is the catastrophe of the Russian mind-set,” he likely refers to the mindset of the Soviet elite rather than the farmers. He further claims the Russians “were raised with a particular Soviet form of paganism, which was that man was the crown of all creation, that it was his right to do anything with the world that he wanted” (175). In light of the comments of the environmental inspector, this predatory upbringing was likely more prevalent in urban areas, as it appears that rural farmers still held onto their traditional relationship with the world that they always have had.

The Babushkas in The Babushkas of Chernobyl carry on a trusting relationship with nature through their reliance on the land. Even though the scientists inform them of the detrimental effects of radiation, they continue to grow their own food and drink contaminated water out of both a love for their Motherland and the trust that nature will not harm them if treated with respect. The tragic aspect of this disaster is that those who had a trusting relationship with nature made up a large portion of those who were harmed by the actions of a few who did not. However, this relationship with nature may be one of the factors the doctor in the film refers to when he claims that “socio-psychological factors also greatly influence health” (The Babushkas of Chernobyl). Given the Babushkas’ old age, their traditional respect for the environment has possibly caused nature to return the favor by mitigating radiation’s impact on them.

Curating or Interpreting?

Alexievich’s Voices from Chernobyl is simultaneously dealing with depicting the story of the victims of Chernobyl while questioning conventional methods of documentation and storytelling. Alexievich herself ends the novel in her epilogue lamenting, “(Chernobyl) is more powerful than anything literature has to say” (240).  The ending of Alexievich compilation seems to suggest that anyone learning about this catastrophe that did not experience it is unable to understand its severity. One of her narratives near the end emphasizes, “Because no one knows what Chernobyl is. People have guesses and feelings” (236). I believe that Alexievich’s style of storytelling, in the compilation of individual narratives, is not an attempt to show or inform the reader about the event generally. Yes, the narratives circle around the event of Chernobyl, however, Alexievich understands that the tragedy cannot be encapsulating in writing, but rather in experience. Consequently, instead of attempting to write literature about Chernobyl which attempts to display its tragedy, Alexievich resists and instead documents individuals. Acting more as a curator than as the traditional author, Alexievich is able to communicate the unheard stories of the “solitary voices” without generalizing the event in whole.

 

Alexievich asks for a comparison of her historical approach to Toylstoy’s in his novel War and Peace. In her second narrative she documents, “Do you remember how it was in Tolstoy?” (25).  Tolstoy tells the Franco-Russian war through multiple perspectives, similar to Alexievich. Tolstoy’s perspectives are narrative and all from a generally similar background: Russian and of nobility. Although Tolstoy emphasizes the importance of history encompassing multiple narrative of an event, he still writes a literary narrative and not a documentation.

 

Alexievich pushes Tolstoy’s established tradition. She rejects any complete narrative and instead replaces any of her authorial voice with the voice of the victims. Instead of translating and interpreting history as Tolstoy does, Alexievich curates.

In Living Memory

One theme that struck me throughout the film, The Babushkas of Chernobyl, and the book, Voices from Chernobyl, is the relationship between history, being forgotten, and life persevering. The babushkas in particular exemplified this interconnection of ideas—they live in abandoned, radioactive places and yet these women (those who are left) are living to the age of 80 and above. With minimal help from the outside world, they grow their own crops, brew their own moonshine and generally take care of themselves. Their headscarves are bright colors, as though to remind themselves that they are still alive and vibrant people, full of joy and a will to live despite the contamination around them, which they are consuming every day. Yet the contrast with the “stalkers” who are inspired by a video game to sneak into the contaminated zone acts as a stark reminder that some truly believe the Zone to be an empty yet thrilling place and worth nothing more than a good dare. The woman in the video of remarks that these “stalkers” are constantly forgetting that this zone is dangerous, as though they have forgotten the true history of what occurred there and see it solely through the modern lens of video games.

In the other short video we watched in class on Monday, the man remarks that returning to these contaminated and abandoned towns and homes is like looking into the past. There are photos and clothes and just the remains of these people’s lives. Which made me wonder—is looking at the babushkas’ homes still looking into the past? Are they isolated from time? Or are they themselves a remnant of history, living in isolation? But these homes are also reminders of abandonment, as a photographer describes in Voices from Chernobyl: “You wanted to just remember it: the globe in the schoolyard crushed by a tractor; laundry that’s been hanging out on the balcony for a year and has turned black; abandoned military graves, the grass as tall as the soldier statue on it, and the automatic weapon of the statue, a bird’s nest…People have left, but their photographs are still in the houses, like their souls” (Alexievich, 192). What these people leave behind is not just history, but part of who they are. And these babushkas of Chernobyl could be considered part of that which was left behind, even as they struggled and sneaked through barbed wire to come back to their homes. But they should not be remembered just as a part of history, but as living and vibrant people, which I believe the movie does a wonderful job of capturing.

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.

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.