Cultural impact of Chernobyl disaster

The Chernobyl disaster, which occurred on April 26, 1986, was the world's greatest nuclear accident.

Literature

• The disaster is the plot-driving device in the 1988 Marvel Comics miniseries Meltdown, featuring Wolverine and Havok.
• Martin Cruz Smith's 2005 novel, Wolves Eat Dogs, is set mostly in Chernobyl, when Moscow detective Arkady Renko investigates the murder of a powerful businessman in that area, after the businessman's partner has died in Moscow of radiation poisoning. Both victims are found to have had some involvement with the accident, twenty years earlier.

• The novel Party Headquarters by Bulgarian author Georgi Tenev deals with Chernobyl impact on the integrity of the former Communist block in the late 80's. Large episode of the book is set as an exchange of letters between the protagonist and “little unknown Soviet and Ukrainian comrade” describing the catastrophe.

Music

• David Bowie's 1987 song "Time Will Crawl" was inspired by the disaster.
• The Japanese punk band The Blue Hearts' song "Chernobyl", on their 1988 single "Blue Hearts Theme", was written in protest of nuclear power. The band's record label at the time had ties to the nuclear industry, thus the group left the label to release the song.
• "Mayday in Kiev", a song by Watchtower on their 1989 album Control and Resistance. The song title is a pun on the May Day celebrations, which were held in the Ukrainian capital Kiev only days after the explosion as if nothing had happened, and the emergency signal Mayday.
• The German electronic band Kraftwerk mentions Chernobyl at the beginning of their 1991 remix of their song "Radioactivity", released on the album The Mix. Chernobyl is mentioned along with other places of nuclear incidents and accidents, such as Harrisburg, Sellafield and Hiroshima. The names were included in the remix of the song because some critics had found the original version of the song to be too optimistic towards nuclear energy.
• The music video for the 2007 song "What We Made" by British rapper Example is shot on location at Pripyat, focusing on some parts of the city that has been greatly affected by the disaster.
• The song "Spam" by the band Save Ferris claims that the product is made in Chernobyl, to rhyme with the line, "It's pink and it's oval."

Film and television

• In the second-season episode "The Host" of The X-Files, the episode's main antagonist, a mutant creature dubbed "Fluke-Man" is traced to a Russian freighter that was carrying radioactive sewage away from Chernobyl.
• On September 30, 2009, Destination Truth, a reality television series on Syfy, aired an episode that features a paranormal investigation located at the site.
• In the 2011 film Transformers: Dark of the Moon, the Autobots and NEST travel to Chernobyl to retrieve ancient Cybertronian technology (initially, they were supposed to discover the source of a radiation leak). However, once it was retrieved, the Driller beast suddenly appeared and ravaged the plant in attempting to get to the technology.
• In 1995 Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki wrote and directed "On Your Mark", a music video for Japanese pop duo Chage & Aska. This was essentially an animated music video lasting almost seven minutes. The opening scene shows a clean, old-fashioned and apparently deserted small village which is dominated by a huge, asymmetrical version of the Chernobyl "sarcophagus." In an interview in "Animage" magazine in 1995, Miyazaki compared the sarcophagus in the video to Chernobyl, noting the survival of plant life.^[1]
• In the television series Millenium, the first season episode "Maranatha" sees the hero, Frank Black, tracking a Russian anti christ figure who caused the Chernobyl disaster.
• In the television series The Event, the character Thomas is said to have been responsible for the disaster at Chernobyl after attempting to transport the fuel rods from the site using alien technology.
• In the 2005 comedy film Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, the character Deuce Bigalow meets Svetlana, a woman who was born in Chernobyl, and, as a result of the disaster, has a penis instead of a nose.
• In the 1994 film Naked starring David Thewlis, the eccentric protagonist Johnny quotes the Book of Revelation and remarks that the Russian translation of Chernobyl is 'wormwood.' This quote is also used as a sample in the 1997 album Orblivion.

Documentary films

• Chernobyl: The Final Warning, a 1991 film exploring the disaster.
• Black Wind White Land, a 1993 documentary film exploring the disaster and its consequences for the people of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.
• Chernobyl Heart, a 2003 documentary film observing the effects of the disaster on the health of children in the area.
• The Unnamed Zone, a 2006 Spanish documentary film three young Ukrainian children directly affected by the disaster.
• White Horse, a short documentary about a man returning to his Ukraine home for the first time in twenty years.
• "Surviving Disaster: Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster" ^[2], a BBC docudrama about the events at the Chernobyl plant during the accident and the immediate aftermath, focusing on the role of Valery Legasov.

Video games

• The computer games S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl and its prequel S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky and sequel S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, are based on the Chernobyl plant, disaster, and the surrounding areas, and in the first two games the power plant is the setting of the final stages. The power plant is guarded by a fanatical cult called the "Monolith", who believe in an alien crystal which resides in Reactor #4.
• The video game Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare features a mission taking place in Pripyat. Modern Warfare 2 also features a mission set in Pripyat.
• In Maniac Mansion if the player reads the Nuclear reactor it says it was made in Chernbyl.

See also

• Chernobyl Way

References

1. ^ "Interview: Miyazaki on On Your Mark // Hayao Miyazaki Web". Nausicaa.net. http://nausicaa.net/miyazaki/interviews/m_on_oym.html. Retrieved 2010-07-31. 
2. ^ Surviving Disaster: Chernobyl Nuclear DisasterBBC

Further reading

• David R. Marples The social impact of the Chernobyl disaster, chapter 4 Images of Chernobyl - Arts and the Public, pp. 125–160

External links