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 that followed. As a scientist, he observes, analyzes, summarizes, and draws conclusions about who was guilty, what was the punishment and what is to be done now. He hints that one of the reasons for keeping the scope of the accident secret – was the Soviet desire to put up a good front, a pretense of a happy life, so that the world, or "the enemy," would not learn the truth. The outside world is often used as a constant pretext of a threat to Soviet life. (For example, on the second anniversary of Chornobyl, the inhabitants now living in Kyiv were not allowed to have a reunion, because foreigners, people from abroad, z-za kordonu" were supposedly planning to throw a bomb). But most of all, Shcherbak castigates Soviet citizens for not considering the human factor in dealing with high technology, and for moral irresponsibility in carrying out dangerous experiments. "We have reached Chornobyl. We have reached a crisis of faith. The edge of a precipice,"⁹ he warns. The writer considers that after World War II, Chornobyl became the most weighty event for his country; that is why he pledged to write about the facts relating to Chornobyl, because "...I want the truth to be preserved."^{1 10}

In this quest, Shcherbak does not ignore any elements that may not have been quite acceptable before glasnost; he turns even to an ecclesiastical work. And also very much in the manner of ancient chronicles, Shcherbak quotes from the Bible, from the "Book of Revelation" by St. John the Divine, who refers to "A Wormwood star" (wormwood in Ukrainian is "chornobyl'," a very bitter plant artemisia vulgaris):

10. ...and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;

11. And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter...

Because of the very name, as well as the bitter taste in their mouths that people in the area had, following the explosion, the quote from the Bible was immediately considered as a prediction of the Chornobyl catastrophe. Although this quotation made the rounds already several days after the accident, the excerpt was cited by the writer Oles Honchar at a public meeting and instantly became repeated also all over the world. At the same time, Honchar's and Schcherbak's use of the reference to the Bible almost legitimized the source in the glasnost environment. Shcherbak went even further; he asked the metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox church to comment upon the supposed prediction. This too is a new post-glasnost approach, which was probably either prompted by the official sanction for the celebration of the millennium of Christianity in Ukraine and Russia, or perhaps, in a way, it also stimulated the legitimatization of the commemoration.

In his determination to present the whole truth about the disaster Shcherbak is willing to use non-scientific data: such as a story about an engineer who had a dream foretelling the explosion at the very fourth block, as well as folk forecasts of the disaster, such as "It'll be green all over., but sad," and "Everything will be abundant, but there won't be anyone around" ("bude vse, ale ne bude nikoho"). He relates how Chornobyl had brought bad luck to many people, and even the army of the fierce Khan Batii was destroyed there. Such examples of folklore and parapsychology would not have been respected in literature earlier, but it seems, that glasnost even opened the way for this. In an attempt to portray all the data, Schcherbak also lists the first scientific warning of an omnicide from possible radium effects, as it was expressed in 1910 by the Ukrainian academician Volodymyr Vernadsky and Pierre Curie.

In the manner of a chronicle, the work provides descriptions of the way of life of the inhabitants and their folklore about the accident. Folklore in the form of black humor was the first expression of a psychological need for a release. Publishing Chornobyl's black humor¹² anywhere may seem pretty insensitive, but including it in a documentary literary work is admissible. For example, since in Ukrainian alphabet the letter 'g' was banned, Kyivites started calling themselves hamma sapiens (rather than gamma / homo sapiens). Also, while the word "fon" refers to a radiation field – everybody in Kyiv could then be addressed as belonging to the aristocracy, i.e. with a von before their surname (von Tkachenko or von Rylsky).

Poems to top

While some critics, such as Volodymyr Morenets¹³ blame Ukrainian poetry for lagging behind others in their reaction to Chornobyl, this comment is actually unfair. True, the first works did begin to appear in Ukrainian periodicals only in January 1987; however, in many of them the authors specify the dates of writing as the previous May or June (only the editors would be able to assess when the works were submitted). Typical for Ukrainian literature in general, even in the short period since the accident, numerous poems have been written and published about Chornobyl. Some of them have already served as lyrics for songs, e.g. Dmytro Pavlychko's "The Cranes flew to Chornobyl." The nuclear explosion also retains astrong presence in poems on other topics. Probably the best example in this category is Bohdan Stelmakh's poem "Istoriia" (History) 14, which provides both a historical summation of Ukrainian suffering from neighboring attacks as well as from its own nature:

Dymom – porokhamy

Pomizh rep'iakhamy

Dykhaie Chornobyl

Nashymy hrikhamy

Ti zreklysia movy

Ti zreklysia rodu...

Otaka istoria

Ridnoho narodu.

[Amidst the weeds / Chornobyl breathes / both smoke and dust / Chornobyl breathes our sins. / Some gave up their language / and others their roots. / Such is the history / of my own kin.]

Besides Borys Oliinyk's "The Road to Chornobyl,"¹⁵ among the earliest notable poems on the explosion is "Zona" (The Zone) by Leonid Horlach. In the introduction, the poet states that the people who have caused the explosion were "careless and infinitely smug, were used to dealing with things in the old manner ... and now others have to pay for their sins...."^16. The lesson is a call to honesty and decency. The author deals directly with the purpose of sending poets to see the area which is "cut away from the world by a barbed wire": because the poets are left with the function of "shedding tears of pain for the Zone." In a manner similar to Ukrainian epic songs and laments, and also using typical Shevchenko imagery, the poet asks "O fate, do not give us glory, if it cannot protect our truth!" It is not a call to physical bravery or ideological fortitude–as it would have been in preglasnost days-only a call to get to the bottom of things, to find the truth about what happened. The poet also repeatedly refers to the people's "sins."

Viktor Kordun, in his two poems "Lyst z domu" (A Letter from Home) and also "Zona" (The Zone),¹⁷ uses a more introverted approach and a lyrical mood to deal with the images of the past and the traditional Ukrainian Whitsunday (pomynky) ritual of remembering the dead. However, he comments that while earlier people willingly visited the graves, now, in the deserted Polissia area, it is the dead themselves who have to plead for the traditional visits. The poet dismisses the technical explanation for the explosion at the nuclear plant, and instead puts the question in almost cosmic terms even, "Have we not betrayed our own soil?" In reply, he then asks for the land's forgiveness. He refers to earlier millennia and centuries, and takes a historical perspective. He does not so much as minimize the disaster itself, as perhaps unintentionally, he subtly contrasts its post-Chornobyl growing magnitude in terms of the socio-psychological effect on the people and the ecological effect on the countryside. This aspect is almost externalized by depersonalized emotions and the depopulated setting, as the poet states, "The icons and the wind don't know how long they shall last." And without taking on an optimistic stance, as socialist realism would have required him to do a year earlier, Kordun throws a melancholy look at the speed of progress after the accident, "Until the Earth is healed again, centuries and peoples shall come and go. But I have to wait." The distanced, and almost synthesized, concept of healing is only in the promised stage, though wrapped in a sorrowful dimension – and beyond the wait and reach of any one person. Transcendence is implied.

A very unique and striking treatment of the future-versus-reality confrontation may be found in the poem "Traven" (May)¹⁸ by Natalka Bilotserkivets. She provides rather unexpected metaphors and historical comparisons – and by means of the latter, also reproaches her compatriots. By assuming a megahistorical perspective, she sees mankind develop from dead (!) cells of salamanders or dinosaurs. Then, in a hinted circular chronological path, the resulting mutations may develop new breeds after Chornobyl. The poet reproaches her contemporaries with such haunting images as: "You see dinosaurs as free as horses; / and the most handsome one of all-- / turns to you his meditative eye-- / the dark eye of nature, / a pulsating and alluring call." The salamander / dinosaur, or iashchur/ has a mythical ability to put out fire or live in it. The animal ties poignantly and fittingly to the Chornobyl image. In Ukrainian folklore iashchur can also poison anything that it touches, such as water in a well or even the future fruit of a tree.¹⁹ Since the poet sees the present generation related to dead dinosaurs, with this chronological megadistancing from the present, there is a cynical and teasing promise of hope in the last words of the poem, referring to the tempting nature of both Nature and Man.

The poem deals with the accident as with only one in a long list of historical disasters taking place in Ukraine; even some parallels to World War II are introduced. And the blame is expressed almost as strongly as for that war, as the poet asks, "Be they foreigners or our own scoundrels, who has the right to experiment with human beings," and "poison our youth again?" It is perhaps the first time that in literature the Nazi horrors are equated with those of Chornobyl. However, the guilty are not named in the Biloteserkivets poem and because of the comparison, there is just the lingering hint that outsiders may be to blame for the disaster.

Stepan Sapeliak, a poet now living in Kharkiv (who publishes his work in unofficial Ukrainian periodicals), also seems to place the guilt beyond his own people, by entitling his 1987 poem "Gernika Chomobylia" (The Guernica of Chornobyl).²⁰ The images are just as forceful and memorable as those of Picasso. Sapeliak's Scythian women, who become pregnant with Hiroshima's descendants, do not bear live anyone (or anything). By employing historical images, Sapeliak depicts a rather grim and finite picture of his country, "We disappear in our own ashes, without princedoms, without chroniclers, and without flowers in the meadows." By_.the analogy to Guernica, he implies that an outside force has brought the disaster to innocent people.

A young poet, Anatolii Kychynsky, in a poem, even admits quite frankly that perhaps the Chornobyl punishment is for his own earlier propagandistic verses, when he "was untruthful while underestimating evil," and was ready "to sell the bitter truth for the wretched right"²¹ to excuse himself for not doing his duty. Iryna Myronenko, on the other hand, expresses the feeling differently in her poem, pointing out that people really do not know themselves, and only the silence of the evacuated Chornobyl will reawaken them asking from whence and whither they go. She also charges the people of being spiritually dependent on the judgments and values of others, rather than on traditional Ukrainian ones. This she poignantly presents and juxtaposes in the images of nightingales (as typical Ukrainian) and cuckoo birds (who lay eggs in the nests of others). She blames the people for selling out their values and "spitting into the soul of their own land."²²

Probably one of the first books of poetry by an individual to deal almost entirely with Chornobyl and its aftermath is Oksana Pakhliovska's first collection of poetry, "Dolyna khramiv" (The Valley of Temples).²³ Similarly to Sapeliak, she is one of the few Ukrainian writers who present Ukraine as a victim, "They have put you up for sale in your own temples. / They replaced your history with а million fakes. / And are you still — Ukraine? Or are you just a myth... "²⁴ Out of all the literary works on Chornobyl, this is also the most direct concretization of reference to her own country. Pakhliovska also uses some of the bleakest depictions of the post-Chornobyl countryside, only in an inverted and split historical perspective: she mentions the sarcophagus and the dead water in which Prince Volodymyr wanted to baptize his people. She refers to the Ukrainian chornozem (black fertile earth) which is now Chorno byl ("what was once black"). The time setting is both that of the Huns and Sarmatians, and the princely era of a thousand years ago, as well as of the Apocalypse — the difference appears to be irrelevant when confronted with the magnitude of the modern day accident's aftermath. The manner in which she links and then juxtaposes the days of old and of today, forces one to concentrate on the present rather than on the element of time, and to place the horrors of the unusual accident outside of the usual time frame. She also depicts Ukraine in a position of a recurrent victim, and by using the well-known Shevchenko words, she addresses her country. "Why did you not wake up, when after being robbed you were awakened?"²⁵ The poet reminds the reader of earlier painful historical situations, and worries lest "all the iron gates be shut down again."

On the other hand, Pakhliovska also sends messages of irreversibility to the days of the more peaceful recent past, when man still coexisted with nature. The immanent finite effect of radiation is ever present in the dark colors, in the turned-to-ashes landscape, all contrasted with the image of the peeple and nature desiring to go on living, "...And the free horse keeps running along the shore, not knowing that he has already been killed."²⁶

The subject of death from the radiation is more openly developed in Tamara Severniuk's poems "Zelenyi vohon zemli" (The Green Fire of Earth).²⁷ While depicting the unusual situation of "having to bury topsoil together with the deadly dust," she also portrays "tormented corteges of evacuees" and "terrible death, molded from rays." Naum Tykhyi, in a selection of poems entitled "O, Shame, I Beg You, Do Not Fall Asleep," expresses similar sentiments in more subtle and moving images. He asks, "If the radiation has already touched the young — should the sun bother to come out in the morning?" The haunting picture of Kyiv without children that he presents, serves both as a reminder of what was, as well as an expression of fear of a possible permanent state.²⁸ One of the most direct expressions of reproach for Ukrainian passivity may befound in the above mentioned poem by Ivan Hnatiuk.²⁹ He depicts Ukraine with a gagged mouth, like a beggar accepting only breadcrumbs. She is required to keep silent and make sacrifices, including that of sending schoolchildren to the May Day parade, right after the Chornobyl explosion. The poet differentiates, however, between passivity and guilt, which he formulates as happening because of "somebody's insanity," for which Ukraine had to pay with the health of her young ones.

Epic Poems to top

One of the First works in Ukrainian literature to deal with Chornobyl was Svitlana Iovenko's "Vybukh" ( Explosion). It became much acclaimed in the Soviet press and carried perhaps the heaviest legacy of the tenor of pre glasnost (it is from her poem that the phrase Bil’ і muzhnist (Pain and Bravery) provided the title of the first literary anthology on Chornobyl, published in 1988). The poem possesses all the requisite quotations and notes of optimism required by socialist realism, all the references to "the people" and their strength to withstand anything. However, the author also reproaches the country of the guilt of homicide, of inactivity, and of irresponsibility by the state and the whole government. The poem speaks as a voice of conscience, and includes a large dose of self-flagellation. References are made to lies uttered by scientists, such as the ill-famed excuses, "science requires sacrifices," and of blaming the accident on "the human factor." The poem has intense lyrical parts, as well as epic qualities and strengths; several references within the work to "the poem with no hero" only emphasize the collective hero, and stress time, conscience, and hope.

Borys Oliinyk's poem "Sim" (Seven)³¹ is one of the popularly known works on the Chornobyl theme. The number in the title refers to the first casualties: six firefighters and Volodymyr Shevchenko, the film director. With the names listed next to the title, the poet asks, "Where do you rock yourself to sleep now, children of your mothers?.. The light striking your eyes, stronger than a thousand suns...." The poem, in seven parts, also has some attributes of Ukrainian epic dumas and laments. It is set in the place of Slrakholissia (Fearville), where a millennial oak tree falls down. There are references to an intention to destroy the tree, the "cursed clan," so "you'd be gone from the planet," — as a raven/devil admits (much in the style of Shevchenko's ravens or crows). Listing the sins of the nation, the poem includes very sharp exchanges of reproach between the poet and the raven (the polarity brings to mind the polarity introduced by Shevchenko's two Ivans, or Khvylovyi's split versions of "Myself"'). Stalin is also presented here ("We were hoping to find Lenin in him"), as well as the infamous years 1933 and 1937 (the dates of the genocidal famine and massive arrests in Ukraine). The references to the past span from the kozak era to contemporary days, and thus imply the need for a historical re-evaluation. And just as Stalin was earlier treated in literature in a cultist fashion, so Oliinyk treats Lenin here, whom he even addresses as Christ of the twentieth century.

Several other important glasnost topics may be found in this poem. For example, Oliinyk considers it a sin to allow a nuclear station to be "at the very cradle of our blood brothers," as if the responsibility then needed to be heavier on his countrymen because it affected the brothers. The raven lists the ills and sins that even descendants might carry now, the disfiguration of man and nature, as well as the dying language of the fathers. However, in an old and upbeat fashion, all these monstrosities pale before the six rays of sunlight and humanity, as the poet declares to the raven/Cain, "The past is painful, but I regret it not."

In his third poem on Chornobyl, "Pryshestia" (The Coming),³² Borys Oliinyk goes а step further. He refers to Stalin's crimes (including the killing of one-half of Ukraine's farmers in 1933, "while Europe watched") and asks why this was allowed to happen. He concludes that when people assume an unshakable faith in something, rather than accepting an undisputable truth, they act like a herd of sheep, allowing their members to be hurt, because of the faith in the infallibility of a leader. Although this criticism of personality cult may be applied even beyond Stalin, the poet compares the adulation of a leader to the adulation of a god. He then goes a step further and generalizes this concept to the belief in God. Oliinyk also stresses the principle of having and using one's own conscience, and equates conscience with goodness which may bring back hope to human souls.

Out of all the poems about the nuclear accident, the most complicated in terms of structure and imagery is "Chomobylska madonna" (The Chornobyl Madonna) by Ivan Drach.³³ In the epigram to the work, two excerpts are cited, one from Shevchenko's "Maria" and one from a duma about "A Poor Widow and Her Three Sons." These quotations immediately highlight the pattern of imagery in the two poems, putting the spotlight on the figure of the widowed mother, as well as the seemingly conflicting variations of this image which appear capitalized later in the poem ("You tried to write about Her — while it is She who writes with you..."). Several madonnas of the modern (or Soviet) era are depicted in the poem: they range from the Madonna of the Atomic Era, a Soldier's Madonna, an Old Woman in Cellophane-Wrapping, a Scythian Madonna, a Woman Tractor Driver, the Khreshchatyk Madonna, and a Mother whose mysterious footprints keep reappearing in the sand around the sarcophagus (covering the exploded block at the nuclear station). The latter figure has achieved almost mythical proportions with many writers. Drach depicts her in this manner:

Mother's Eternal Elegy

She passed through the fields —

The green greening

And Her Son's Disciples greeting:

Blessed You be, Maria!

from Pavlo Tychyna's "Mother of Sorrow"

Her Son's Disciples meet her,

Lead her by the arm.

That strange woman again!

— Don't you know me, Son?

—Why do you keep running away, Mother,

We have to keep catching you.

I must tell you frankly:

You can't fool me.

I'll take you to the City,

To the grandchildren, to die there.

And proudly said she:

I am the undying mother!

Soldiers watched

The generals crying,

The old woman again

To her house hurrying.

To her stork and her well,

Her cat and her cow,

And her dreams,

Without words or curses.

She bypassed the sentries,

And passed through the barriers.

Her roses were flaming,

Like roosters stood the generals.

Everything as on a blade of a knife,

Ready for cutting.

And the mother kissed a flower

Smack into the cesium.

Not wanting to die,

Everything under the sun shed tears.

And the mother kissed a flower

Smack into the strontium.³⁴

It is the Mother's determination to reach her house, her animals and flowers, and to be on her own, and this contrasts with the deserted area, as well as with the strong note of reproach, that actually it was she who was deserted by her sons, who are referred to as really stupid. This is a little jarring in terms of contemporary Soviet social self-appraisal in literature, however, a certain continuity of the message from 0les Honchar's Sobor (Cathedral) may be found here. It is a glasnost type of admission that children have failed to live up to human expectations of normal gratitude and care for the Mother, the Clan Begetter, or even that of a higher order — of the country itself, of Ukraine. That is why the contrasts between her simple and basic goodness and naïveté and the children's selfishness and steadily sinking standards of morals, include not only the drunks at an orgy, but also one son who planned the nuclear station, and a grandson (and a general's son to boot), who steals icons from his grandmother's house and then even pulls her by her hair. Carrying out this juxtaposition of values (in the Scythian Madonna section), an unforgettable episode depicts a sculpture of a Scythian "stone baba" being forced by modern vandals to give birth to a Scythian boy, who with his arrows shoots those attending a modern orgy. Drach blames those who were taken to court for the disaster, as well as those who were not tried (he leaves one seat empty for them), not only for causing the disaster, but for dragging their feet in reacting to it, and mentions that only in Moscow did they act quicker. The critic Ivan Dziuba, however, comments that it was not a matter of speed, only a matter of who had the right to make decisions.³⁵ Drach also charges the scientists, whose wisdom was so great that "we now pay for it with immortality — the immortality of such young lives," or with the fear for the state of those who are to be born. He distributes the guilt much wider, however. The whole generation, to which he uses the group reference of "sons" (as in the duma with three bad sons), is "stupid from the days of yore" (the phrase immediately brings to mind Shevchenko's accusations of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky's historical "stupidity" and decision at Pereiaslav). The portrayal of the grandsons shows them to be a step lower than "stupid," since they completely negate traditional morals and standards and sink so low as to sell off local cultural treasures, such as icons (the poet calls these people "Jesus sellers"). In one case, this polarity of children/grandchildren versus parents and grandparents, is somehow suspended in time, with the Mother of God and Christ (the son "with atomic nails piercing his hands") running away from the Mother, the Chornobyl Madonna. While she is shown trying to rescue him, the juxtaposition becomes even more poignant. Much in the style of Pavlo Tychyna, Drach quite strinkingly employs countless examples of Christian imagery, without the cynical touches that he used to incorporate in his pre-glasnost works. In this poem the crazy and bald Kateryna blends into the Scythian "baba" and the Mother of God bearing a no-child, an emptiness-begotten by Herod on that fateful April day.

The theme of motherhood in Drach's poem is two-fold. One aspect reflects the traditional moral standards, the natural family relationship that the "sons" have neglected to continue, and as a result have built a nuclear station and abandoned the mother. The other aspect deals with the basic concern for the well-being of the offspring and the future of mankind. It is here that the fear is expressed in quite bleak colors. The concern is not only for the physical health, but for spiritual and moral as well. It is the latter that actually dominates the whole complex structure of the epic. The poet even quite explicitly depicts the abandoned widowed mother who looks into her descendant's soul, and not finding one, instead sees only guilt.

In this work Drach often quotes or refers to other works by Ukrainian writers about Chornobyl. By employing similar situations, symbols, and images as they do, he creates a certain credibility for these images as "facts." At the same time he also raises them to adifferent level of generalization and typicality, allowing them to serve almost as Chornobylian archetypes. This sharing of common imagery not only makes them more valid, but also enhances the epic universality which they carry, and provides almost an organic structure to the work. The variants of the Madonna within the poem itself serve as a common non-heroic Chornobylian image, as well as substitutes for protagonists, thus representing one part of the community or nation. While these madonnas are shown as suffering victims after the explosion, it is within a tragic mode, since there is a strong hint that in their indisputable goodness-they are to blame somehow for the wrongs of others, especially that of their own descendants.

Another work which also reflects certain elements of the Ukrainian epic duma is Yuriy Andrukhovych's "Povik ne vyshchezne trava" (The Grass Won't Ever Fade Away). ³⁶ The poem refers to the land that was once noted for many children, the land with scars unhealed, while a hangman's poles become live and grow as plants. Painful expressions of pessimism and hopelessness flow freely without the typical pre-glasnost restraints or cosmetic concealment.

Novels to top

At this time, at least three Soviet Ukrainian writers have written novels that deal specifically with Chornobyl: Leonid Daien, Volodymyr lavorivsky, and Anatolii Mykhailenko. Daien's documentary novel is entitled Chornobyl— Trava hirka (Chornobyl — The Bitter Grass)³⁷. In terms of structure, the work is a step beyond Shcherbak's documentary, and relies much on the epistolary form. Daien's method in providing credibility to the work was to build the story on the life of the chief firefighter Leonid Teliatnykov, by means of correspondence (from the hospital in Moscow) with his children. The author openly blames experiments for causing the explosion at Chornobyl, and places it on a list with other nuclear accidents in Western Europe, USA, and Japan. Since the book was written for young readers, few effects of glasnost are found here.

A similar approach in attempting to minimize Chornobyl's horrors bv showing the West in the worst possible light, is Anatolii Mykhailenko's Zapakh polynu (The Smell of Wormwood).³⁸ However, he also mentions some of the excuses, used before glasnost, to block any open discussions of nuclear plants, e.g.: that it was considered reactionary to doubt the safety of Soviet reactors, or that the reason for not disclosing the explosion immediately was so that the enemy across the border would not learn of it. Besides making such charges against the system, the writer also asks some painful questions of the local people, as to what took place both before and after the accident. He depicts such acts as stealing of ancient icons and similarly unique treasures from the evacuated empty houses. The police then confiscated some of these from the thieves-only to have a seventeenth-century Psalter or a sixteenth- century icon disappear from official safekeeping, leaving hardly anything for a planned museum called "Muzhnist" (Bravery). Other writers also portrayed how such stolen and radioactive items quickly found their way to Western European black markets. This rather candid depiction not only lists the facts, but also points out the underlying explanation that people stopped caring for their culture and historical heritage and traditional values.

Volodymyr Iavorivsky's Maria z polynom pry kintsi stolittia (Maria with the Bitter Wormwood at the End of the Century) 39 also reflects an ever-present charge of guilt. The writer places the events right in the heart of the town of Prypiat and the whole Chornobyl area. The nuclear station is shown as the brain child of a local engineer, who provided a plan for the least expensive project for building a nuclear station. After the plant was erected, the surrounding new town spread further, at the cost of the neighborhood villages. As the new pushed away the old, moral standards deteriorated at all levels: in the family, at work, and in the community. The protagonist, Maria, is the eternal UR-Mother, as well as the conscience of her children and grandchildren. After the accident, Maria laments that "the elder brother brought death for the younger one," leaving only a deaf-and-dumb son alive. Chornobyl is shown as moral punishment for the community, at the cost of many innocent lives. The accident is to serve as an eye-opener for the people themselves. Hope is placed only in Maria's goodness, so that it would pass to some of her grandchildren, and thus provide the necessary tie to the standards of old. But did the guilty really see the truth about themselves and learn their lesson? Not really, the author implies, nor does he provide a perfunctory rosy picture of the future.

CONCLUSION to top

Several common elements may be seen in the above works in Ukrainian literature on the Chornobyl topic. First of all, there is now a definite openness in the depiction of the extrinsic element, thus almost performing the function that journalism should have had in describing exactly what actually happened at Chornobyl. Noting what the situation was before and how it changed during the glasnost period, Soviet Ukrainian critic Hryhorii Klochek, in discussing Chornobyl admits that in the pre-glasnost days such painful problems could not have been discussed in literary works⁴⁰. Similarly, expressions of fear of immanent death and long-range effects from radiation were becoming more blunt in new poems on Chornobyl.

Secondly, a strong psychological need has surfaced in Ukraine, a need to blame oneself and one's own people for the disaster. While there are numerous poems written in Ukrainian in the West, as well as Russian poems written in the USSR (by such writers as A. Voznesensky, L. Visheslavsky, and O.Tkachenko), there seems to be an obvious difference in the point of view of these writers and Soviet Ukrainian writers. The non-Ukrainian wrters see in Chornobyl a disaster, they may even call for finding the guilty parties, and direct attention to the general present relaxation of morals and ethics. A Georgian poet, Raul Chilachava, in a poem "Derevlianska Iaroslavna z nemovliani" (The Derevlanian Iaroslav's Daughter with A Baby) 41 is very bold in placing some charges. He asks whether the accident happened because negligence at work was being condoned, or was it because the people were trained so that others would do the thinking for them? Chilachava (who has a personal tie to Chornobyl through his wife) even describes the initial fear more vividly than do the Ukrainian poets "No one knows what awaits all of us — ? Sudden extinction or suffering on a crucifix?"⁴²

The Russian journalist Gubarev, on the other hand, treats the situation in a more heroic manner; by considering Chornobyl as the third greatest historical achievement of "our people" (i.e. Soviet or Russian), listing these events as: saving Europe from the Mongols, saving Europe from Hitler, and with Chornobyl-securing the future

of mankind by very expensive means.⁴³ Aleksandr Tkachenko, a Russian poet of Ukrainian heritage, while listing similar events, places his sentiment elsewhere. He explains that in his poem the mention of the renewed misfortune refers to earlier historical sufferings by Ukrainians: in the Middle Ages from invading Mongol hordes, in the twentieth century from Stalin, and then from the Nazis. Tkachenko sees Ukrainians and Belorussians as those who suffered the most from Chornoby1⁴⁴, a distinction that was not made by Gubarev at all.

When comparing Soviet literary works written by non-Ukrainians to that by Ukrainians, in most cases a rather different approach appears to prevail. While in the non-Ukrainian works the problem of present-day morals is also hinted at, in the Ukrainian ones it is more emphasized, and the element of guilt is ever-present.

However, in Ukrainian works reference is usually made to the moral problems in their historical aspect, and thus the guilt syndrome or the accusations of betrayal of traditional morals become quite dominant. The recurring charge against the Ukrainian society is of naively trusting others to do the deciding and the planning, while failing to keep old personal and historical values. Nothing similar has ever been as strongly expressed before Chornobyl. Mykhailenko even begins his novel with the comment "Our guilt before the ruined earth is unforgivable, and inexcusable—I want to make you see that."⁴⁵ The community and/or national guilt and fear reaches almost a universal proportion due to the span of time during which the effects of the explosion are to be felt. The insiders, the Ukrainians, in most works see themselves as a nation guilty of the specific sin of trusting others and allowing the nuclear station to be built, of having people risk the experiment at the plant and perform similar misdeeds, as well as a multitude of other real and alleged sins. It is as if Ukrainians see themselves as historically guilty morally guilty the threshold of the twenty-first century (this point is always stressed), at the threshold of a new civilization, for allowing this to happe</