Today is the 35th anniversary of the Chornobyl/Chernobyl disaster. Despite more awareness in recent years, I don't think Americans truly feel the gravity of the event as a tragedy.

This was evident in 2016 when I saw visitors running around the zone in lab coats thinking of this as an "edgy" tourist destination. Fortunately I do think the 2019 series humanized the tragedy in the West, but Chernobyl is still used as a punchline in the US.

In 2020 there were initial comparisons between the US COVID response and the bureaucratic negligence of the Soviet government. But even as we faced our own tragedy as a result, I'm not sure the word tragedy resonated with popular understanding of Chernobyl.

I'm lucky to have gotten close to many Ukrainians, some of whom have shared their personal experiences. Perhaps that's the main takeaway: listen to the stories of Ukrainians and Belarusians who felt the tragedy firsthand.

It's also important to realize the greater impact of Chernobyl as a political event. In the West the main association is with the general collapse of the Soviet Union but....

If you read Serhii Plokhii's Chernobyl, he makes the point that this event further revealed to Ukrainians the limits of a "Soviet" national identity and strengthened Ukrainian national consciousness.

As a result, Chernobyl ushered in a new Ukrainian intelligentsia, which then gave way to the creation of popular movements such as Rukh and the inception of a Ukrainian democratic consciousness, which were integral to Ukraine's independence in the 1990s.

I guess I'm not really sure where to end this thread, other than to say Chernobyl has continued impacted people in Eastern Europe in deeply personal and political ways. And today is a good day to remember it and its complexities. Вічна пам'ять.