Cultural impact of the Chernobyl disaster

The Chernobyl disaster has received worldwide media attention. The secrecy inherent in Soviet management was blamed for both the accident and the subsequent poor response; the accident, it is argued, hastened the demise of the Soviet Union. Public awareness of the risks of nuclear power increased significantly. Organizations, both pro- and anti-nuclear, have made great efforts to sway public opinion. Casualty figures, reactor safety estimates, and estimates of the risks associated to other reactors differ greatly depending on which position is favoured by the author of any given document. For example, the UN scientific committee on the effects of radiation has publicly criticised the UN office on humanitarian affairs with respect to some of its publications. The true facts of the affair are therefore rather difficult to uncover. It is, however, fair to say that the accident sparked interest in alternative forms of energy production and nuclear phase-out.

Chernobyl and the Bible
Because of a controversial translation of "chernobyl" as wormwood, some people believe that the Chernobyl accident was mentioned in the Bible: And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; and the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter. &mdash; Revelation 8:10-11 The story appears to have spread to the West with a New York Times article by Serge Schmemann (Chernobyl Fallout: Apocalyptic Tale, July 25, 1986) in which an unnamed "prominent Russian writer" was quoted as claiming the Ukrainian word for wormwood was chernobyl.

The name of the city comes from the Ukrainian word for mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris), which is chornobyl. As a result, chornobyl has been translated by some to simply mean wormwood. This translation is a matter of extreme controversy.

Computer virus
The CIH computer virus was popularly named "the Chernobyl virus" by many in the media, after the fact that the v1.2 variant activated on April 26 of each year: the anniversary of the Chernobyl accident. However, this is simply because of a coincidence with the virus author's birthday.

Impact on popular culture
The story of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is closely tied to the Chernobyl accident and ultimate peace between the U.S. and Russia. This was played in the Star Trek universe by having the Klingon Empire experience a similar cataclysmic accident, and having to seek refuge with former enemies, the United Federation of Planets (humans, Vulcans and a variety of other species). This led to doubts about peace on both sides, and how those doubters attempted to destroy the developing peace.

In the 1988 film Scrooged, when the Marley-esque character visits Bill Murray's Scrooge-like character, Murray says the ghostly visitor is just "a hallucination brought on by alcohol, Russian vodka, poisoned by Chernobyl."

In a second season episode of FOX's hit show The X-Files called "The Host," Mulder and Scully encounter the famous Fluke Man, a mutated flukeworm/humanoid hybrid. The creature is later found out to have been created as a result of the Chernobyl accident.

In the Millennium episode, "Maranatha", a Russian agent calling himself Yaponchik is shown sabotaging the experiment and causing the meltdown.

In the 1998 film Godzilla, the Matthew Broderick character is taking a worm sample from the Chernobyl area to test for mutations.

The upcoming video game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl is another example of the Chernobyl accident impacting upon popular culture with the game being set inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone with people called "stalkers" (in homage to the Russian movie Stalker) go inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone to search for valuable items.

The fact-based (but nevertheless controversial) US film, K-19: The Widowmaker portrays the handling of a nuclear reactor incident (on the K-19 nuclear submarine) within the Soviet political climate.