Voices from Chernobyl (Lannan Selection)

I'll readily admit that I was not familiar with Svetlana Alexievich until she was named the 2015 Nobel Prize recipient for Literature. After reading about her, I was intrigued by her approach of extensively interviewing people and using their verbatims to create a coherent account about a specific subject. I had yet to read something of any length that employed such an approach and was eager to see how effective and engaging this method of storytelling could be. I was 16 at the time of Chernobyl and remember it as one of those defining Cold War moments of my youth like the 1980 US-USSR hockey game, the downing of KAL 007 or Reagan's speech at the Berlin Wall. As with many in the West, my perspective was garnered from how it was covered in the West, much of the information at the time limited given how carefully choreographed information from the USSR was and limited Western access to people closest to the disaster. A few years ago, I revisited the topic by reading a kindle single "The Chernobyl Nuclear Accident" put out by the NYT which contained all of its main coverage of the accident. The opportunity to "witness" the disaster from the inside, no less through Alexievich's unique approach, was enough to make me pick up this book. Reading "Voices of Chernobyl" is an eerie and unnerving experience. The magnitude of the Chernobyl accident is almost unfathomable and reading first person accounts about the untold physical, emotional and psychological damage is quite harrowing. Of course, the accounts of the physical suffering are almost too shocking to digest and will leave anyone's stomach turning. However, it is the massive state apparatus that covered up the real danger and sacrificed tens of thousands of its own people to the unspeakable levels of radioactive emissions, told through disillusioned, angry, devastated individuals that makes for a remarkable read. "Voices of Chernobyl" works so well because of the Alexievich's deep research and brilliant ability to piece together the right first person accounts in such a compelling narrative. I became convinced by the time I finished this book that the raw and unique emotional power "Voices of Chernobyl" could not have been achieved through a more traditional journalist account.

Through a series of beautifully crafted monologues by journalist Svetlana Alexievich, a candidate for the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature, she gives a voice to the voiceless by offering a literary megaphone to the citizens in, around and beyond Pripyat, Russa who experienced the all out lethal aftereffects of when the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant experienced a cataclysmic meltdown on April 26, 1986. With navigational restraint and skill, she interviews those who survived the ordeal first and secondhand, and for those who did not survive, the flame of their memory was carried on by those loved ones who were left behind in the radioactive hell that Alexievich brings so descriptively back to life. By applying her literary aptitude and journalistic acumen, she enables these victims and survivors their dirge or aria of woe to be humanely and candidly expressed. She tells tales that are more grim than fanciful, of homes and villages abandoned, radioactive pets and farm animals hunted down and executed, of mutated children and citizens literally melting away due to the radioactive toxicity that was, by degrees, slowly killing them. Alexievich is also very astute at conveying the tyrannical old party Communist belief system that was held by the victims and survivors of Chernobyl before and after the nuclear disaster. The Chernobyl “cleanup” crew and others of the same cloth were spurred on by thoughts of heroic mother country illustriousness and beliefs of Soviet indomitability while others were propelled by a more capitalistic inspiration, that by being involved with the mop-up after the tragedy, they would benefit somehow monetarily and materialistically. And so, they willingly threw themselves into the epicenter of the nuclear monster, only to come out severely contaminated with dashed hopes and chintzy medals for their valiant efforts. Cold war politics and ideologies aside, when Chernobyl exploded, it melted something other than the physically tangible reactor and those who inhabited in and around it. The deadly blast melted away a long-held idology, a Communist philosophy that failed its people. It was, in some respects, the beginning of the end in many ways. Like other great literary journalists and writers: Ernest Hemmingway, Joan Didion, Ryszard Kapuscinski (just to name a few), Alexievich is a powerful writer, who, with gusto and tenacity really throws herself into the story she is trying to tell. She too was born and schooled near where Chernobyl loomed, like an overwhelming Mt. Everest, and it was fitting that it was she who chose to tell this story. If a picture is worth a thousand words, than these monologues are worth far more.

Having read a Soviet nuclear engineer's account of the Chernobyl accident (THE TRUTH ABOUT CHERNOBYL), followed by a reporter's pictorial coverage (CHERNOBYL: CONFESSIONS OF A REPORTER); I was still missing an angle of the accident that would bring my superficial education on the subject to a close ... personal accounts from the people who lived through it. With so few resources published on the event, Svetlana Alexievich's VOICES FROM CHERNOBYL stands alone in representing those who quietly and bravely endured the detrimental impact the Chernobyl disaster had (and continues to have) on their lives. With VOICES FROM CHERNOBYL, Alexievich provides a platform that breaks the silence of the Soviet citizens who appeared to dutifully absorb everything the Chernobyl disaster brought their way (shame, bitterness, despair, fear and an unhealthy dose of radiation). The book is organized into three chapters (Land of the Dead, Land of the Living and Amazed by Sadness) with each chapter consisting of monologues (`voices") from those who experienced the disaster from the initial explosion to the lingering effects that exist today. The monologues are honest; with no unnecessary influence or clarification from Alexievich ... they range in size from a few paragraphs to a few pages. Collectively, the monologues represent almost every facet of life affected by Chernobyl: children (now grown), liquidators (the men responsible for "putting out" the nuclear fire), peasant villagers, doctors, scientists, political officials and ordinary citizens. Most all the monologues reflect pain and suffering in some manner and reading them is quite a somber experience. Quite frequently, the monologues refer directly to another deadly occurrence that bestowed another lingering state of suffering to the region ... World War II. That there are so many references to the war illustrates how dire the circumstances were following the Chernobyl accident. Whether it be forced evacuation, a mandatory surrender of property or the land being scorched (by a retreating army or by radiation) ... the parallels are evident to many of those old enough to experience both. Even leaving the region did not alleviate the suffering as many monologues account for bouts of illness possibly brought on by exposure to radiation, the abandonment of pets, homes and belongings or the social pariah of being a transplant from the region (and a potential carrier of radiation). The emotional tone of the "voices" ranges from defeatism to total defiance (including those who bravely returned to their poisoned homes). VOICES OF CHERNOBYL is both sad and eye opening. The raw nature of people speaking their minds on the issue doesn't alleviate the mystery that still looms over the entire event, however. What the book does is allow the reader to peek behind the veil of silence that has be prevalent for 25 years (and counting). Sure there is likely to be some embellishment in some monologues, but the general message is that the Chernobyl disaster has never really "gone away" and the lingering effects are bad enough to draw comparisons to World War II. Unfortunately, VOICES OF CHERNOBYL only serves as a microcosm of the total number of those affected by the Chernobyl accident, but the impact of these few voices is powerful nonetheless.

Occasionally I'll read first-hand accounts about human catastrophes in the modern world, such as Sudan or Rwanda or Katrina, because it offers a window into what I as a middle class American normally would never see or experience, hopefully making me a better and wiser person without becoming numb or a "dark tourist". Books are more subtle and rich than film and more rewarding in the end. As an oral history this is a frightening experience (the term "experience" emphasized). Chernobyl has been largely hushed up and kept quiet, the scope of it is worse than most know or understand (occasionally we hear a few hundred or thousand people died and certain cancers are slightly up, don't believe it, much worse). Only about %5 of the nuclear material escaped so it was a minor accident on the scale of things. There is a %50 chance of another meltdown happening elsewhere in the world over the next 40 years (sourced in book). Had Chernobyl been a full meltdown much of Europe would be dieing off as we speak. 16 more Chernobyl-type reactors are still in operation (14 in Russia). As Alexievich says in her epitaph: "These people had already seen what for everyone else is still unknown. I felt like I was recording the future." The disaster of Chernobyl is still going today, it never ended, it is like AIDS - it just keeps getting worse, there is no cure for radiation which lasts 100s of 1000s of years. The radiated material is finding its way outside of the "Zone" and spreading slowly around the world. Down the rivers into the seas, blown on dust, carried out by hand by bandits in the form of trucks and TV's and scrap metal sold to Asian scrap metal firms which build the goods we buy, grown in food and sold on the world market. I put this book down thinking two things: where can I buy a gieger counter and where can I buy iodine. Alexievic is a fascinating person her books published around the world in over 19 languages; translated authors don't get big billing in the USA but she is a world-class author and pretty well known in Europe. The Stalinst-Soviet style government of Belorussia (her home country) is not sympathetic to independent journalists (they end up dead). She has a fairly detailed personal website (I can't post links on Amazon but Google search on her name).

“… Just thinking of all your days to come, the bitterness, the life that rough mankind will thrust upon you. Where are the public gatherings you can join, the banquets of the clans? Home you’ll come, in tears, cut off from the sight of it all, the brilliant rites unfinished. And when you reach perfection, ripe for marriage, who will he be, my dear ones? Risking all to shoulder the curse that weighs down my parents, yes and you too - that wounds us all together.” - Oedipus in Oedipus Rex by Sophocles I was a freshman in college when Chernobyl disaster occurred on April 26, 1986. I vaguely remember being terrified about the scope of the incident; however, the Soviets were our enemies, so except for being concerned for how it would impact my life, I gave it little thought. When Svetlana Alexievich won the Nobel Prize in Literature last year, Chernobyl was brought back into my life. And for that I will forever be grateful. Ms. Alexievich’s Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster is one of the hardest books I’ve read due to the graphic descriptions of the impact on human life, but it is a book that must be read due to the immense amount of truth it contains. By truth, I don’t mean that it correctly represents the events of the disaster and its aftermath, which it does, but rather, that in the book’s monologues, we as readers are exposed to many of life’s truths. For example: “Only in evil is man clever and refined. But how simple and sympathetic he is when speaking honest words of love. Even when the philosophers use words they are only approximations of the thoughts they have felt” (66). And “… That all our humanistic ideas are relative. In an extreme situation, people don’t behave the way you read about in books. Sooner the other way around. People aren’t heroes” (111). It goes on and on. There is much more to this book than an oral history or a glimpse into the worst industrial disaster of our time. I thought when I read the book, I would be horrified by the accounts of the survivors, but I was more horrified at how I saw in these stories the cost of human behavior and ideologies. Lest you think, however, that these behaviors and ideologies are exclusive to the Soviets, and that their kind have faded into history, think again, as there are many moments in the work that reminded me of current arguments, events, and propaganda in our own time and country. After reading the book, one also must admire the courage of the author! Ms. Alexievich’s work on this project itself was an act of heroism, as she was interviewing people that oftentimes didn’t wish to speak, in a country that still was trying to cover-up what had occurred. Written ten years after the event, Ms. Alexievich solicits the personal reflections of a wide range of those that were witnesses to Chernobyl - villagers, soldiers, scientists, liquidators (those responsible for the clean up), Communist Party officials, mothers, children, widows, and re-settlers. The words in the book are those of the interviewed, but the organization of these “monologues” into a coherent whole is what makes the book much more than a telling of the event and its aftermath. It is this organization and focus that Ms. Alexievich provides, which takes the project to the realm of truth. For me, the moment that I’ll never forget is when I realized how those that survived, whether or not they became sick and died, would never be the same. And I don’t mean they are forever haunted by the events, as no doubt they are, but rather that they could never truly return to society. They were shunned, set apart, and labeled: “I got home, I’d go dancing. I’d meet a girl I liked and say, ‘Let’s get to know one another.’ ‘What for? You’re a Chernobylite now. I’d be scared to have your kids.’” - Soldier stationed at Chernobyl (46). “Now I look at my kids: wherever they go, they’ll feel like strangers. My daughter spent a summer at pioneer camp, the other kids were afraid to touch her. ‘She’s a Chernobyl rabbit. She glows in the dark.’ They made her to into the yard at night so they could see if she was glowing” - resident of the village of Khoyniki (195). It was this last excerpt that made me think of Oedipus’ speech to his children. Even those that survive will pay for the disaster that was Chernobyl until their deaths. People often say, “I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy,” and now that I think about my reaction to Chernobyl all those years ago, I feel ashamed. For even though the Cold War was still a reality in 1986, making the Soviets our enemies, this devastation is exactly that … something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. All of this might tend to push you away from reading the book, but I promise you that there is much more here than shame, horror, and tragedy. For this book, more than any other I’ve read recently, made me think more about “truth” and how I live my own life each and every day. For more of my reviews, visit https://readingwritingreacting.wordpress.com

Svetlana Alexievich's book about Chernobyl seems to me right now THE BEST BOOK I HAVE EVER READ. It combines so many different levels: it is a historic book, history seen through the eyes of LITTLE PEOPLE like you and me. It is a book about Russia and the horrors of Communism. For me it also challenges Capitalism, because I see also the GOOD OF COMMUNISM: a society that does NOT have the tremendous inequality our Capitalist societies show and ever more so. There is an idialism, patriotism and solidarity among people that I do not see so much in our Free Market Societies and without which Chernobil might NOT have been put under control and outr world might have been a nightmare today. I feel Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky in the book, it is also a book about Scientific arrogance and how our superb scientists can THING radioactivity but even they cannot GRASP what it means to have a radioactive contamination for hundreds of thousands of years. We stand there not just as Communists or Capitalists, we stand there and we come out of Svetlanas monologues as a gifted, intelligent and profoundly ignorant species. And when the UNGRASPABLE hits, a catastrophe out of our understanding we, humans, return to Philosophy, Religion and Fear and often in front of Death: so many return to LOVE. That is what breaks the heart in Alexievich's stories and monologues: the capacity of love inherit to our human hearts! Under Chernobyl, Communism, Recent History this is a book about the HUMAN CONDITION, songs as if out of the ancient Greek theatre and tragedies. Thank you, spacibo, Svetlana, you are my heroine for the rest of my life!

I'm speechless. Heart-breaking. Disturbing. Yet oh so important for everyone to read. I strongly believe that this book is telling us about the future. It's no secret I don't support nuclear energy - it's pretty hard to after reading this book. The Fukushima accident now shares Chernobyl in being one of only two nuclear disasters to rank as a 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale, yet Chernobyl could have easily been a hundred times worse than what it was, so therefore, the scale is incomplete. Chernobyl was kept very quiet. Terrible things happened there and continue to literally ruin the lives of people in Belarus and Northern Ukraine. It's no doubt Fukushima is being kept quiet too. And so will the next disaster, and the next, until there is no hiding from it anymore. I bought a dosimeter after reading this book, because it clearly tells us the population cannot trust the government. The only ones who learned the secret before other countries let the cat out of the bag were those who worked at nearby nuclear power stations, because their dosimeters were going haywire. This book is something that NEEDS to be read, for it concerns all of humanity. Yet it's kept quiet. I'm an American and most people my age don't even know what Chernobyl is - or if they do, they know it through a game. This is such a fail. It's like the rest of the world thinks this book doesn't concern them because it only concerns those damn Belarussians on the other side of the globe. But it DOES concern us all. Just wait until something like this happens in your own backyard. Then the whole world will wish they had listened to Chernobyl.

The monologues themselves were fabulous, but (and this is the only time I have ever said this about a book) -- it needs more of an editorial voice. Some stories would have made a lot more sense if we'd been given a date. An age. There were terms sprinkled throughout that I had to Google and still couldn't find a good explanation for. Some chapters included discrete monologues from lots of people, but they don't clearly separate them from each other - so you'd be confused as to whether this was a new story or just a single disjointed story. It was poorly organized in that respect. And the thing that kills me is there'd be editorial interjections at places that were completely unnecessary! Like "(here she spreads the photographs out on the table)" -- ok? That wasn't very important to my understanding of what they're saying. What would be helpful is if you could explain the term "second group invalid" or the various acronyms used. Basically, the people did a great job in responding to interviews. The author/editors did a terrible job putting them together.

A book to be read calmly, without hurries. Some things exceed mere data or facts, it is necessary to listen to real people who lived through them, and this is what the author provides us with in this book. I really appreciate having read it.

I am a big fan of Svetlana and this book just made me realize one more time how important it is to learn from our history. All the pain, all the lies and all the love described so intimate in this book. I highly recommend it to everyone!

Amazing Book

My daughter asked for this book as it’s a very famous book and everyone who is interested in history should read this.

Lettura scorrevole con tante testimonianze ed interviste di chi ha subito l'evento e le conseguenze a posteriori. Lo consiglio soprattutto a chi é appassionato sull'argomento per approfondire diversi aspetti che normalmente non vengono trattati nei libri di storia.