BLACKOUT− and LIGHT+: Chornobyl, Kakhovka and the War on Ukraine’s Land, Water and Light (First Edition)

Description

A blackout is the dark when the power is cut, and the silence when a state decides what people may know. This twelve-week course reads Chornobyl, the Kakhovka dam and the strikes on Ukraine’s grid, and the people who kept the light.

Full description

On 26 April 1986 reactor No. 4 at Chornobyl exploded. The people of Prypiat heard nothing until their evacuation the next afternoon, and on 1 May the Kyiv parade went on as radiation rose. On 6 June 2023 the Kakhovka dam, under Russian occupation, was destroyed, and the flood reached Kherson, Nova Kakhovka and 80 other towns and villages.

This book reads how Ukraine’s land, water and light were taken as a resource: the Donbas dug for an empire, villages drowned for Soviet reservoirs, the silence after Chornobyl, the nuclear plants occupied since 2022, land mined and flooded, and the strikes on the power system every winter since October 2022. Every count carries its source.

The plus word, LIGHT, names what people kept: the liquidators, about 600,000 by incomplete data, who saved others; scientists and journalists who told the truth; repair crews who climbed the pylons after every strike; and communities that opened more than 4,000 Points of Invincibility within two days in November 2022.

Its twelve weeks make one course term, each reading its story on three circles (personal, cultural, structural) and in four times, from before the empire to the future we choose. On River Street the Hrytsenkos of No. 9 keep a well and a paraffin lamp, and the Morozes of No. 7 a grandfather’s miner’s lamp. The families are fictional; every event is documented. We Remember keeps Chornobyl’s workers and first responders, the people of the flood, energy workers, rescuers and deminers. For Every Age has four guides: a children’s story, The Four Lights of No. 9, youth lessons, an evening for 26 April or 14 December, and a teachers’ guide.

It serves courses in social work, history, human rights, environmental studies, public health and Ukrainian studies, and community groups, Saturday schools, families and readers of Ukrainian descent. Corrections and family stories are welcome at sasha@drokacademy.ca.

This is the first edition. Our goal is to find people with lived experience of what it describes, including Crimean Tatar and Lemko readers, survivors, their families and descendants, and their communities, and to review the book with them for accuracy. If you have lived this history, or you find something that is not accurate or something that is missing, please write to sasha@drokacademy.ca. The second edition will carry every correction, and the author is looking for co-authors who will shape it. A Ukrainian edition, ТЕМРЯВА− і СВІТЛО+ (Temriava− i Svitlo+), is planned. We will keep working toward it and are asking people to help with translation and review: write to sasha@drokacademy.ca.

Inside

• Twelve weeks, one for each class of a course term, in four parts: CARE, POWER, the minus word and the plus word
• River Street: one fictional family and the documented history behind every week
• Every week read on three circles (personal, cultural, structural) and in four times: before, what the empire brought, since 1991, the future we choose
• Three readings a week, discussion questions, a research task and key terms
• We Remember: who the filter took, with dated, sourced counts, and where the names are kept
• For Every Age: four guides, for children, youth, a community evening, and teachers and leaders

The author takes no income from this book. Proceeds after production costs support students. The author supports student caregivers and those who stand with Ukraine.

Teaching it? Instructors can request a free review copy, and every student in a course that adopts the book receives it free. Write to sasha@drokacademy.ca.

Author line

Dr. Oleksandr Kondrashov (Sasha) is the founder of DROKACADEMY, a healing and writing space in Kamloops, British Columbia, and a social work educator who currently teaches at Thompson Rivers University. Born in Lviv, Ukraine, and in Canada since 2004, he has taught over 7,000 students across five Canadian universities. DROKACADEMY’s motto guides this series: Love. Care. Share. He was a child in Lviv in April 1986, when the news of the reactor was kept silent, and in Kamloops he has lit candles for Chornobyl on 26 April with the community that stands with Ukraine.