This is the second in a series of perspectives on HBO’s 2017 series, Chernobyl.

Chernobyl reloaded: Renewing traditional male heroism through female characters

Charo Lacalle (Autonomous University of Barcelona)

As highlighted in various studies on the miniseries, the protagonism and tragic fate of Valery Legasov (Jared Harris) and Boris Shcherbina (Stellan Skarsgård) in Chernobyl grants them an absolute pre-eminence. This work, however, vindicates the narrative prominence of the two female characters, who rework the male Homeric models of heroism: Lyudmilla Ignatenko (Jessie Buckley), the wife of one of the first victims of the nuclear accident, and Ulana Khomyuk (Emily Watson), the scientist who travels to Chernobyl to determine the causes of the explosion at the nuclear power plant. Both women, who initially complement the firefighter Vasily Ignatenko (Adam Nagaitis) and the scientist Legasov plots respectively, subvert the men's protagonism by forging their own narrative trajectories: Lyudmilla's desperate struggle to find her husband and support him in his agony, and Ulana's collaboration with Legasov to halt the spread of the radiation.

Free from the servitude to the power governing the destinies of Legasov (deputy director of the Kurchatov Institute) and Shcherbina (deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers), the two women endow the miniseries with the necessary "moralizing impulse" present in any account of reality where narrativity makes the world speak itself as a story (White, 1980). Lyudmilla constitutes one of the most disturbing voices of the survivors, recounted by Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich in her acclaimed work Voices from Chernobyl. The oral history of a nuclear disaster (2006[1997]). Beyond Luydmilla's characterization as a wife, her primary narrative function consists of developing a sentimental subplot, aimed at suturing from the emotional dimension the distance between the viewer and the documentary exposition of the events. Ludymilla's love for her husband drives her to disobey the prohibition on approaching or coming into physical contact with him, to the point of risking her own life and even that of the unborn child she carries to be with him in his death throes. By contrast, the fictional character of Ulana is based on an amalgamation of many unnamed scientists who struggled to unravel the true causes of the catastrophe and "to honor their dedication and service to truth and humanity", as the miniseries credits inform the viewers.

Adam Higginbotham, a former British correspondent in the USSR and author of Midnight in Chernobyl, which won the 2020 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence, criticizes Chernobyl on the premise that there was no need for a crusading whistleblower to uncover the causes of the catastrophe. The journalist also questions the plausibility of Ulana's portrayal as not reflecting reality in terms of the position of women in power-appointed bodies in the Soviet Union in 1986. Sonja Schmid considers instead that while Ulana effectively erases the names and efforts of many other people, her character illustrates that Soviet women were top scientists and fearless investigators at that time. Schmid (2020: 1161) praises Higginbotham's book, but argues that the miniseries should be enjoyed for what it is: "an engaging storytelling with extremely felicitous reconstructions of the accident and Soviet material life".

Emily Watson, who plays Ulana, goes further by considering Chernobyl a politically astute and essential piece of work, and she even attributes her character to a hypothetical past anchored in Ukrainian history to justify her inclusion in the miniseries: "My character would've been a child during World War II, and from Belarus — one of the worst places on the planet to be in the 20th century. Just astonishing. Horrific treatment from every direction. She would've grown up incredibly tough […] As a child, she lived through extraordinary brutality and probably was witness to appalling acts. She developed a 'don't trust anybody' mentality" (Watson in Nicolau, 2019).

Be that as it may, it is worth recalling that the number of women in the field of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) in the USSR even exceeded the average for Western countries in the period of the disaster, despite Soviet women scientists' difficulties to pursue their profession and conciliate it with their family life were systematically on Mikhail Gorbachev's agenda (Evans, 2012). In this sense, the discussion of plausibility should not overshadow the need to highlight the achievements of women scientists in Western, where the media plays a key role in spreading the research results. Most of all, because disregarding women's STEM achievements stimulates the creation of negative myths and misconceptions about women scientists' and therefore contributes to their social discrimination.

From heroes to heroines

The contrast between the ideal (Ulana) and real (Lyudmilla) characters installs in Chernobyl's narrative logic an opposition between emotion and reason around which the text's axiological system is articulated. Both women symbolize two classical versions of heroism, which Mark Edmunson (2015) identifies respectively with the figures of the warrior and citizen soldier: Achilles and Hector. And with this recognition of the typically masculine andreia/ἀνδρεα (manliness, bravery) in the two female characters, the miniseries subverts the traditional concept of heroism.

Like Achilles, Ulana chooses to set off to war from the Nuclear Energy Institute in Minsk (Belarus), where she works. This fictional character, whose sole dimension explored in Chernobyl is her portrayal as a scientist (everything concerning her personal sphere is unknown), embodies the ideal of perfection in that she will not be fu And it is this recognition of the typically masculine andreia/ἀνδρεα (manliness, bravery) in two female characters, that manages to subvert the traditional concept of hero.lfilled until she has completed her particular quest for truth. Ulana has the pride and self-confidence attributed by Edmunson to the Homeric hero she embodies, which places her beyond fear and weariness. Aware of the limits imposed on Legasov by his Communist Party membership, but also that those in power will never hear her own voice, Ulana urges him to take on the system to defend the truth "Because you're Legasov. And you mean something. I'd like to think if I spoke out, it would be enough. But as I said, I know how the world works" (fifth episode).

LEFT: *El trunfo de Aquiles* (Franz von Matsch, 1892) RIGHT: **Ulana khomyuk**

Unlike Ulana/Achilles, Lyudmilla is forced to acquire the fighting spirit natural to a warrior. Lyudmilla/Hector is the citizen soldier who fights to defend what she loves; although she does not fear death, she must learn heroism. Hence, like the hero who inspires her, this female character is both the brave fighter and the pater familias. Her journey from Pripyat - the city where the Chernobyl power plant is located - to the Moscow hospital room where her husband is dying constitutes the initiatory journey of a woman who, like Ulana, also rebels against impositions.

LEFT: The Farewell of Hector to Andromaque. RIGHT: Astyanax Lyudmilla and Vasily (Karl F. Deckler, 1918)

As the narrative unfolds and Ulana and Lyudmila come to the fore, the viewer empathizes with their respective points of view. Impervious to the constrictions of the rise and fall of tragic heroes, the warrior Ulana and the citizen soldier Lyudmila represent the characters through whom the miniseries pays homage to the bond between women and nature. Both archetypes thus evince Chernobyl's alignment with today's eco-feminist sensibility, which calls for women's involvement in environmental issues (Rigby, 2018: 61). And so doing, the conciliation between heroism - a characteristic associated by dualism with masculinity - and compassion - traditionally attributed to femininity - merge into a message of hope, which transcends desolation to penetrate the spectators' sensibility and alert them to the nuclear risk.

References

**Alexievich, Svetlana (2006[1997]) Voices From Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster. Picador.**

Evans Clements, Barbara (2012) History of Women in Russia From Earliest Times to the Present. Indiana University Press.

Higginbotham, Adam (2019) Midnight in Chernobyl: The untold story of the world's greatest nuclear disaster. Bantam Press.

Nicolau, Elena (2019) "She Was A Truth Ninja:" Emily Watson On Her Intrepid Chernobyl Character. Available at: https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2019/05/232129/ulana-khomyuk-chernobyl-real-person-scientist-emily-watson-interview

Schmid, Sonja D. (2020) Chernobyl TV series: O suspending the truth of what’s the benefit of lies? Technology and Culture, 61(4), 1154-1161. doi: https://doi.org/10.1353/tech.2020.0115

Chernobyl-explained-Is-Emily-Watson-s-character-Ulana-Khomyuk-a-real-person-hbo-series

White, Hyden (1980) The value of narrativity in the representation of reality. Critical Inquiry, 7(1), 5-27.

Biography

Charo Lacalle is Full Professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona-UAB (Department of Journalism and Communication Sciences), where she teaches Semiotics and Narratives. She has two degrees, in Journalism and in Philosophy, and a PhD in Communication Sciences. She started my academic career as an assistant in the Faculty of Languages and Literature at the University of Bologna. Her research activities focus on Semiotics, TV and internet studies, media cultural analysis (particularly about fiction and entertainment genres), feminist studies, intermediality and fandom. Her last book explores de social role of media in the construction and dissemination of dignity and indignity: (In)dignidades mediáticas en la Sociedad digital (Catedra Editors, 2022).