International Conference on the 40th Anniversary of the Chernobyl Disaster
The Radioactive Decay of the Iron Curtain: Re-Examination of the Chernobyl Catastrophe in Comparative Perspective
Date: 17-18 April 2026
Venue: New Bulgarian University, Sofia (University Library “Prof. Bogdan Bogdanov”)
“Montevideo” Str. No. 21, 1618 Sofia
17 April (Friday) 2026
09:00 – 09:30 Registration
09:30 – 10:00 Opening: Prof. Vesselin Metodiev, President of the NBU Board of Trustees;
Greetings: Dr. Julian Popov, Minister of Environment and Water, Her Excellency Ukrainian Ambassador in Sofia Mrs. Olesia Ilashchuk, Dr. Norbert Beckmann-Dierkes, Head of the “Konrad Adenauer” Foundation in Bulgaria
First panel: Chernobyl – Sudden or Time Bomb Explosion?
Moderator: Hristo Todorov
10:00 – 11:00
- Dimitar Vatsov (New Bulgarian University): After Chernobyl: The Moral Bankruptcy of Bulgarian State Socialism
- Jose Tapia (Drexel University): The Chernobyl Disaster and the Mortality Crisis in Eastern Europe and the former USSR
11:00 – 11:30 Discussion
11:30 – 11:45 Coffee break
Second panel Information and Secrecy
Moderator: Hristo Gyoshev
11:45 – 13:00
- Momchil Metodiev (New Bulgarian University): The Role of Bulgarian State Security in the Decision-Making Process
- Tymur Lavrenchuk (Sectoral State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine): How the KGB, Stasi, and BND Framed the Chernobyl Disaster
- Tomasz Lewandowski (University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Poznan): State Secrecy and Positive Obligations: Articles 2 and 8 ECHR as a Legal Framework for Environmental Transparency
- Stoyko Petkov (New Bulgarian University): Official Media Outlets and Chernobyl in Bulgaria – Between Secrecy and Misinformation
13:15 – 13:45 Discussion
13:45 – 15:00 Lunch break
Third panel: The Return of Chernobyl
Moderator: Dimitar Vatsov
15:00 – 15:30: Keynote speaker: Serhii Plokhy (University of Harvard): The Return of Chornobyl: Atoms for Peace at the Time of War
15:30 – 16:00 Sergii Mirnyi (Chornobyl liquidator and Ukrainian intellectual): Chornobyl: Survive, Understand, Narrate, Overcome
16:00 – 16:30 Discussion
16:30 – 16:45 Coffee break
16:45 – 18:15 Film screening: Chronicles of the Inconvenient Truth, presented by its creators Atanas Krastanov and Kaloyan Nikolov
18:15 – 18:45 Book launch: Dimitar Vatsov „The Bulgarian Chernobyl: Archaeology of Moral Bankruptcy”
18:45 – 19:00 Discussion
18 April (Saturday) 2026
Fourth panel: Handling “Chernobyls”
Moderator: Jose Tapia
09:30 – 10:30
- Dimiter Sht. Dimov (New Bulgarian University): The Chernobyl Disaster as a Tipping Point: Ecological Governance of Communist Bulgaria
- Angela Liberatore (European University Institute): Learning from Chernobyl? International Handing of Nuclear Risks during Peace and War
- Jim F. Malone (Trinity College Dublin): Accountability in the Radiation Regulatory System during the Century and the Ground for a New Chernobyl
10:30 – 11:00 Discussion
11:00 – 11:15 Coffee break
Fifth panel: Chernobyl Diffusion in Society
Moderator: Metodi Metodiev
11:15 – 12:55
- Dalma Boldog (Budapest University of Economics and Business): Chernobyl and the Hungarian Media
- Emrullah Ecer (University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Wrocław, Poland): State and Society Reactions to the News of the Chernobyl Explosion: Reconstruction of Institutional Chains of Command and the History of (Mis)Management
- Stamen Kanev (Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies and Ethnographic Museum of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences): After the Radiation: Chernobyl and Bulgarian Society
- Lucrezia Cinella (University of Macerata): Catastrophe and Normalised Risk. Youth Perceptions between Chernobyl and ILVA
- Tsvetomira Antonova (New Bulgarian University): Teaching Chernobyl in History Classes: Between Facts, Propaganda and Memory
12:55 – 13:25 Discussion
13:25 – 14:30 Lunch break
Sixth panel: How do we tell Chernobyl?
Moderator: Momchil Metodiev
14:30 – 15:50
- Dina Iordanova (University of St. Andrews): Accident at Chernobyl – the Early Films
- Philine Bickhardt (University of Zurich): Narrating Chornobyl in Documentary Aesthetic Practices: Svetlana Alexievich between Soviet Memory and Postcolonial Reinterpretation
- Petia Alexandrova (New Bulgarian University): The Absence of the Chernobyl Accident in Bulgarian Documentary Cinema until 1989
- Moris Fadel (New Bulgarian University): Disaster and Ideology: Venko Markovski’s Poem “Chernobyl”
15:50 – 16:20 Discussion
16:20 – 16:30 Coffee break
16:30 – 18:00
Students Workshop: a hands-on creative workshop designed for MA students in creative writing, journalism, scriptwriting, media studies, and marketing from within the ERUA network and beyond. Guided by 2–3 experienced tutors, participating students observe selected conference panels and work collaboratively on scripts, storyboards, or short media concepts that translate the scholarly debates on Chernobyl’s political, social, and ecological legacy into accessible narrative and visual forms.
(Funded by ERUA)