From individual trauma to collective memory

An ecocritical reflection on the post-Chornobyl narrative in “Chornobyl chronicle. People” by Olga Kuprienko and Alla Bahirova

Abstract

The subject of the study is the post-Chоrnobyl literary narrative as a form of representation of technogenic trauma, collective memory, and ethical reflection in contemporary Ukrainian culture based on the book The Chоrnobyl Chronicle. People (2021) by Olha Kupriienko and Alla Bahirova, which brings together the memoirs of sixteen direct participants in the liquidation of the accident at the Chоrnobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The need for a new understanding of the Chоrnobyl experience in the context of the anthropocene, environmental threats, and the reactivation of memory about the disaster in the face of contemporary challenges determines the relevance of the article. The Chоrnobyl tragedy of 1986 became one of the largest man-made disasters of the 20th century, radically changing human relations with the environment and causing deep social, moral, and cultural trauma.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the mechanisms of forming collective memory, post-memory, and slow ecological memory in the documentary and memoir narrative about Chоrnobyl. The research methods are based on an interdisciplinary combination of ecocriticism and memory studies, in particular the concepts of functional memory, storage memory, post-memory, and slow memory, which make it possible to conduct a textual and interpretive analysis of the Chоrnobyl narrative as a process of prolonged reflection on traumatic human experience and the consequences of technogenic intervention in the environment. The novelty of the study lies in its ecocritical and memorial reading of the documentary and memoir collection as a holistic narrative formation that functions simultaneously as an archive of memory, a polyphonic discourse of trauma, and an instrument of transition from individual testimonies to collective cultural memory.

The results of the study show that the book functions as a polyphonic “place of memory” in which the private testimonies of the liquidators are transformed into a collective narrative, actualizing Chоrnobyl as a long-term ecological and moral-ethical process. The text performs an important mnemonic function, transforming the individual traumas of the liquidators of the accident into a collective experience and forming a “living” social memory, as well as acting as a medium of post-memory that provides an emotional connection between generations.