Research Catalog

Title

• Chernobyl, the forbidden truth / Alla Yaroshinska ; translated by Michèle Kahn and Julia Sallabank ; introduction by David R. Marples ; foreword by John Gofman.

Author

Yaroshinska, Alla

Publication

Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, 1995.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

• Gofman, John W.
• Marples, David R.

Description

xvii, 135 p. : ill., maps ; 24 cm.

Summary

In this impassioned, shocking, and deeply personal story, Alla Yaroshinskaya, then a journalist from Zhitomir, Ukraine, near the Chernobyl power station, describes the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and the bureaucratic and scientific corruption surrounding it. Despite the government's official silence, news and panic spread throughout the USSR and Europe after the horrific accident. Like others, Yaroshinskaya initially fled with her family in hopes of escaping the danger from radioactive fallout that exceeded that of Hiroshima by three hundred times. When she returned home, she discovered that people in highly contaminated areas were being resettled in ones barely less contaminated, that their serious health problems were officially denied, and that people had to eat locally grown contaminated food. Her newspaper refused to publish her stories and instead commissioned another journalist to write more reassuring accounts. Finally, Isvestia published her articles. Despite official pressure, Yaroshinskaya was nominated overwhelmingly to the new parliament in 1989. This position gained her access to classified documents known as the Kremlin's "Forty Secret Protocols." Undaunted by threats, she revealed an official cover-up, including lies about "permissible" higher radio-active levels. Her courageous campaign won her the Right Livelihood Award in 1992.

Uniform Title

Chernobylʹ, sovershenno sekretno. English

Alternative Title

Chernobylʹ, sovershenno sekretno.

Subject

• 1986
• Chernobyl Nuclear Accident, Chornobylʹ, Ukraine, 1986
• Chernobyl Nuclear Accident, Chornobylʹ, Ukraine, 1986 > Sources
• Russia
• Ukraine

Genre/Form

• History
• Sources

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

From peace to panic -- Rudnia-Ososhnya, the zone of lies -- Desolation in the forest -- Crime without punishment -- 'No threat to health' -- The moment of truth? -- 'The greatest catastrophe of our time' -- A travesty of standards -- Korosten, Lugini and elsewhere -- The forty secret protocols of the wise men of the Kremlin -- 'Our children are dying. Help!.'

ISBN

• 0803249128 (cloth : alk. paper)
• 0803299109 (pbk. : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^^95002963^

OCLC

31900833

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library