142 Tanja Penter
Chernobyl victims in Ukraine has become an important part of nation- and
state-building processes. 13 Nuclear contamination was unequally distributed
in the Soviet Union. Only after the end of the Soviet Union did these disparate stressful and health-endangering situations, such as the Chernobyl
catastrophe, the atomic bomb testing in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan, or the
nuclear waste accident in Chelyabinsk, Russia, become enforceable principles
of environmental justice and were covered by specific legislation on victims’
rights to compensation and social protection. To achieve that goal, since the
Perestroika period, regional, often internationally networked environmental
movements played an important role. 14
Petitions of Russian Citizens Demanding Compensation
Thousands of private letters, some with page-long descriptions of a life suffering, were sent to post-Soviet regional and local authorities in connection
with various compensation claims. The compensation and social protection
laws have generated specific historical sources that, among other things, also
provide exciting insights into the subjective experience of post-Soviet transformation processes.
After the first regulation for victims of the radioactively contaminated landscapes in Chelyabinsk in the Urals was passed in Russia in 1993 under the
former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, 15 the authorities there received many
letters from affected people. The nuclear waste accident occurred in 1957 in
the closed city of Chelyabinsk-40, in which plutonium was produced for the
Soviet nuclear weapons program. Even before the accident, since the late 1940s,
radioactive waste from this production had been regularly discharged into the
Techa River. 16 Russian and Norwegian researchers estimate the total amount
of radioactive material released to be scarcely less than of the Chernobyl disaster. 17 Hundreds of thousands of people in the contaminated regions as well
as military personnel used as liquidators were exposed to increased doses of
radiation and left unaware of the associated dangers. According to the logic of
the Cold War and the secrecy practices of the closed nuclear cities, the catastrophe was concealed and only officially confirmed in 1989 under Gorbachev’s
Perestroika politics, in the virtual aftermath of the Chernobyl catastrophe. In
the late 1980s, a strong regional environmental movement had developed in
Chelyabinsk, and for the first time, a union-wide reporting on the disaster
took place. The end of the Soviet Union was thus also the consequence of an
ecological crisis, as environmental history-oriented research has highlighted. 18
In the following, some of these interesting letter documents and their
potential for historical research will be examined in more detail. 19 Many of
those affected had been deployed as military men or civilian workers in the
cleanup operations during and after the 1957 nuclear waste accident. Some,
however, had witnessed and suffered from the radioactive contamination of
the Techa River, into which the reactor effluent had been discharged, since
the late 1940s. They had been used there for cleaning work. 20
Chernobyl victims in Ukraine has become an important part of nation- and
state-building processes. 13 Nuclear contamination was unequally distributed
in the Soviet Union. Only after the end of the Soviet Union did these disparate stressful and health-endangering situations, such as the Chernobyl
catastrophe, the atomic bomb testing in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan, or the
nuclear waste accident in Chelyabinsk, Russia, become enforceable principles
of environmental justice and were covered by specific legislation on victims’
rights to compensation and social protection. To achieve that goal, since the
Perestroika period, regional, often internationally networked environmental
movements played an important role. 14
Petitions of Russian Citizens Demanding Compensation
Thousands of private letters, some with page-long descriptions of a life suffering, were sent to post-Soviet regional and local authorities in connection
with various compensation claims. The compensation and social protection
laws have generated specific historical sources that, among other things, also
provide exciting insights into the subjective experience of post-Soviet transformation processes.
After the first regulation for victims of the radioactively contaminated landscapes in Chelyabinsk in the Urals was passed in Russia in 1993 under the
former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, 15 the authorities there received many
letters from affected people. The nuclear waste accident occurred in 1957 in
the closed city of Chelyabinsk-40, in which plutonium was produced for the
Soviet nuclear weapons program. Even before the accident, since the late 1940s,
radioactive waste from this production had been regularly discharged into the
Techa River. 16 Russian and Norwegian researchers estimate the total amount
of radioactive material released to be scarcely less than of the Chernobyl disaster. 17 Hundreds of thousands of people in the contaminated regions as well
as military personnel used as liquidators were exposed to increased doses of
radiation and left unaware of the associated dangers. According to the logic of
the Cold War and the secrecy practices of the closed nuclear cities, the catastrophe was concealed and only officially confirmed in 1989 under Gorbachev’s
Perestroika politics, in the virtual aftermath of the Chernobyl catastrophe. In
the late 1980s, a strong regional environmental movement had developed in
Chelyabinsk, and for the first time, a union-wide reporting on the disaster
took place. The end of the Soviet Union was thus also the consequence of an
ecological crisis, as environmental history-oriented research has highlighted. 18
In the following, some of these interesting letter documents and their
potential for historical research will be examined in more detail. 19 Many of
those affected had been deployed as military men or civilian workers in the
cleanup operations during and after the 1957 nuclear waste accident. Some,
however, had witnessed and suffered from the radioactive contamination of
the Techa River, into which the reactor effluent had been discharged, since
the late 1940s. They had been used there for cleaning work. 20