Chernobyl: Fact vs Fiction in “The Happiness of All Mankind”

CAUTION: This post contains SPOILERS for Chernobyl through Episode 4. If you need to be inspired to start watching, I’d start here.

Chernobyl, at its core, is a docudrama about the importance of truth, and how it can differ from he prevailing narrative. The lengths to which the Soviets go to prevent their own humiliation endangers countless lives, and hinders those who sincerely want to help address one of the most complex disasters in human history: the catastrophic nuclear accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on April 26, 1986.

We sympathize with the characters as they weigh the enormous costs of their decisions, decisions thrust upon them by the incompetent people who caused the situation as well as those who refuse to shine light on it. At the time, the Soviet officials involved were more concerned with convincing the world of their nation’s superiority as a nuclear power than saving the lives of those affected by the accident. This is why the “joker” robot is not equipped to deal with the radiation; the Soviets are too prideful to admit to the East Germans just how bad it is.

With the show putting such emphasis on the importance of truth, I thought it would be useful to point out where it departs from the truth itself. Each week, creator Craig Mazin hops on Chernobyl Podcast to address the show’s historical discrepancies. They are few and far between, but they’re there.

By and large, Chernobyl does a terrific job of being historically accurate, right down the smallest of details. For example, the banner reading “For the happiness of all mankind” in this latest episode is taken from an eyewitness account. The speeches by General Tarakanov (Ralph Ineson) are reproduced word for word based on the testimonies of the men who braved the rubble on the roof. Even Legasov (Jared Harris) using the term “biorobots” to justify the need for man power in highly radioactive areas is taken from history.

The specificity is what gives this miniseries its authority. There are, however, a couple points where the episode departs from reality for the sake of storytelling convention or convenience. One involves Pavel (Barry Keoghan). The task he is sent on is real — men were conscripted to hunt down the house pets and other irradiated animals of the exclusion zone — but Pavel is not a real person. He is meant to be a proxy, partly for we the viewers, but mostly for the thousands of innocent young men thrown into this meat-grinder. The orders and scenarios were real, taken directly from testimony of men similar to Pavel’s companions, accurate down to the brutality of what I can only describe as “the puppy scene.” Mazin figured these events would be more palpable if we could experience them through someone like Pavel.

The only other major departure this episode comes in the form of another proxy. Doctor Khomyuk (Emily Watson) is also not real, as revealed in the first episode of the podcast, but is rather a distillation of the hundreds of scientists dedicated to solving the mysteries of the meltdown. So no, a single doctor did not decipher the classified documents revealing the flaw in the reactors. This was simply a dramatic device used to communicate a key piece of information to the audience: that this was preventable. Major technical glitches in their RBMK reactors were not only left unfixed, but these potential issues were not even brought to the attention of the engineers. Instead, they were classified as state secrets, and the reactors were allowed to keep firing, all so Soviet Russia could maintain its indomitable image on the world stage.

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As the miniseries holds accountable those who distorted the truth, I will continue to point out those departures in the script that seem worth noting. After the suffering caused by the withholding of information, the reality is what we deserve.

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