Nuclear Memories
Forty years of fallout -- and powerful lessons learned.
The Chornobyl (Chernobyl) nuclear accident took place 40 years ago. Soviet Ukraine, and the Soviet Union, are gone; an independent Ukraine defends itself today.
In the generation since, what have we learned?
I reported a story on the event’s anniversary — four decades since April 26, 1986. My work appeared in podcast form here, and below, at minute mark 29:20.
The podcast, called The World and Everything In It, is a daily product from the World News Group (WNG). I’ve freelanced for them for some years. Most often I write, for their print magazine, online, or both. The group has afforded me the chance to write extensively on Ukraine, for which I am very grateful. I plan to keep covering Ukraine, for WNG or others, as long as there’s a war on. And probably after, too.
The country, with its millions of human stories, deserves as much.
Among the subtler points my reporting uncovered: Ukrainians don’t want to be seen as historical victims or losers. Both of the story’s key sources — one a ‘liquidator,’ or shock worker, present in Chornobyl in 1986; the other, a 39-year-old Chornobyl tour guide — said so.
The younger source called herself a “Chornobyl kid,” or a part of the generation of Ukrainians who came of age since the disaster. In one of the elements cut (regrettably) from the final story, she drew a direct line between the legacy of Chornobyl and the stakes of Ukraine’s defense against Russia now. If her English is imperfect, it rings all the more powerfully for its authenticity:
“They [observers of the war] understand, why do we fight so desperately right now, against joining Moscow… against being under the rule of Moscow. When they see how Soviet Union lived, how Soviet Union acted, how it was actually possible to have something like Chornobyl in the Soviet Union, they understand why do they fight.”
Through her and the other parts of the story, I saw in Chornobyl an example of powerful resilience, with urgent relevance to the war today.
Ukrainians have learned to manage, and transcend, the tragedies that come their way. The country can not only endure calamity, but overcome it, the sources said.
Hearing that message from well-informed Ukrainians, I believe it.
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Photo: © USFCRFC / IAEA Imagebank