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Oleksiy Ananenko, Valeriy Bespalov and Boris Baranov — three Chernobyl first-responders who decided to sacrifice their lives and prevent second explosion at the station that would make most of Eastern Europe a nuclear desert, killing millions.
Yet few know their names
Yet few know their names
Moreover, my own recollection of the Chernobyl first-responders would be the cruelty & bullying they faced from our society. Most were either irritated by them or dissmissive. State assistance completely dried up over the years. As if the people couldn’t wait to erase their lives
Only when I grew up did I realize that’s how all people trapped in a totalitarian society deal with a trauma: feeling shame, blaming the victim, denial.
How else do you reconcile with the fact that you are living in a place where human life means nothing?
How else do you reconcile with the fact that you are living in a place where human life means nothing?
That mindset of a totalitarian subject doesn’t disappear the minute a totalitarian state collapses. It’s a lifetime trauma for most. 30 years after the USSR’s death, I keep observing it everyday, all over Eastern Europe.
I’m so glad that #ChernobylHBO not only educates the world about the man-made catastrophe that almost annihilated half of the continent, but also forces us to reflect on a totalitarianism — so timely, since so many societies are sleepwalking into it, once again
Not until we finally face the history of inhuman horrors done by the Soviet regime, cultivate the utter disgust about its legacy and make peace with the societal trauma, will we ever be free of the Kremlin’s totalitarian grip.
