Chernobyl, the five-episode mini-series produced by HBO in association with Sky UK, became a global hit this year. On 26 April, 1986, an explosion occurred during a safety test on a nuclear reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the former USSR, which led to the worst nuclear disaster in history – the radioactive material released was a hundred times more than that of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and ten times more than the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan.
Chernobyl revolves around the chief of the disaster-relief and investigation commission and the Council of Ministers’ deputy chairman, who gradually reveal the truth behind all the lies. It presents a full picture of the accident in a cruel yet objective way.
The mini-series is based in large part on the recollections of Pripyat locals, as told in Voices from Chernobyl (first published in a magazine in 1997; the separate edition was published later in the same year). Written by the Belarusian journalist and the 2015 Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich, the book is a heart-wrenching record of the disaster. Belarus was the country most affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, hit by 70% of the radioactivity.
Alexievich, who is known for her documentary writing, interviewed over 500 eyewitnesses, including firefighters, clean-up workers, politicians, doctors, physicists, and ordinary citizens, over a period of five years after the accident. Comprised of interviews and monologues, Voices from Chernobyl vividly depicts how these “nobodies” live in fear, anger and restlessness.
Over three decades has passed since the Chernobyl nuclear accident, yet the world still has not learnt its lessons, it seems. When asked during an interview why he created the mini-series, Craig Mazin, the creator and writer of Chernobyl, replied, “The real danger in Chernobyl is not nuclear radiation, but lies.”
Indeed, as we see in the show, in the face of a catastrophe, what concerns the officials and managerial personnel at all levels is not to look into the matter and try to solve it, but to deceive the public with lies and cover the whole thing up.
In the world we live in today, major natural or human-made disasters occur frequently. When people affected are in shock and fear begins to spread, the most important thing is for politicians and people in charge to figure out the actual situation as soon as possible, respect the truth, and establish a bond of trust with the public. Otherwise, the contradictions in society will intensify, and people will begin to panic, which ultimately will result in a larger and wider disaster.
Therefore, the significance of Chernobyl is not for viewers to trace the cause of the accident or to investigate who should be held accountable, but to ponder on the striking tagline in the poster: “What is the cost of lies?” The question at the end of the story still resounds, “What is the cost of lies? It’s not that we will mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all.”