Chronicles Poems Epic Poems Novels Conclusion Endnotes

Larissa M. L. Zaleska ONYSHKEVYCH

CHORNOBYL IN UKRAINIAN LITERATURE (1986-1989) AND GLASNOST

In 1986 two Slavic words entered the lexicon of the world: Chornobyl (or rather the Russian version — Chernobyl) and glasnost. Glasnost, officially proclaimed by the Soviet government several months before the 26 April 1956 nuclear catastrophe at Chornobyl in Ukraine, was quickly put to the test in official reports on the explosion and its aftermath. While staging a Russian play Sarcophagus, about the Chornobyl accident, the artistic director in Princeton (New Jersey) stated that, "Before glasnost, Sarcophagus, would not exist. Before Chernobyl, it would not have had to".¹ However, this statement should rather be rephrased to "Without Chornobyl, there would not have been glasnost as we know it today."²

The progress of glasnost itself may well be illustrated by the manner in which the Chornobyl story was officially treated. Following the accident, a significant change in attitude was demonstrated between the first days when the scope of the disaster was denied and even several months after the explosion when many facts were slowly and gradually being admitted. The Ukrainian writer Iurii Shcherbak wrote that until early May 1986, "There was a strong feeling of fear in reference to opening up glasnost on certain very touchy and very sensitive subjects, among which was Chornobyl."³ But since the nuclear fallout could not be concealed from the world, glasnost rode instead on the crest of demands for real facts about the actual scope of the disaster. Chornobyl also demonstrated to the world that the proclaimed glasnost was not really in force even at the end of May 1986, nor it applied equally throughout the USSR. ⁴

In the summer of 1986 Vladimir Gubarev, author of the play Sarcophagus, wondered at first whether he could publish it without special permission and cuts by a censor. He admitted in an interview that "After the accident, those of us who worked for the leading Moscow publications (tsentralni gazety) were allowed to print everything without any censorship."⁵ Shcherbak also noted that during that summer glasnost was just getting started and truth was being parcelled out differently in different places: one type of truth was allowed in the "center" (Moscow), and another in other areas of the Soviet Union.⁶ The difference in treatment between "the center" versus other republics, and Ukraine in particular here, may also be seen in the fact that while the play Sarcophagus, has been staged all over the Soviet Union (as well as worldwide in about 150 theatres by now) – the play was not staged by local theaters in Ukraine, only once by a visiting Russian theatre from Tambov – and only after special intercession by the author. In Kyiv, an opening night performance of the play at the Theatre of Drama and Comedy was cancelled a few days prior to it..

CHORNOBYL IN SEVERAL LITERARY GENRES to top

In Soviet Ukrainian literature, the subject of the Chornobyl accident is reflected in several literary genres, and interestingly enough, in a manner almost typical of the development of genres in old Ukrainian literature: first folklore and chronicles, then poems and epic poems, followed by novels. A Ukrainian play is yet to come — perhaps when the perspective is larger, when the wounds are not so open, when the object of fear is more specific, the guilt more attributable, and the distance provided by time is more appropriate psychologically. The Chornobyl disaster provides us — to use René Wellek's terminology — with an extrinsic approach (dealing with and explaining the social and historical content and ideas) to Soviet Ukrainian literature. It allows us to analyze this factor not only in terms of glasnost, of group or national as well other types of expressions, but also almost a national existential boundary situation. At the same time, one may also observe how the literary works on Chornobyl have contributed in terms of intrinsic or strictly literary attributes, as well as to some non-literary aspects.

One may justly ask whether due to glasnost there is an actual difference in Ukrainian literature and perhaps also in the spirit, in a type of Zeitgeist that this literature reflects. These aspects may be studied in terms of more candid: 1) fact reflection and documentation, 2) socio-psychological release and historical identification and perspective, and 3) reflection of the first two in striking new images, architectonics, and other literary modes.

Documentation of facts may seem as a rather unusual obligation for literature, and may even sound like an oxymoron; after all, how is the genre of poetry and the novel, or fiction, to be assessed on providing documentary facts on the whole Chornoby1 story? However, constant references to that historical fact are leaving a mark not only on literature but even on the dating of events in the daily lives of people, who talk about either b.Ch. or a. Ch (before or after Chornobyl). The poet Ivan Hnatiuk even named a poem about Chornobyl "Nove Iitochyslennia" (A New Dating of Years).⁷

The Chronicle Category to top

The best known work in this genre is Iurii Shcherbak's Chornoby1⁸ subtitled "A documentary novel." Although it does have an epic span and even occasionally reflects the mood of an epic, the work is not a novel, in the proper sense. It is an attempt by a scientist (Shcherbak is a physician and writer) to record and portray facts, accounts by witnesses (who serve as protagonists here), accompanied by commentaries as well as some heavy moralizing and didacticism — also very much in the epic style. In the manner of a chronicle, the author notes the history of Chornobyl (such as its earlier names, its first historical mention in 1127), and provides parts of interviews that he conducted with workers at the nuclear plant-with engineers, firefighters, and physicians, as well as with ordinary people living in the area. In this work he incorporates excerpts of their diaries, letters, and memoirs. While attempting to present facts in a kaleidoscopic manner, Shcherbak searches for the motivations for various actions and behavior of those involved before the explosion, during the accident, during the evacuation, as well as in the days t