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Accepted Paper:
The disaster of the Kakhovsky Sea on June 6, 2023 and the problems of historical memory
Natalia Kuzovova
(Kherson State University)
On June 6, 2023, Russian troops blew up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant dam. The damage done to the environment in the 1950s was justified by the benefit to society. As a result, it was a tragedy for people and the environment then, and its had a catastrophic consequences now
Paper long abstract:
On June 6, 2023, Russian troops blew up the dam of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant. A few days later, Nova Kakhovka and Kherson were partially flooded, and the Kakhovka reservoir ceased to exist. This tragedy has a geographical and temporal dimension. It unites the people who lost their homes during the construction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant (1951) and the population of the central regions of Ukraine, who were relocated to the arid territories of the South because of the construction of the Dnipro hydro cascade (1954). Both categories of IDPs underwent a new traumatic experience during the hostilities resulting from the Russian invasion of 2022. For a long time, their losses were compensated for by the perception of the social benefit of their sacrifice. However, after the repeated destruction of their homes and the Kakhovka disaster, people who have already had previous traumatic experiences have to rebuild their lives and find new values and meanings. The main issue of the future is not only the liberation of the occupied territories, but also the restoration of life, so Ukrainian society is interested in the question of whether the Kakhovka reservoir will be restored. In addition to the conclusions of economists, geographers, and environmentalists, people's opinions are influenced by their traumatic experiences.
The methodological basis of the work is memory studies.