Chernobyl|Chornobyl
as the world once knew it
This is how the world sees Chernobyl.
This is what the world knows.
We know it as a monument to disaster.
A place out of time.
Forlorn.
Dangerous.
Strange.
But it has not always been this way.
Chernobyl has existed since the 12th century. Khans, kings, grand princes, hetmen, tsars, and commissars have fought over the land. The area surrounding the town is thick with burial mounds - markers of the glories and tragedies of the past.
But to see Chernobyl as a site of death and isolation is to see it from only one angle.
Chernobyl is not what it was. But its story did not begin in 1986. It began in 1193.
For nine centuries it has held its ground.
For nine centuries it has had a place on the map of Europe.
In celebration of the idea of change, here are five views of Chernobyl.
Five ways of seeing the past.
Five maps made before April 26, 1986.
Before it changed (again) forever.
Czernobel, 1665
The Map: Basse Volhynie ou Palatinat de Kiow by Nicolas Sanson (Paris, 1665)
This map of Lower Volhynia and the Palatinate of Kiev was made by the father of French cartography (though technically he cribbed it from a Polish-French cartographer who spent years in Ukraine and made the original map).
The Dnieper River flows through the center of the map, with lush forested areas arrayed on either side.
Kyiv, or Kiev, the capital of modern-day Ukraine, is perched on the river south of where it is joined by the Pripyat River.
Do you see it?
There it is: the red splotch inside the red box.
We can get closer.
There it is.
Kiow, Kiovia, Kioff.
Places in this part of the world often have many names. Kiow, Kiovia, Kioff, Kiev, Kyiv. Czernobel, Czarnobel, Chernobyl, Chornobyl. The explanations are rooted in politics, language, and - on maps, anyway - spelling errors. We are using the variations most familiar to English-speakers (Kiev, Chernobyl).
From Kiev, follow the Dnieper north. When the river turns northeast, go northwest along the Pripyat toward Lithuania.
Chernobyl is there.
Well. Czernobel is there.
Do you see it?
Czernobel.
It looks lovely, doesn't it?
Well-placed in a landscape of trees and rivers.
Ready for a brain teaser? Here is the original map by Guillaume de Beauplan (the one Sanson copied).
Detail from Beauplan, Delineato generalis Camporum Desertorum vulgo Ukraina. See the Library of Congress entry here .
Can you figure out what is "wrong" with Beauplan's map?
Hint: Look at the rivers.
Czernobel, 1767
The Map: Le Royaume de Pologne by Robert de Vaugondy (Paris, 1767)
Let's move ahead one hundred years. This map tells us that Czernobel is part of the Kingdom of Poland.
You might want to linger here for a moment: this is a truly beautiful map. Breathe it in.
Now, back to work.
Do you know where to look?
Yes! You were right!
Shall we get closer?
That's better.
There they are: the rivers and trees. Very reassuring. We are in the right place.
The rivers and trees are still there. This is the same region on Open Street Map.
In fact, the forest seems to be creeping in.
Do you see Czernobel?
Yes, it is there, nearly lost in 18th century trees.
If you look closely, you will see that the symbol used to mark its location is unlike the simple circle used to mark "Biela Choka" to the north. Czernobel's circle is flanked by three small squares, like that of Chernigov (Czernigow) to the east.
There is a reason for this. From 1764 through the end of the 18th century, Chernobyl was fortified - the site of a castle guarded by 12 canon and 800 men (including 100 Cossacks). The castle, built in 1500, held within its walls a Dominican monastery, a synagogue, five Jewish schools, and a weekly market.
This is, in many ways, a map of Czernobel in its golden age.
Czarnobyl, 1821
The Map: General map of Kiev Province by the General Staff of the Russian Army (St. Petersburg, 1821)
View of the atlas sheet
Now we find ourselves in the 19th century, with Czarnobyl part of the Russian Empire.
Map title: "General map of Kiev Province"
The trees are gone. Do you miss them?
According to this map, Czarnobyl is no bucolic corner of the Pripyat River.
Here it is something more than a humble village, but something less than a true city. It is a mestechko, or small town.
Check the symbol on the map legend:
Symbols, from top: provincial town, district town, registered town, mestechko (small town), monastery, factory, tavern, village (with a church), village (without a church), post station.
Because this map belongs to a series of sheets that extend from Poland to the Pacific Ocean, we can see Czarnobyl's location within the Russian Empire.
One place among many.
We can see the roads that run through it.
Roads that lead to other roads.
And still more roads.
The roads of an empire.
The map also speaks of boundaries.
We see Czarnobyl there, wedged into the northern corner of the map, with Minsk Province to the north and Chernigov Province to the east.
Czarnobyl, it seems, is on the edge of one thing.
And deeply embedded in something else.
Hemmed in.
One small piece of a vast, complex puzzle.
Chernobyl, 1866
The Map: Provinces of Minsk, Kiev, and Volhynia (partial) (St. Petersburg, 1866)
Chernobyl is in the lower right corner of the topo sheet.
But Chernobyl always had a shape of its own.
Here, in this topographical map, we begin to get a sense of it. According to the map, in 1866 the town had 1,050 households (though another count done at almost the same time listed 835 households).
By 1885 there were 6,493 men and women living here in 618 households, including 2,160 Orthodox, 566 Old Believers, 84 Catholics, and 3,683 Jews).
The inhabitants of Czarnobyl were not farmers. Instead, they worked as fishermen, boatmen, and gardeners. (In fact, they were famous for growing onions, delivering 500 tons downriver to Kiev each year.) Large quantities of tobacco, iron, and timber were regularly exported from the Czarnobyl wharf (along with the onions).
If you can't tell the gardens from the fields by looking at the image on the left, try using the interactive map below:
Chernobyl|Chornobyl · The Imperiia Project
Chornobil, 1920s
The Map: General Map of Ukraine by M. Diachyshyn (Jersey City, 192?)
detail: legend
The thick red line shows the "ethnic boundary" of Ukraine. What do you make of this boundary? How does it compare with the boundaries of modern-day Ukraine?
And is Chernobyl within that thick red line?
It is. It is there, in its familiar place. North of Kiev, west of Chernihiv.
Still a small town.
A place on the edge of something.
A place of its own.
On the map.
Here's to Chernobyl...
(Czernobel, Czarnobyl, Chernobyl, Chornobil, Chornobyl)
...past, present, and future.
Image Credits
Space Radar Image of Chernobyl; NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 1 May 1999 ( image link )
Derelict Basketball Court - Pripyat Ghost Town - Chernobyl Exclusion Zone - Northern Ukraine; photo by Adam Jones, 18 May 2016 ( image link ).
Surface ground deposition of caesium-137 released in the Chernobyl accident; map by United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, September 2008 ( image link ).
Monument and reactor 4 in Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, Ukraine; By Tiia Monto, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28070976
Street signs for all towns and cities that were evacuated after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, collected in Chernobyl town, Ukraine; ArticCynda - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=83604087
Interior of abandoned apartment building in Chernobyl; George Chernilevsky - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=80312717
A bleached radiation warning sign in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, Ukraine October 2019; ArcticCynda: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chernobyl_radiation_warning_sign.jpg
Pripyat River in Chernobyl. Abandoned shipwreck after the 1986 nuclear accident ; George Chernilevsky - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=81663354
Reactor 4, Chernobyl Power Plant; Pawel Szubert, 24 May 2013 ( image link )
Map Credits
Basse Volhynie, ou palatinat de Kiow (1665): Click here to access the Harvard Library catalog entry. Even better, to explore a high resolution version of the map at Harvard Library, click here.
Le Royaume de Pologne (1767): Click here to access the Harvard Library catalog entry. To explore a high resolution version of the map at Harvard Library, click here.
General'naia karta Kievskoi gubernii by Vasilii Petrovich Piadyshev (Military-topographical Depo of the General Staff of the Russian Army) (St. Petersburg, 1821): Click here for full description . Even better, to explore a high resolution version of the full atlas in the David Rumsey Historical Maps collection, click here .
g. Minskoi, Kievskoi, i Volynskoi [Voenno-topograficheskaia karta Evropeiskoi Rossii, riad XX, list 8]. Military-topographical department of the General Staff of the Russian Army (St. Petersburg, 1866). If you are a Russian speaker, you can find the topo sheets on website of the Russian Geographical Society .
Zahal'na karta Ukrainy (192?): Click here to access the Harvard Library catalog entry. Even better, to explore a high resolution version of the map at Harvard Library, click here .
