E-resource Trial Access: The Chernobyl Files : Declassified Documents of the Ukrainian KGB

Trial access is now available to the e-resource The Chernobyl Files: Declassified Documents of the Ukrainian KGB at the following link:

https://ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/login?url=https://dlib.eastview.com/browse/publication/72290

The trial will run through to 1 November 2019.

We want to know what you think about this e-resource and how it permanent access to it might be useful to you in the future.   Please provide your thoughts using the feedback form here:

https://www.libraries.cam.ac.uk/e-resource-trials-feedback-form

Here is East View’s description of ‘The Chernobyl Files’:

“The collection contains reports prepared for and by a variety of Soviet and Ukrainian government agencies, such as the KGB, documenting and detailing the most important developments in the wake of [the explosion of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on April 26, 1986 in the Ukrainian city of Pryp’iat’], but also internal reports and investigations on the its various causes. These include the problems with the design of the NPP, and the extent of the Soviet and Ukrainian government knowledge on many of the shortcomings that made the Chernobyl meltdown not only possible but in a sense inevitable.

“Some of the most fascinating items from the collection are internal reports, communiques, and correspondences between various heads of local and regional KGB officials long before the tragedy. Some reports going as far back as the beginning phase of the construction of the plant provide solid documentary evidence of criminal neglect in the building process, the unwillingness of the authorities to address the issues raised by the KGB and its vast network of informants, and the subsequent attempts at cover-up. One such report provides a painstakingly detailed description of the use of subpar building materials offering up a particularly spectacular microcosm of corruption, theft, and neglect that underlined Soviet central planning.

“The collection also contains documents relating to the less known September 9, 1982 partial meltdown of the reactor Block no. 1, the subsequent mishandling of which was perhaps the first indication of the inevitability of the 1986 accident. All in all, the collection contains materials going as far back as 1971 and up to 1991 offering a unique window into the entire spectrum of the secret information circulating within the Soviet and Ukrainian governmental structures.”

Documents in the database are in Ukrainian and/or Russian.

The so called New Safe Confinement colloquially known as the second sarcophagus in 2018.  Wikimedia Commons.