Chernobyl is situated in Ukraine, at the fringe of Eastern Europe. There are so many explorations of the affect of Chernobyl in Soviet and post-Soviet states, and on Western Europe, which is what led me to explore this topic on a European scale. Indeed, when I was first introduced to the topic of Chernobyl, it was in the context of women in Greenham Common who protested against anything nuclear. They were a pacifist, environmentalist group of women, some of whom used their parenthood as a reason for protest. And, of course, this pushed me to explore parenthood in my long essay.
So, an essay on environmentalism, centralising a Ukrainian disaster, depends on Western Europe for its scope? Okay, fabulous, the radiation fell a long way, so this makes sense. What does not make sense, however, is that I didn’t even consider the impact of Chernobyl further East and South. How painfully Eurocentric of me. I actually didn’t consider that, if Britain was impacted by the disaster, so might have Kazakhstan or Turkey. I only considered Europe in this exercise, and without a second thought decided to use the Iron Curtain as a boundary, rather than Eurasian boundaries. Why? A little something called Eurocentrism.
I am critical of the field, or our schooling systems more than myself. I do find interest outside of European history, including African history. I even discussed for a history conference medieval African and Asian trade, ignoring completely Europe to make a point about the Eurocentrism of medieval history. And now I fall victim to this in modern history? Mainly, I fall because of the literature available. France, Britain, West Germany, all come up frequently in historical, anthropological, and scientific discussions. But these aforementioned countries that could have been affected never do.
So how do I tackle my issue? I think I will consider Turkey – a country with a foot in both Europe and Asia – in my analysis. I will consider literature that discusses Turkey, and try to find any visual sources from Turkey that discusses this issue. And, in the future, before I instinctively look Westwards, I will draw a circle around my focal point; where does this circle encompass?