8 Susanne Bauer and Tanja Penter
photography (Castringius) and the traces of the nuclear after Semipalatinsk
(Bauer) would address the uncanny, unknown, but incorporated traces of
radioactivity in the human body. Kaibach reflects on the literary expressions of physicists dealing with experiences of working in the midst of technologies and dark knowledge of nuclear war and scientists’ responsibility. 24
Sembritzki and Nikonova show how the radiation expertise attempts to balance some of these dimensions by producing knowledge and attempts of
monitoring and controlling the radiation exposure to workers, patients, and
populations. Penter then addresses the efforts to confront and mitigate the
long-term exposure through policies of documentation and compensations
of the harm these populations experienced. The larger part of the essays
in this volume deals with legacies – that, even if reconfigured as heritage
in artistic and literary productions, showcase the catastrophic and the yet
unknown shadows that accompany the nuclear matters under secrecy. While
much of the nuclear programs were under strict secrecy on both sides of
the Iron Curtain, there have been windows of accessibility to sources and
documents, including for historians and social scientists. Scholars working
on these matters have often seen these windows opening and closing again.
This implies that nuclear memorabilia of all kinds often cannot be easily
converted into a more pluralistic public heritage. Much remains under state
control that is becoming tighter and more restrictive again after 2010, which
researchers need to reflect on in their accounts and seek new methodological
pathways. Consequently, this volume foregrounds archival projects, ethnographic engagements, and reflections on interdisciplinary research, thereby
endeavoring into nuclear politics. This contributes to an understanding of
how conditions of invisibility and secrecy have shaped the ways in which
local communities are living with legacies of the atomic age.
Together, taking their cue in nuclear technopolitics, the essays assembled
in this volume engage with the complex temporalities encountered in things
nuclear. They address temporalities in terms of legacies, regulatory matters
but also the very materialities, such as half-lives and radionuclide decay. The
approach of thinking legacies, transition, imaginaries, memory, and heritage
together will contribute to our understanding of how these multiple temporalities intersect in the knowledge that shape what is at stake for livelihoods,
politics, and historiography. In these multiple intersections, the specific
characteristics of Soviet nuclear modernity and post-Soviet temporalities
become visible.
Contested Historiographies and the Politics
of the Nuclear
Post-Soviet historiographies and cultures of remembrance have developed
differently in the successor states of the Soviet Union and today there is no
common narrative on the history of the Soviet era. In Russia and beyond,
Putin is increasingly acting as the country’s “chief historian” in this process.
photography (Castringius) and the traces of the nuclear after Semipalatinsk
(Bauer) would address the uncanny, unknown, but incorporated traces of
radioactivity in the human body. Kaibach reflects on the literary expressions of physicists dealing with experiences of working in the midst of technologies and dark knowledge of nuclear war and scientists’ responsibility. 24
Sembritzki and Nikonova show how the radiation expertise attempts to balance some of these dimensions by producing knowledge and attempts of
monitoring and controlling the radiation exposure to workers, patients, and
populations. Penter then addresses the efforts to confront and mitigate the
long-term exposure through policies of documentation and compensations
of the harm these populations experienced. The larger part of the essays
in this volume deals with legacies – that, even if reconfigured as heritage
in artistic and literary productions, showcase the catastrophic and the yet
unknown shadows that accompany the nuclear matters under secrecy. While
much of the nuclear programs were under strict secrecy on both sides of
the Iron Curtain, there have been windows of accessibility to sources and
documents, including for historians and social scientists. Scholars working
on these matters have often seen these windows opening and closing again.
This implies that nuclear memorabilia of all kinds often cannot be easily
converted into a more pluralistic public heritage. Much remains under state
control that is becoming tighter and more restrictive again after 2010, which
researchers need to reflect on in their accounts and seek new methodological
pathways. Consequently, this volume foregrounds archival projects, ethnographic engagements, and reflections on interdisciplinary research, thereby
endeavoring into nuclear politics. This contributes to an understanding of
how conditions of invisibility and secrecy have shaped the ways in which
local communities are living with legacies of the atomic age.
Together, taking their cue in nuclear technopolitics, the essays assembled
in this volume engage with the complex temporalities encountered in things
nuclear. They address temporalities in terms of legacies, regulatory matters
but also the very materialities, such as half-lives and radionuclide decay. The
approach of thinking legacies, transition, imaginaries, memory, and heritage
together will contribute to our understanding of how these multiple temporalities intersect in the knowledge that shape what is at stake for livelihoods,
politics, and historiography. In these multiple intersections, the specific
characteristics of Soviet nuclear modernity and post-Soviet temporalities
become visible.
Contested Historiographies and the Politics
of the Nuclear
Post-Soviet historiographies and cultures of remembrance have developed
differently in the successor states of the Soviet Union and today there is no
common narrative on the history of the Soviet era. In Russia and beyond,
Putin is increasingly acting as the country’s “chief historian” in this process.