HBO Series Chernobyl Was Filmed Based On Svetlana Alexievich's Book

The plot line with firefighter Vasil Ihnatsenka is taken completely from the book of the Belarusian writer.

Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich informed Radio Svaboda that she gave her consent to use her novel Chernobyl Prayer for the HBO series Chernobyl. According to her, a contract was signed.

The plot line with firefighter Vasil Ihnatsenka is taken completely from Svetlana Alexievich's book. Ihnatsenka, played by actor Adam Nagaitis, was among the first to arrive to extinguish the fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant's fourth unit. As a result, he received a lethal radiation dose and painfully died in Moscow in a couple of weeks.

The story of Ihnatsenka is one of the parts of the series that pulls at the heartstrings. Svetlana Alexievich wrote it basing on long conversations with his wife Ihnatsenka Liudmila (actress Jesse Buckley).

Svetlana Alexievich herself, who is now in Lisbon, hasn't seen the film yet, but she really wants to watch it. She plans to do so if she returns to Belarus in the near future. The Nobel Prize winner promised to share her impressions with journalists.

Meanwhile, the Czech edition of Lidovky.cz published an article about the series Chernobyl and made an assumption about the fictional character of Uliana Khomiuk: "It is possible that the creators of the series thus compliment the writer Alexievich, because Khomiuk is somewhat similar to her and also was born in Belarus."

American-British mini-series Chernobyl tells about the largest man-made disaster of the XX century – the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.