The Image of the Soviet Man in Svetlana Alexievich’s Novel „Chernobyl Prayer: a Chronicle of the Future”

Abstract

The paper is concerned with the documentary novel by Svetlana Alexievich which describes one of the biggest technological humanitarian disasters of the 20^th century: the catastrophic accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The attention is focused on the portraiture of the soviet man – of the heroes of the event, who survived the catastrophe but have been left without any help from the institutions and people they had relied on: the government and the country. The book provides the testimony of the witnesses: in this polyphonic form Alexievich lets them speak for themselves. The victims of the disaster have paid the highest price: they have lost everything – their lives, their relatives and hopes for the future.