Chernobyl: Kinematographer Geiger

Perestroika is perhaps the most unexplored period of the history of the Soviet Union. It is on it that, as on the predecessor of the collapse of the USSR and the 1990s, mythology is especially richly growing, designed to explain further events. Which of us did not hear how Gorbachev sold the country for jeans? At the same time, restructuring is a time of publicity, mobilization of civil society and violent discussions about the repressive heritage of the country or environmental problems. But what actually provoked a publicity policy? It was the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant that became a turning point in both domestic and foreign policy M.S. Gorbachev. Invisible radioactive waste, in contrast to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which are not subordinate to state bodies, affected the territories of several states sovereign and destroyed the regime of secrecy. Therefore, the hero of our material is radiation.

Chapter 1. The decay of the atom

April 26, 1986, 1:23 Moscow time. This point is in time - the date of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Few doubted the reliability of both this structure and the entire nuclear program of the USSR. The belief in the peaceful atom, formed in the 1950s - 1960s , was part of the widely separated belief that scientific and technological progress is the driving force of social transformations, the preparation of the material and technical base of social relations of the future.

The Soviet nuclear program served as a confirmation of the historical mission of communism - the establishment of peace worldwide without the threat of nuclear war in the long term.

The environmental disaster, which occurred through the fault of a peaceful atom, threatened the faith of citizens of the USSR in the modernizing power of the Soviet project. Moreover, citizens of the injured territories have lost confidence in the control program to the All -Union Center.

Two months before the accident in Moscow, the XXVII Congress of the CPSU was held, during which the party program was modified.

From planning a bright future, it was decided to proceed to the adjustment of the present. The Secretary General of the CPSU Central Committee M. Gorbachev began his appeal to the congress with the statement of “political and physical overload of our earthly house” and “human vulnerability before the power that he himself created” [1] .

For the first time, the need to expand the “publicity” was announced for the most successful “restructuring” of personnel and the entire system. The trigger of the publicity policy was the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which by that time had already destroyed the regime of the secretness of the Soviet Union. Officially, Perestroika as a political course was announced at the 1987 CPSU Central Committee of the CPSU Central Committee.

The new course demanded the emancipation of cultural policy and the demonstration of “publicity” in the world community. These processes were driven by the rate of decomposition of the secrecy regime: so, it is known that the first to learn about the Chernobyl accident in Sweden.

On the morning of April 27, near Stockholm at the Forsmark NPP, increased radioactivity was registered. In the afternoon, all the station employees were assembled at the stadium to verify the only dosimeter, many of them were in a hurry home to be in time to broadcast the USSR hockey match - Sweden. But the information priorities quickly shifted after the EKO radio station EKO E. Hedborg. She was in the USSR and reported the latest news from Moscow, but not about hockey, but about an atomic accident. On the evening of April 27, they learned about what happened in Chernobyl throughout the world, in the evening of April 28, the Avtrachi program was informed about the USSR citizens.

Chapter 2. Decay on the screen

The consequences and measures of precautions of the population of already infected territories were told only in brief information reports. On May 14, M. Gorbachev turned to citizens on television. On May 16, he received a memorandum from the editor of the science department of the newspaper Pravda V. Guberev, who was in the nuclear power plant from May 4 to 9: it said that individual security measures were neglected, and the local population was not reported about the dangers of mushroom collection.

Neither the general public nor the victims understood the consequences of the accident. Moreover, there was no law regulating the radiation safety of the population in the USSR before the Chernobyl accident: in 1986, permissible irradiation doses were regulated as part of the concept of safe residence in an emergency order, and in each case, officials could decide which radioactive radiation is really dangerous. The reality of the infection remained invisible to those who did not know the level of radiation and could not know without additional equipment. You can realize or see the presence of radiation only with the help of a dosimeter, which, in turn, was at the disposal of a limited circle of persons.

The most productive way to fix the reality in perestroika was a documentary movie: only what was shot on film became universally significant and universally recognized. The process of filming itself is the same mechanical reflection of what enters the frame, as a reflection of the level of radiation on the dosimeter screen. In other words, until there was a moment of fixation on a special medium, the world around the world could remain invisible even for those who deal with it directly.

The day before the television appeal of Gorbachev, the director-documentary from Minsk V.N. Dashuk during the V Congress of filmmakers of the USSR compared the soullessness of citizens with radiation:

“Here it is - reckoning for pink filters on the lenses of our cameras, for entertainment at all costs and at the cost of the fact that a person is deprived of his quality as a citizen ... Because a person should think before a citizen becomes a citizen.

During the shooting of the documentary “The War, the Women's Face” is one of the women who went through the concentration camp, passed all the circles of the fascist hell, admitted to me (this recognition shocked me!): “We knew that we were waiting, we were not afraid of machine guns, were not afraid of gas chambers, were not afraid of torture and gallows: we, women, were afraid of cameras in the hands of guards and killers.”

And I thought: it would be such bashfulness to us when the screen undresses us, showing our own soullessness, and this soullessness is then transmitted to the audience, and we get the results (applause) .

This is like radiation: it destroys a person, but a person does not know about that for a long time ” [2] .

The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant set a difficult task for documentary directors. The publicity policy made it possible to discuss previously hushed -up events of the recent past. But if in the case of repressions the defendants of events could be found and represented by the audience, then what to do with what can not be shown on the screen - with radiation? The first frames of the Chernobyl zone after the accident were shot for the chronicle and “without comment”. But as the consequences of the accident began to be realized by both officials and documentary, ways to reflect the invisible danger by means of cinematography became an increasingly pressing issue.

While this issue was not approaching resolution, the radiation penetrated into the frame bypass ways. One of the first films on the film of which was a radioactive cloud is “plumbum, or a dangerous game” (Mosfilm, 1986). Filming of the sign artistic picture took place in Minsk - the surveying group was liked by the surrounding Stalin Prospekt, among which the formation of the main character was supposed to take place. In April 1986, while working on the project, the film crew took the opportunity: “When we heard about the disaster and saw bad, radioactive clouds in the sky, we were even happy: this“ milk ”allowed you to remove all day and remove more” [3] , ”recalls director A. Mindadze.

Another resonant documentary for restructuring "Is it easy to be young?" Yu. Leduxe (Riga film studio, 1986) also touched the accident. Among his heroes, a young resident of Latvia appears. Through her, anxiety penetrates about radioactive pollution: a girl with a child in her arms is truly concerned about the future, unlike other heroes of the film, vaguely aware of themselves and their prospects. Young VGIKOVs accused the film in the half -truth. Historian N. Eidelman replied to this that “the level of truth is increasing, that two years ago it was impossible to imagine this ...” [4] .

In this example, we see that film documentary was perceived by both the audience and the creators in the best way to reflect reality and show the truth. It is no coincidence that the first feature film about the accident - “Decay” - was shot only in 1990 at the film studio named after A. Dovzhenko in Kyiv. It should be noted that the picture contained a chronicle in the style of MockMentary . Its name not only speaks of atomic energy, but also makes a moralization note, implying the decomposition of human relations and the internal decomposition of a person. And the problem of generations inherent in perestroika cinema is addressed not only in the light of the Chernobyl accident, but also in the formulation of the question of the direct participation of the older generation in repressions.

Chapter 3. Disconnection of the secrecy regime

The very first documentary about the accident - Chernobyl Bell - was released in Moscow in 1987. He was called upon to demonstrate the attitude of the USSR to the Chernobyl disaster to the world community. The film, filled with pacifist rhetoric and pathos of responsibility to humanity, begins with a quote by M. Gorbachev:

“The accident in Chernobyl once again highlighted what abyss will open if the nuclear war collapses on humanity. After all, the accumulated nuclear arsenals hide thousands and thousands of disasters much worse than Chernobyl ... We understand: this is another bell of the bell, another formidable warning ... "

The antimilitarian rhetoric, passing through the entire film, has become part of the political image of the new general secretary.

And here is what M. Gorbachev said at a meeting of the Politburo on July 3, 1986:

“Chernobyl struck - and no one is ready: neither the civil defense, nor the medical services are provided with dosimeters and to a minimum, the fire service does not know what to do. Everyone crap. <...> where centralization is needed, it is not there, and where you just need to score a nail, there are thousands of different departments there ” [5] .

The problems voiced in this speech in the Chernobyl bell remained behind the scenes. In the cinema, civil defense, medical services and firefighters are provided with everything necessary, and assistance constantly comes to Pripyat from all over the Soviet Union.

The accident served as a marker of the depth of structural problems of the entire USSR. He could not cope with the consequences of the accident on his own. It was obviously not easy to recognize the responsibility for the environmental disaster, spreading beyond the country, preserving the image of the superpower. That is why the disaster began to be interpreted in state propaganda as a warning against the arms race, in favor of the new international mission of the Soviet Union. Many heroes of the Chernobyl bells voice this idea, comparing the zone affected by radiation with the consequences of the explosion of the atomic bomb. For example:

“It’s scary, of course, to think that if there was an atomic bomb. This is an emission, a simple ejection. And this is generally a nightmare ... This is 30 km of zone. Simple ejection. And if an atomic bomb? Well, you can imagine what an atomic bomb is. <...> Everyone says that it is necessary to disarm ... in my opinion , here to see-and you can immediately understand that in general all these bombs must be removed, because it is pointless to continue the race ... "

Another important figure in this film is A. Hammer, a “famous American figure”, personifying informal ties of the United States and the USSR. He turns to R. Reagan: “We will destroy all nuclear weapons too! Let Reagan go to Kyiv and Chernobyl, let him see what I saw. ”

The rhetoric of pacifism in the “Chernobyl bell” was effective in achieving the main political goal of the USSR in the international arena: on December 8, 1987, in Washington M. Gorbachev and R. Reagan, an agreement was signed on the liquidation of medium and smaller missiles. This document prescribes: "Conscuring that the nuclear war would have devastating consequences for all of mankind."

© Alexandra Garkush

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Chapter 4.

The authors of the Chernobyl bell, using the method of “testimony”, sought to explain what happened in the same way as before, through the prism of trust in technology and faith in social progress. Despite the accident, the modernization project of the USSR did not lose legitimacy in their eyes. On the contrary, in the film, the tragedy appeared as a new stage of ascent to the future, as a catalyst for a new relationship between a person and a car in the era of publicity and perestroika.

This was the point of view of the Union Center. However, directors from the republics affected by the consequences of accidents made completely different conclusions from the republics. The most eloquent example here is the film “Where the Garden ...” released in the Minsk film studio in 1990. Its authors demonstrate complete disappointment in the ideals of education and progressive Soviet ideology. They represent the catastrophe not as a mistake, but as evidence of a person of the inner world, morality in favor of technical rationality - and suggest returning to the "road to the temple." This expression can be understood not only literally, but also as an indication of the importance of an individual sensory life of a person who has encountered an invisible evil, as a reaction to betrayal from scientific thinking, promising prosperity, but led to a catastrophe. Distrust of science, on which the communist doctrine was based, in turn, was the reverse side of distrust of the Soviet political system.

Thus, the directors from the Union republics, including the most affected territory, were on the front flank of changes, became expressors of ideas that are opposed to the foundations of Soviet ideology: they set moral and religious life over the life of social and political, national traditions - over global tasks, and the experiences of an individual - over science and technology.

This ideological turn in art, in turn, was preparing a turn in politics. The Soviet state, based as a bridgehead for connecting the peoples of the world on the way to new, rationally built public relations, was fastened with a culture of universalism and internationalism. Now, the national culture has become in demand, and, accordingly, the national state has become a preferred form of political association. In parallel with how the atom broke up, the country broke up. In 1991, Belorussian agreements were signed in Belarus.

[1] M. Gorbachev. The political report of the Central Committee of the CPSU XXVII Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. February 25, 1986 // M.S. Gorbachev. Selected speeches and articles. T. 3. - M.: Politizdat, 1987. S. 184.

[2] V.N. Dashuk. The transcript of the V Congress of filmmakers of the USSR “On the ideological and creative tasks of Soviet cinema in the light of solutions to the XXVII Congress of the CPSU”. May 13, 1986. The first day. - M.: The Union of Cinematographers of the USSR, 1986. P. 127 // Fund for chipboard. RNB.

[3] Chernobyl, which is always with you. Showing by Alexander Mindadze "On Saturday" // Session. 04/26/2011.

[4] M. Kharitonov. December 19, 1986 // Life .

[5] W. Taubman. Gorbachev. His life and time. - M.: AST Publishing House: Corpus , 2019. P. 230.