Adam Higginbotham’s pacy narrative of the disaster is complemented by Kate Brown’s astonishing research into what came after The Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986 is one of those events, like the sinking of the Titanic, that rapidly takes on a symbolic significance. On its own it would have been enough to grip the attention of the world, but it was also a metaphor for an era. It seemed to capture the former Soviet Union: the arrogance, the sclerosis, the secrecy, the disregard for human life. The challenge for any writer is how to reclaim the disaster from the myths that have grown up around it. Chernobyl was not just a metaphor for the ultimate failure of the USSR experiment, but a catalyst of it: it helped to spark a mass mobilisation against the government, to heighten distrust and to erode any remaining faith in the communist dream. Continue reading... |