The Memory of Chernobyl in the Visaginas urban landscape
ENWhat is the relationship between the built environment of a town and the memory preserved by its dwellers? This question, which is particularly acute following moments of social upheaval, such as the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe, has already been considered in a number of studies (Light and Young 2015). But what is the relationship between dwellers of a particular town and material symbols which invoke tragic memories and signify cultural trauma experienced by the entire world? The Chernobyl nuclear accident that occurred on the night of 25-26th April, 1986, is an example of this sort of globally traumatic experience. As Sara D. Philipps argues, due to its cultural importance and health consequences for various communities, the Chernobyl event is to this day perceived as a “sixth sense” in people’s consciousness and everyday lives, leading to a situation in which: “Chernobyl is always present – in word, in thought and in embodied action” (Phillips 2008, 178). Visaginas, as a hetero-(u)topian brother–town of Pripyat, was affected particularly intensely by this event, both because a significant percentage of the town’s inhabitants went to Chernobyl to assist in the clean–up effort, with subsequent consequences for their health, and because the catastrophe had a major impact on the town’s further development. The impact of Chernobyl on Visaginas, in political and cultural terms, was to cast a shroud of uncertainty over the town’s future identity and its collective memory. Notwithstanding the delicate question as to whether the Chernobyl disaster should or should not be remembered in Visaginas, or the even more delicate one of how this tragedy should be commemorated, the Visaginas urban landscape does contain a variety of symbols reflecting the event.Acknowledging the sensitivity and significance of the whole event and its effects on the residents of Visaginas, but refusing to withdraw from socially tense questions, we propose a memory intervention into the Visaginas urban context that focuses on the officially established memorials that accumulate and sustain memory related to Chernobyl. With this in mind, we invite the reader to walk through traces that trigger remembrances of the past nuclear culture of which Visaginas and Pripyat once were (or perhaps still are?) part. [p. 196].
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