{"id":557,"date":"2018-12-02T14:56:26","date_gmt":"2018-12-02T19:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/?p=557"},"modified":"2018-12-02T14:56:26","modified_gmt":"2018-12-02T19:56:26","slug":"curating-or-interpreting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/soviet-aspirations-and-environmental-disasters\/curating-or-interpreting\/","title":{"rendered":"Curating or Interpreting?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Alexievich\u2019s <em>Voices from Chernobyl<\/em> 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, \u201c(Chernobyl) is more powerful than anything literature has to say\u201d (240).\u00a0 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, \u201cBecause no one knows what Chernobyl is. People have guesses and feelings\u201d (236). I believe that Alexievich\u2019s 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 \u201csolitary voices\u201d without generalizing the event in whole.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Alexievich asks for a comparison of her historical approach to Toylstoy\u2019s in his novel <em>War and Peace<\/em>. In her second narrative she documents, \u201cDo you remember how it was in Tolstoy?\u201d (25). \u00a0Tolstoy tells the Franco-Russian war through multiple perspectives, similar to Alexievich. Tolstoy\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Alexievich pushes Tolstoy\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alexievich\u2019s 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, \u201c(Chernobyl) is more powerful than anything literature has to say\u201d (240).\u00a0 The ending of Alexievich compilation seems to suggest that anyone learning [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":688,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[151,45],"class_list":["post-557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-soviet-aspirations-and-environmental-disasters","tag-chernobyl","tag-tolstoy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/688"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}