Life in a World of Prohibitions
Chernobyl: A Past That Is Not Past
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Twenty years after the disaster at Chernobyl, more than 3,000 towns and villages in Belarus are still located in zones where radioactive contamination remains a health hazard. This will be the case for many years to come. But health problems are only a visible aspect of the “post-Chernobyl” era. The extent of the disaster is so great and so multifarious that, two decades later, many people are still unable to imagine its true dimensions. Chernobyl has wrought changes in biological, psychological, social and cultural life. These changes are as invisible as radiation, but they are perceptible in every word and fear-ridden gesture.
(Osteuropa 4/2006, pp. 71–80)