Before the Accident

Precisely a month before the accident, on 27 March 1986, in the newspaper Literaturna Ukraina, the organ of the Union of Ukrainian Writers, there appeared L. Kovalevska’s article ‘Not a Private Affair.’ It should be recalled that for several years the newspaper had already had a permanent column ‘The Literaturna Ukraina Eye on the Chernobyl Power Station,’ clarifying the various events in the life of the power station. This article, which was fated to create such a sensation all over the world (after Chernobyl the western mass media vied with each other to quote it), at first attracted no attention: at that time Kiev writers were getting ready for their general meeting and most of them were far more interested in the coming personnel changes in the organization than in the affairs of the power station.