Chernobyl Prayer: A Chronicle of the Future by Svetlana AlexievichMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Sometimes you read a book and sit and think for a while. Svetlana's Chernobyl Prayer makes you do that at several pages. This book is a collection of monologues from the members of Clean Up squad (liquidators), their relatives, the residents of Pripyat and neighboring villages whose world was turned upside down on 26th April 1986.
This book is so many things - a voice to those the world never bothered to hear, the farmers who were told everything they grow needs to be destroyed with no explanation, families uprooted from their ancestral homes never to return. But foremost it exposes how powerful state propaganda can be - the firemen, several thousands of liquidators who volunteered willingly or under peer pressure to remove extremely radioactive debris from roof where even robots were getting fried because this was war from them; war against Atom - an enemy they can't even see much less comprehend.
The utter disregard for human cost amidst unprecedented radiation levels; the brainwashing of entire population and the secrecy to maintain the facade of crumbing ideology is poignant, painful and a warning. A warning that when state begins dictating history, crushes the individualism and censors anything on pretext of protecting its people its time to write, read, hear and raise the voices. And it does not matter if its Communism or democracy -each is equally bad when it comes to this.
Most disturbing is the plight of those who stayed back or cam back to their homes - all alone in wilderness, marked by others as 'Children of Chernobyl'. Cheated by a system that is no longer present, a world that does not care anymore -
"They are innocent and vacant. They have found the meaning and justification of their existence in suffering" - Natalia Roslova, chairwoman Women's Committee of Children of Chernobyl
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