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This page contains a thematically-organized list of print resources relevant to Chernobyl that may be of use to scholars or individuals wishing to learn more about the disaster.  Most of these materials are in English; we have noted that language of publication for those in a language other than English.


Medical, Scientific, and Scholarly Works



Baranovs’ka, N.P.,ed. 1996. Chornobyl’s’ka trahediia: dokumenty I materialy. Kyiv: Naukova Dumka. (in Ukrainian)

Peter Cameron, Leigh Hancher, and Wolfgang Kuhn, eds. 1988. Nuclear Energy Law after Chernobyl. London: Graham & Trotman.

Chernousenko, Vladimir M. 1991. Chernobyl: Insight from the Inside. Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.

Corin, Fairburn Bass and Janet Kenny, eds. 1993. Beyond Chernobyl: Women Respond. Sydney, Australia: Envirobook.

Gould, Peter. 1990. Fire in the Rain: The Democratic Consequences of Chernobyl. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Marples, David. 1987. The Social Impact of the Chernobyl Disaster. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Gundorova, Tamara. 2005. Pisliachornobyl’s’ka biblioteka: Ukrayins’kyi literaturnyi postmodern. Kyiv: Krytyka. (in Ukrainian)

Mould, R.F. 2000. Chernobyl Record: The Definitive History of the Chernobyl Catastrophe. Bristol and Philadelphia: Institute of Physics Publishing.

Petryna, Adriana. 2002. Life Exposed: Biological Citizens after Chernobyl. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Sands, Phillipe, ed. 1988. Chernobyl, Law and Communication: Transboundary Nuclear Air Pollution, the Legal Materials. Cambridge: Grotius Publications.

Policy Studies

Gould, Peter. 1990. Fire in the Rain: The Democratic Consequences of Chernobyl. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Mackay, Louis, and Mark Thompson, eds. 1988. Something in the Wind: Politics after Chernobyl. Pluto Press. Nuclear Energy Agency. 1987.

Chernobyl and the Safety of Nuclear Reactors in OECD Countries. Paria: NEA.

Otway, H., P. Haastrup, W. Cannell, G. Gianitsopoulos, and M. Paruccini. 1987.   An Analysis of the Print Media in Europe Following the Chernobyl Accident. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

Strazzulla, Jerome, and Jean-Claude Zerbib. 1991. Tchernobyl (in French). La documentation Francaise.

Swedish National Energy Administration. 1987.  After Chernobyl: Possibilities of Phasing Out Nuclear Power in Sweden. Statens energiverk.

Vargo, George J., ed. 2000. The Chornobyl Accident: A Comprehensive Risk Assessment. Columbus and Richland: Battelle Press.

Partial List of Scholarly Articles on Aspects of Chernobyl

Beach, Hugh. “Perceptions of Risk, Dilemmas of Policy: Nuclear Fallout in Swedish Lapland.” Social Science & Medicine 30(6):729-738.

Beck, Ulrich. 1987. “The Anthropological Shock: Chernobyl and the Contours of the Risk Society.” Berkeley Journal of Sociology 32:153-165.

Bentham, Graham. “Chernobyl Fallout and Perinatal Mortality in England and Wales.” Social Science & Medicine 33(4):429-434.

J.M. Havenaar et al., 2003. “Perception of Risk and Subjective Health among Victims of the Chernobyl Disaster.” Social Science & Medicine 56(3):569-572.

Page, G. William Olga Alexandrovna Bobyleva, Marina Vasilievna Naboka, and Viacheslav Mikhailovich Shestopalov, 1995. “Environmental Health Policy in Ukraine after the Chernobyl Accident.” Policy Studies Journal 23(1):141–51.

Petryna, Adriana. 1995. “Sarcophagus: Chernobyl in Historical Light.” Cultural Anthropology 10(2):196–220.

Phillips, Sarah D. 2004. “Chernobyl’s Sixth Sense: Symbols of an Ever-Present Awareness.” Anthropology and Humanism 29(2):159-185.

Phillips, Sarah D. 2002. “Half-Lives and Healthy Bodies: Discourses on ‘Contaminated’ Foods and Healing in Post-Chernobyl Ukraine.” Food and Foodways 10(1-2):27-53.

Remennick, Larissa. “Immigrants from Chernobyl-Affected Areas in Israel: The Link Between Health and Social Adjustment,” Social Science and Medicine 54(2):309-317.

Stephens, Sharon. “Physical and Cultural Reproduction in a Post-Chernobyl Norwegian Sami Community,” Conceiving the New World Order: The Global Politics of Reproduction, ed. Faye Ginsberg and Rayna Rapp (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).

Stephens, Sharon. “The ‘Cultural Fallout’ of Chernobyl Radiation in Norwegian Sami Regions: Implications for Children,” Children and the Politics of Culture, ed. Sharon Stephens (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995):292-318.


Journalistic and Documentary Accounts


Alexievich, Svetlana. 1998. Chornobyl’: Khronika maibytn’oho. Kyiv: Fakt. (in Ukrainian) (Journalistic)

Alexievich, Svetlana. 2005. Voices from Chernobyl. Normal, IL and London: Dalkey Archive Press. Translation by Keith Gessen.

Cheney, Glenn Alan. 1995. Journey to Chernobyl: Encounters in a Radioactive Zone. Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers.

Gale, Robert Peter, and Thomas Hauser. 1988. Chernobyl: The Final Warning. London: Hamish Hamilton.

Gundorova, Tamara. 2005. Pisliachornobyl’s’ka biblioteka: Ukrayins’kyi literaturnyi postmodern. Kyiv: Krytyka. (in Ukrainian)

Kovalevskaia, Liubov’. 1995. Chernobyl’ “DSP.” Kyiv: Abris. (in Russian)

Medvedev, Grigori. 1991. The Truth about Chernobyl. London and New York: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd.

Medvedev, Grigori. 1993. No Breathing Room: The Aftermath of Chernobyl. Basic Books.

Mycio, Mary. 2005. Wormwood Forest: A Natural History of Chernobyl. Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry Press.


Mirnyi, Sergei. Worse Than Radiation, and Other Stories.
Read, Piers Paul. 1993. Ablaze: The Story of Chernobyl. London: Secker & Warburg.

Roche, Adi. 2006. Chernobyl Heart, 20 Years On. Dublin: New Island.

Shcherbak, Iurii. 1989. Chernobyl: A Documentary Story. New York: St. Martin’s Press. pp. 55-88.

Shkoda, V. G., ed. 1989. Soldaty Chernobylia (in Russian). Moskva: Voennoe izdatel’stvo.

Webster, David. 1986. “How Ministers Misled Britain about Chernobyl.” New Scientist 9, October 1986, pp. 43-46.

Alla Yaroshinskaya. 1995. Chernobyl: The Forbidden Truth. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Literature and other Creative Works

Aleksievich, Svetlana. 1997. Chernobyl’skaia molitva (in Russian). Moskva: Ostozh’e.

Gubaryev, Vladimir. 1987. Sarcophagus: A Tragedy.

Kostenko, Lina. 1989. Vybrane (in Ukrainian). Kyiv: Dnipro.

Kozlov, Boris. 1992. Zapiski Likvidatora: Povest’. Znamia, no. 11, pp. 42-76. (in Russian)

Pohl, Frederik. 1987. Chernobyl: A Novel. Bantam Books.

Voznesenskaya, Julia. 1987. The Star Chernobyl. Methuen.

Zabytko, Irene. 2000. The Sky Unwashed, A Novel. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books.

Related Works

Beck, Ulrich. 1992. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. Sage Publications.

Brown, Kate. 2004. A Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Soviet Heartland. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. (A history of the Ukrainian/Polish borderlands that now encompass the Chernobyl zone.)

Cantelon, Philip L., and Robert C. Williams. 1982. Crisis Contained: The Department of Energy at Three Mile Island. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press.

Douglas, Mary, and Aaron Wildavsky. 1982. Risk and Culture: An Essay on the Selection of Technical and Environmental Dangers. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Finger, Matthias, ed. 1992. Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, Supplement 2: The Green Movement Worldwide (Series editor Louis Kriesberg). Greenwich, CT, and London: JAI Press Inc.

Gray, Peter, and Kendrick Oliver, eds. 2004. The Memory of Catastrophe. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.

Jancar-Webster, Barbara, ed. 1993. Environmental Action in Eastern Europe: Responses to Crises. Armonk and London: M.E. Sharpe.

Macgill, S.M. 1987. Sellafield’s Cancer-Link Controversy: The Politics of Anxiety. London: Pion Limited.

Medvedev, Zhores A. 1979. Nuclear Disaster in the Urals. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.

Sandberg, Mikael. 1999. Green Post-Communism? Environmental Aid, Polish Innovation and Evolutionary Political Economics. London and New York: Routledge.

Vari, Anna, and Pal Tamas, eds. 1993. Environment and Democratic Transition: Policy and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe. Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Nuclear Energy

Bisconti, Ann. Growing Public Awareness Enhances Nuclear Energy's Image. Perspective on Public Opinion. Nuclear Energy Institute. 2006.

Bisconti, Ann. Think Others Don’t Support Nuclear Energy? Think Again. Perspective on Public Opinion. Nuclear Energy Institute. 1998.

Gallup Organization. Gallup Poll Social Series – The Environment. 2005.

Gallup Organization. Gallup Poll Social Series – Health and Health Care. 2001.

Gallup Organization. Attitudes Towards Nuclear Radiation. Sponsored by: United States Council for Energy Awareness. 1991.

Lindell, Michael. Effects of the Chernobyl Accident on Public Perceptions of Nuclear Plant Accident Risks. Risk Analysis. Vol. 10, No.3, 1990.

Chernobyl Videography

Avrora (2006) by Oksana Bairak. Feature film, portrays a young girl evacuated from a children’s home in the Chernobyl region after the nuclear disaster. She comes to Los Angeles and becomes a professional ballet dancer. Story in the Moscow Times.

Chernobyl: Chronicle of Difficult Weeks (dir. V. Shevchenko, 1987). Soviet film, includes dramatic footage of the Chernobyl clean-up; director V. Shevchenko died from radiation-induced illness before the film was released.

Chernobyl: The Taste of Wormwood (1987). Documentary film that follows a group of Japanese scientists who investigated Chernobyl’s effects soon after the disaster. Film website.

Oscar-award winning Documentary film “Chernobyl Heart” (2005) by Maryann De Leo. Profiles the work of Ireland’s Chernobyl Children’s Project and the group’s director, Adi Roche. Film website.

From Chechnya to Chernobyl (1998). Documentary film by Slawomir Grünberg, follows the fate of two families who have relocated from war-torn areas (Chechnya, Azerbaijan) to a Chernobyl-contaminated village in Belarus. Film website.

In Invisible Enemy (1987). Documentary film, explores the effects of Chernobyl on the ways of life of Saami reindeer herders in Norway. Nice complement to Dr. Sharon Stephens’s research on Chernobyl and Saami groups in Sweden and Norway. Film website.

Priypat (1999). Directed and filmed by Nikolaus Geyrhalter. Exploration of the lives of people living in the “exclusion zone” surrounding the Chernobyl NPP Film website.