In 2019 HBO released Chernobyl, a five part mini series addressing the nuclear disaster, cover-up, and the immediate impact on citizens living in the adjacent town of Pripyat. Today the series is available on HBO Max, Amazon Prime, and Netflix.
Surprisingly this series gained widespread critical acclaim. Receiving 19 nominations, Chernobyl won Emmy awards for Outstanding Limited Series, Outstanding Directing, and Outstanding Writing. At the same time the series won Golden Globe awards for Best Miniseries or Television Film. In addition, actor Stellan Skarsgård won Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries or Television Film. Likewise, Jared Harris won Best Actor at the British Academy Awards.
This is certainly a powerful series. This event, over 30 years ago has faded from our memory. Occurring prior to the internet, webpages, and social media Chernobyl has moved it to the background of history. Perhaps the best selling point for watching.
Craig Mazin is the series creator and writer. His scripts are certainly well written.
Above all, this series is a very powerful reminder to the lives lost, those directly impacted in the exclusion zone, and the immediate response failures of the Soviet Union.
Unknown to the west, a potential steam explosion impacting all three remaining nuclear reactors was emerging.
Thus, an unimaginable dirty bomb, risking 500 tonnes of nuclear fuel drifting across all of Europe. Simply imagine Europe uninhabitable for a hundred years. Something so horrific, to be kept a secret certainly reveals obsolete Soviet thinking.
Boris Scherbina (Stellan Skarsgård) was appointed the top communist party official to oversee clean up of reactor number 4. Vasily Legasov (Jared Harris) a well respected scientist helped contain the initial radiation poisoning.
I found two poignant scenes which best highlighting Craig Mazin’s dramatic writing:
Episode 3 – “Open Wide, O Earth”
LEGASOV
Well someone decided the evacuation zone
should be thirty kilometers,
when we know
(points to the map)
Here! Caesium-137 in Gomel District.
Two HUNDRED kilometers away!
SHCHERBINA
It was decided.
LEGASOV
Based on WHAT?
SHCHERBINA
I don’t know.
LEGASOV
Forgive me.
Maybe I’ve spent too much time in my lab.
Or maybe I’m stupid.
But is this really how it all works?
An uninformed, arbitrary decision
that will cost who knows how many lives
is made by some apparatchik?
Some career Party man?
The miniseries culmination is the trial of three senior managers responsible for the tragedy. In his closing testimony, Legasov painfully reveals the truth. Mazin’s writing is very strong:
Episode 5 – “Vichnaya Pamyat”
LEGASOV
No one in the room that night knew
the shut-down button could act as a detonator.
They didn’t know it
because it was kept from them.
JUDGE KADNIKOV
Comrade Legasov– you are contradicting
You are contradicting your own testimony in Vienna
LEGASOV
My testimony in Vienna was a lie.
I lied. To the world.
I am not the only one who kept this secret.
There are many. We were following orders.
From the KGB, from the Central Committee.
And right now, there are 16 reactors
in the Soviet Union with this same fatal flaw.
Three of them are still running
less than 20 kilometers away…at Chernobyl.
JUDGE KADNIKOV
Professor Legasov, if you mean to suggest the Soviet State
is somehow responsible for what happened,
then I must warn you– you are treading on dangerous ground.
LEGASOV
I’ve already trod on dangerous ground.
We’re on dangerous ground right now.
Because of our secrets and our lies.
They are practically what defines us.
When the truth offends, we lie and lie
until we cannot even remember it’s there.
But it is still there.
Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth.
Sooner or later, the debt is paid.
That is how an RBMK reactor core explodes.
Lies.
HBO’s Chernobyl, above all reveals how the Soviet communist party was grossly negligent in addressing the nuclear disaster. Skarsgard unquestionably portrays the fundamental flaws of Soviet thinking: protect the party and protect the reputation of the Soviet’s power.
HBO and Craig Mazin should be complimented for this work. Nevertheless, powerful writing and cgi visuals provide a true to life visual foundation to a compellingly dramatic and utterly horrific event in human history.
The HBO Chernobyl Podcast
HBO also launched a seven part accompanying Chernobyl podcast series. NPR’s Peter Sagal interviewed Craig Mazin, the creator, writer, and the executive producer.
Accordingly, each podcast episode syncs to each televised episode addressing major themes including their sources of historical accuracy. The podcasts do acknowledge Svetlana Alexievich’s Voice from Chernobyl (below) as sources of truth to the dramatic events
In addition, a bonus episode includes Peter’s interview with Jared Harris who portrayed Valery Legasov, the scientist who attempts to solve the catastrophe.
However to simply prove nuclear accidents continue to this day in Russia, Craig Mazin addresses briefly the Nyonoksa nuclear missile test explosion and radiation spread in August of 2019. Initially their news indicated no victims. Two days later the Russians acknowledged two died. Then a short time later the total climbed to five dead. Some things do not change.
The bonus podcast does acknowledge the role of Nokolai Fomin, one of the three responsible for the tragedy. He was convicted of gross negligence and attempted suicide, was committed to an insane asylum and yet somehow took a job at a nuclear facility outside Kalinin, Russia when released from his prison term of 10 years hard labor as a result of Chernobyl. Simply stunning….or maybe not so much these days.
Chernobyl Books
In order to more fully comprehend this horrific event, consider any of the books below. Svetlana Alexievich won the Nobel Prize for literature. Her first-hand accounts of those living around Pripyat and Chernobyl are simply overwhelming.
