DOI: 10.4324/9781003246893-1
1 Introduction
Tracing the Atom. Nuclear Legacies
in Russia and Central Asia
Susanne Bauer and Tanja Penter
“It was not just one nuclear power station that exploded, but that whole
complex of irresponsibility, lack of discipline and bureaucracy,” wrote the
Belarusian writer Ales’ Adamovich in a letter to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986. 1
During the Perestroika period, the conflictual nature of the nuclear legacy
became openly apparent and contributed to the disintegration and end of the
Soviet empire. While, in the international public, Ulrich Beck referred to the
Chernobyl accident of 1986 as an “anthropological shock” 2 within the Soviet
Union, the explosion of the nuclear reactor provided the impetus for criticism
of the ruling system: the cover-up and downplaying of the nuclear accident
and the delay in taking countermeasures by the Soviet authorities mobilized
large sections of the population, particularly in Ukraine. Chernobyl awakened an ecological awareness that became an important element of the political opposition. Already in the final years of the Soviet Union, the question of
reparations for the victims of the Chernobyl disaster moved onto the political
agenda in Ukraine as well as in Belarus. Chernobyl subsequently became a
kind of “social catalyst,” forcing politics and society alike to rethink their
positions and, at least in the first decade after the disaster, fostering the emergence of civil society involvement. 3
In Ukraine and Belarus, the Chernobyl movement became an important part of the national movement. Representatives of the Ukrainian and
Belarusian national movement even regarded the Soviet Chernobyl policy as
“genocide” against their people. 4 The uncovering of the Chernobyl disaster
also encouraged revelations about previous nuclear accidents inside the Soviet
Union: in the Chelyabinsk region of Russia, a public debate on the 1957
nuclear waste accident and its consequences became possible for the first time,
and the environmental activists became part of a broader regionalist movement. In Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan, a critical examination of the nuclear
legacy of decades of atomic bomb tests began, which was also taken up by
representatives of the movement for independence.
The change of concept from perestroika to “catastroika,” which goes back
to the famous Russian dissident Alexander Zinov’ev, expressed the attitude
toward life of many contemporaries who were overwhelmed by the increasing revelations about environmental disasters and the general problems of the
1 Introduction
Tracing the Atom. Nuclear Legacies
in Russia and Central Asia
Susanne Bauer and Tanja Penter
“It was not just one nuclear power station that exploded, but that whole
complex of irresponsibility, lack of discipline and bureaucracy,” wrote the
Belarusian writer Ales’ Adamovich in a letter to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986. 1
During the Perestroika period, the conflictual nature of the nuclear legacy
became openly apparent and contributed to the disintegration and end of the
Soviet empire. While, in the international public, Ulrich Beck referred to the
Chernobyl accident of 1986 as an “anthropological shock” 2 within the Soviet
Union, the explosion of the nuclear reactor provided the impetus for criticism
of the ruling system: the cover-up and downplaying of the nuclear accident
and the delay in taking countermeasures by the Soviet authorities mobilized
large sections of the population, particularly in Ukraine. Chernobyl awakened an ecological awareness that became an important element of the political opposition. Already in the final years of the Soviet Union, the question of
reparations for the victims of the Chernobyl disaster moved onto the political
agenda in Ukraine as well as in Belarus. Chernobyl subsequently became a
kind of “social catalyst,” forcing politics and society alike to rethink their
positions and, at least in the first decade after the disaster, fostering the emergence of civil society involvement. 3
In Ukraine and Belarus, the Chernobyl movement became an important part of the national movement. Representatives of the Ukrainian and
Belarusian national movement even regarded the Soviet Chernobyl policy as
“genocide” against their people. 4 The uncovering of the Chernobyl disaster
also encouraged revelations about previous nuclear accidents inside the Soviet
Union: in the Chelyabinsk region of Russia, a public debate on the 1957
nuclear waste accident and its consequences became possible for the first time,
and the environmental activists became part of a broader regionalist movement. In Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan, a critical examination of the nuclear
legacy of decades of atomic bomb tests began, which was also taken up by
representatives of the movement for independence.
The change of concept from perestroika to “catastroika,” which goes back
to the famous Russian dissident Alexander Zinov’ev, expressed the attitude
toward life of many contemporaries who were overwhelmed by the increasing revelations about environmental disasters and the general problems of the