JENKINTOWN, Pa. – Thirty years after the world’s worst nuclear disaster, the new documentary “The Babushkas of Chernobyl” tells an astonishing story of the elderly Ukrainian women who returned to live in the radioactive Chornobyl zone. On May 22, director Holly Morris presented her film at the Ukrainian Educational and Cultural Center in Jenkintown, Pa., hosted by the Ukrainian Library with support from the Ukrainian Community Foundation of Philadelphia. Ukrainian American author Mary Mycio (“Wormwood Forest: A Natural History of Chernobyl”), who is featured in the film, also took part in the discussion.
“The Babushkas of Chernobyl” follows three women – Hanna Zavorotnya, 80, Valentyna Ivanivna, 72, and Maria Shovkuta, 85 – among the last survivors of a community of “self-settlers” who refused to leave their ancestral homes after the Chornobyl nuclear disaster in 1986.
“Shoot me and dig the grave,” Hanna told a soldier who tried to evacuate her, “otherwise I’m staying.” She had survived the Holodomor and Nazi atrocities in Ukraine. “Radiation doesn’t scare me, starvation does,” she said.
Holly Morris and co-director/producer Anne Bogart first went to Chornobyl in 2010 to cover the 25th anniversary of the accident for a travel program. Ms. Morris returned two months later for MORE magazine, to write her award-winning essay “The Babushkas of Chernobyl” (also published as “Ukraine: A Country of Women”). She became fascinated with this community of approximately 100 returnees. She saw that there was a deeper story around these independent older women, and their ability to survive under such extraordinary and toxic conditions.
She later said in her TED Talk, which has now been viewed by over a million people: “Chornobyl’s soil, water and air are among the most highly contaminated on Earth; it’s a nuclear police state, complete with border guards. The point being, no human being should be living anywhere near the dead zone. But they are. Why would they return to such deadly soil? I mean, were they unaware of the risks or crazy enough to ignore them, or both? The thing is, they see their lives and the risks they run decidedly differently.”
Mary Kalyna
Holly Morris, director of “The Babushkas of Chernobyl” (left) with Mary Mycio, author of “Wormwood Forest: A Natural History of Chernobyl.”
The film captures the spirit of these women and, as one audience member said, the “power of the love of your own land.” Ms. Morris presents the women not as ignorant victims, but as protagonists in their own lives who have made a calculated and determined decision about how they will live. “Every person should live where their soul desires,” one of them says. “If you leave, you die.”
And it turns out they may be right, as studies now suggest that people who were evacuated are dying earlier than those who stayed. “People die from anguish,” an expert in the film says of those who were forced to abandon their homes and social networks.
The film shows the women eating highly contaminated food grown in their gardens and drinking irradiated water, living a difficult rural life with few amenities and pensions that arrive irregularly, sometimes not for months. But it also shows many joyful and poignant moments, fishing in a stream, visiting the graves of parents and children, celebrating holidays, singing and dancing after toasting each other with homemade vodka.
A woman in the audience said, “I see the strength of these women, their extreme resilience and determination. It could make you cry.”
The subject of the Chornobyl returnees has been presented before, notably by Ukrainian American author Irene Zabytko. Her 2000 novel “The Sky Unwashed” tells the story of a woman who defies the Soviet government’s evacuation of her village and returns to her home, displaying the same fierce spirit as the women featured in “The Babushkas of Chernobyl.” Ms. Zabytko is also working on her own film.
Holly Morris recently returned from showing her documentary in Ukraine. The first screening took place in the living room of Hanna Zavorotnya, in part so that her disabled sister could see it. “There were a lot of tears,” Ms. Morris said. “And ‘thank you for telling our stories to the world,’ ” A formal premiere in Kyiv followed on May 10.
A Philadelphia audience member commented that the situation of these women is not known even in Ukraine, much less elsewhere.
Both Ms. Morris and Ms. Mycio addressed the question of using the word “babushkas” and the Russian spelling “Chernobyl” in the film’s title. Ms. Morris said they were very aware of the importance of the language issue from the beginning. They chose the title because they hoped this would be a global story, and most people would understand “babushka,” including English speakers, while they would not know the Ukrainian equivalents (“babas” or “babusi”). She said this was also the way the women referred to themselves. The filmmakers’ “official stance” was always speaking in Ukrainian. “Our translator spoke Ukrainian to the women. Sometimes they responded in Ukrainian, sometimes in Russian.” She added that Russian is the language of the zone.
Ukrainian American author Ms. Mycio said that she used the spelling “Chernobyl” in the title of her book because she considers that “it was a Soviet or Russian accident, and there is no reason to Ukrainianize the name.” She said she uses the spelling “Chornobyl” to refer to the town, which is ancient, and added, “You could write a book about ‘Chornobyl’ but Google wouldn’t pick it up, so what good would that do?” Many audience members agreed that the language question should not distract from the message, and language continues to be debated, both here and in Ukraine.
“The Babushkas of Chernobyl” has been shown at numerous film festivals and has won several awards. For upcoming screenings, check the website thebabushkasofchernobyl.com. To organize a screening in your area, write to [email protected].