Anna Veronika Wendland am Bard College Berlin

Post-Chornobyl Era?

The crisis of nuclear modernity and its repercussions in Ukraine and beyond

Friday, April 17, 2026
7–9 pm

P98A Lecture Hall
The Chornobyl nuclear plant explosion (26 April 1986) became a watershed event in the contemporary history of Ukraine, the USSR, and Eastern Europe in general. The explosion’s effects challenged scientific progress and socialist modernization under Soviet rule. This technological catastrophe of global dimension was perceived as a prelude to the collapse of the Soviet system and the resulting multifaceted transformation of the countries of Eastern Europe. How can we reinterpret the post-Chornobyl era from the perspective of the last forty years - as the postindustrial postmodern, a post-communist transformation, or a postcolonial stage - and how were the three processes interconnected?

Speakers:
Tamara Hundorova (Professor at the Taras Shevchenko Institute of Literature in Kyiv)
Anna Veronika Wendland (Senior Researcher at the Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe in Marburg

This conversation is part of a series of events within Bard College Berlin's Program for International Education and Social Change (PIESC)