Portrayal of Real People

Lore & Background

The sharpest criticism came from Oleksiy Breus, a former engineer of the plant. In his view Viktor Bryukhanov, Nikolai Fomin and Anatoly Dyatlov appear in the series distorted and misrepresented, as if they were villains. Several reviews made a wider point, finding the moral divide too stark: heroic scientists on one side, villainous officials on the other.

The threats of execution heard in the series were also questioned. Masha Gessen, a journalist, wrote that executions on the orders of a single official had not been a feature of Soviet life since the nineteen-thirties. Adam Higginbotham was more positive and thought the unconcerned attitude of the central government had been shown accurately.

Reader's Guide

Lyudmilla Ignatenko, whose story the series tells, said in 2019 that she suffered harassment and criticism when it aired and that reporters hounded her at her home in Kyiv. She said she had never given permission for her story to be used. The producers reject this, saying that they had exchanges with her before, during and after filming and that she never expressed a wish to be left out.

The main written source of the series has its own caveat. The book Voices from Chernobyl records the recollections of Pripyat locals, but researchers have documented that its author inserted her own words into testimonies and revised interviews from one edition to the next, so it should not be read as verbatim oral history.

Did You Know?

• Ulana Khomyuk is a composite of the many scientists who investigated the accident.
• The series did not cast any American actors.
• The actors used their natural accents.