14.04.2015 – 16.00

Lecture by Andrei Stsiapanau

Almost 30 years have passed since the accident at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (CNPP) happened. Due to the scope and consequences the accident turned out to be a real disaster. Today computer games and fantasy novels are also called Chernobyl, but the fundamental sense of the word is the place where a nuclear disaster began, a different place, which is not connected with Chernobyl settlement. The question is whether Chernobyl actually happened or it was the result of the interplay of political strategies and practices, which skillfully imposed a particular vision of the Chernobyl accident? Was Chernobyl that “anthropological shock” which was described by Ulrich Beck after the disaster in 1986, and the aim of which was to change notions of risks and politics, about techniques and technologies? These issues are actual even after the Fukushima disaster. Chernobyl fades into the background not only because it is the accident of “last century” technologies, but also because the problem of Chernobyl is a depoliticized problem, which derived not only from political agenda, but also from the field of politics.