Lecture—"Chornobyl Madonna: Catastrophe and Hope in Ukraine and the Collapse of the Soviet Union"
Friday, September 26, 2025 3:30–4:30 PM
- Location
- DescriptionThe Chornobyl nuclear catastrophe of April 1986 shook the world. Its radioactive plumes defied borders and sowed fear across Europe. Yet in Soviet Ukraine, Chornobyl became more than a chilling site of ecological and human trauma: it resounded as a clarion call that galvanized new currents of resistance against the Kremlin. A figure long cast out of Soviet society emerged in Ukrainian culture to symbolise this union of hope and despair: the Madonna.
Join Rory Finnin, professor of Ukrainian studies at the University of Cambridge and visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame during the 2025-26 academic year, to explore the immediate aftermath of the Chornobyl disaster in searing works of Ukrainian documentary film, poetry, and prose. He will show how Marian imagery invigorated a political movement for Ukraine’s independence and liberty — a movement that played a decisive role in the collapse of the Soviet empire and resonates in Ukraine’s defence against Russian aggression today.
This event is open to Notre Dame students, faculty, staff, and visiting scholars. A short reception will follow.
About the Speaker
Rory Finnin
Rory Finnin is professor of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Cambridge. He established the Cambridge Ukrainian Studies program in 2008.
Finnin has curated and organized over 40 exhibitions and cultural events, advancing public understanding of Ukraine’s language, history, and society in the UK and beyond. His research focuses on the interplay between culture and identity in Ukraine, with particular attention to Crimea and Crimean Tatar literature, and his broader interests include nationalism studies, solidarity studies, and cultural memory in the region of the Black Sea. Finnin received his Ph.D. in Slavic languages and comparative literature from Columbia University. He is also a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Ukraine, 1995-97). Finnin has published extensively, and his book, Blood of Others: Stalin’s Crimean Atrocity and the Poetics of Solidarity (University of Toronto Press), has received eight international awards, including the 2024 Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies, administered by the University of Notre Dame’s Nanovic Institute for European Studies. Professor Finnin has also served as head of the Department of Slavonic Studies and chair of the Cambridge Committee for Russian and East European Studies.
Originally published at nanovic.nd.edu. - Websitehttps://events.nd.edu/events/2025/09/26/chornobyl-madonna-catastrophe-and-hope-in-ukraine-and-the-collapse-of-the-soviet-union/