The Bulgarian Chernobyl

An Archaeology of Moral Bankruptcy

Author: Dimitar Vatsov

Institute for Studies of the Recent Past, New Bulgarian University and Ciela Publishing House

Sofia 2026

ISBN: 978-954-28-5414-2

CONTENTS:

Chapter One: The UBO – The “Top Achievers” after Chernobyl

1. The UBO in the fi rst days after the accident (26 April – 3 May 1986)
2. The special radiology laboratory of the UBO
3. Gen. Kashev’s order (4 May 1986)
4. The racism of the nomenklatura: the UBO treats its livestock
   better than the state treats the Bulgarian population

Chapter Two: The State and the Measures for the Population. The Expert Commission

1. When and how did state institutions take action? The creation of a system for radiation control and countermeasures under the auspices of the PPK (29 April – 5 May 1986)
2. The work and battles of the Expert Commission (May – June 1986)
   2.1 Food safety standards and measures for their implementation (May 1986)
   2.2 The information blackout (May 1986)
   2.3 Hygiene measures and powdered milk (May 1986)
   2.4 The sad end of the Expert Commission (24 May – 4 July 1986)

Chapter Three: Who Is Actually Managing the Crisis? The Standing Governmental Commission (PPK)

1. Information from the PPK to the district people’s councils, or about the “primitive means of a drum” (May – June 1986)
2. The PPK, or what is emergency governance in mature socialism? (May 1986 – June 1987)
3. Grigor Stoichkov and his late “battle” with the military. Peasant honour and Führer power (April – June 1987)
4. But where is the Politburo? Lying low and biding its time (May – June 1986)

Chapter Four: The Musketeers and the Hot Particles of Freedom

1. The three musketeers
2. The first days: detecting radiation on the staircase or under the car fender (30 April – 6 May 1986)
3. Hot particles – what are they?
4. The first protective measures in the army (6 – 14 May 1986)
5. Let’s ban hot particles! (11 May 1986, conference at Sofi a University)
6. The cardinal’s guards: a scientifi c battle with “fresh human corpses” (May 1986 – June 1987)

Chapter Five: The Musketeers’ Secret Missions

1. Diplomatic mission “Moscow”. What will Soviet scientists say? (2 – 5 June 1986)
2. Spy mission “Balkans”. Scientists undercover as tourists (mid-June 1986)
3. What does Todor Zhivkov know about the missions?

Chapter Six: Four Detective Riddles

1. Who sent 41,000 to run “for health” in a mass marathon? (18 May 1986)
2. Who sent some 450,000 children to seaside summer camps? (1 June – 15 September 1986)
3. Who sent 365,000 youth brigade members to work in the fi elds? (May – October 1986)
   3.1 General administrative orders and regulations for the youth brigades
   3.2 The rose harvest
   3.3 General statistics
   3.4 The secret survey of Komsomol members of May 1986
4. Who cancelled the radiation protection measures on 24 May 1986?

Chapter Seven: Background to the Second Peak

1. The food control system and food processing methods (1986 – 1987)
2. Discarding and burial
3. Processing into durable products
4. Dilution

Chapter Eight: Three Bizarre Cases

1. The grain problem. Let no one talk about “Bulgarians’ bread”! (May 1986 – June 1987)
2. Shiploads of radioactive lambs sent back by Libya: “From Gaddafi with love!” (May – June 1986)
3. Radioactive herbs. A tea party for the whole nation (from the summer of 1986 to the present)

Chapter Nine: The Musketeers’ Battle against the Second Peak

1. The musketeers sound the alarm! The laboratory scientist as parrhesiast (December 1986)
2. Government plays for time on safety levels (January – April 1987)
3. New measures in the army (1 April 1987)

Chapter Ten: The Last Battles for the Truth

1. Once again, “There is no cause for concern!” according to Shindarov (4 April 1987)
2. “Anti-Shindariad”: the musketeers attack Shindarov with “Certain considerations” (7 April 1987)
3. Silencing techniques (April – May 1987)
4. On the thin lines of moral debilism

Chapter Eleven: The Bulgarian Chernobyl. Summary – What Are the Facts?

1. Summary data on contamination of the country’s territory and foodstuff s
2. Summary data on human contamination and probable health damage
3. And an apocalyptic picture for the finale: radioactivity in brine tanks (23 April 1987)

Conclusion: Moral Debilism – An Exemplary Form of Moral Bankruptcy
(Notes on Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil”)

1. On the similarities and diff erences of “moral debilism” with respect to the legal concepts of “dolus eventualis” and “genocide”
2. On the similarities and diff erences of “moral debilism” with respect to the medical and eugenic concepts of “debile” and “moral imbecile”
3. Moral debilism as a specific type of banality of evil
   3.1 The racism of the nomenklatura
   3.2 The implosion of biopolitics
   3.3 On the “justifi cations” of moral debilism
   3.4 The hybrid nature of the totalitarian regime: the intertwining of patrimonial and bureaucratic power
   3.5 What is moral debilism?

APPENDIX 1: What Is a Phantom? Laboratory Life after Chernobyl and Attempts to Calibrate Power’s Callousness (Interview by Milena Iakimova and Dimitar Vatsov with Lyubomir Minev)

APPENDIX 2: About the Units and Quantities Used in This Book (Atanas Krastanov)

APPENDIX 3: Changes in the Temporary Maximum Permissible Levels for Radionuclides in Food in 1986 and 1987

ARCHIVAL SOURCES – NOTES

THE BULGARIAN CHERNOBYL. AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF MORAL BANKRUPTCY (SUMMARY)

CONTENTS IN ENGLISH