Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy. Serhii Plokhy in conversation with Luke Harding
Date and time:
Tuesday 28 May, 2019
19:15 - 20:15
Location:
British Library Piazza Pavilion
96 Euston Road
London
NW1 2DB
On 26 April 1986 at 1:23am a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Soviet Ukraine exploded. While the authorities scrambled to understand what was occurring, workers, engineers, firefighters and those living in the area were abandoned to their fate. The blast put the world on the brink of nuclear annihilation, contaminating over half of Europe with radioactive fallout.
Historian Serhii Plokhy talks to journalist and author Luke Harding, drawing on his recent book Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy, winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2018. In this impeccably-researched and riveting account, the catastrophe becomes emblematic of the decline of the Soviet state itself, from the complacency that led to the disaster, to the massive underestimation of its political and human aftermath.
This event will be held in English.
£10 standard / £8 concessions
Speaker
Serhii Plokhy
Serhii Plokhy is the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University. A leading authority on Eastern Europe, who has published extensively in English, Ukrainian and Russian, he has lived and taught in Ukraine, Canada and the United States. His recent books include The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine (2015), The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union (2015), The Cossack Myth: History and Nationhood in the Age of Empires (2012) and Yalta: The Price of Peace Viking/Penguin (2010; 2011).
Speaker
Luke Harding
Luke Harding is a Guardian foreign correspondent. He has reported from Delhi, Berlin and Moscow and covered wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. In 2014 he was the recipient of the James Cameron prize for his work on Russia, Ukraine, WikiLeaks, and Edward Snowden. His 2011 book Mafia State discusses his experience in Russia and the political system under Vladimir Putin.
