Focusing on the 2019 HBO mini-series Chernobyl, this study discusses the potential ethical implications of the fictionalization of historical events represented across multiple media platforms to examine the potential impact fictionalization has on what is culturally remembered and what is forgotten. Theoretically, the paper is based on the conceptualization of cultural memory (Assmann 2011; Erll 2011) and the Peircean conceptualization of ethics (Shepperson 2009) applied to a transmedia context (Gambarato and Nanì 2016) to discuss potential ethical implications for and impacts on what is remembered and what is forgotten regarding the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster (Gambarato, Heuman and Lindberg 2022). Methodologically, the paper is structured as a case study underpinned by the multidimensional analytical model developed by Erll (2010), adopted to elucidate how the cultural memory of the mini-series Chernobyl is mediated amid its ethical implications shaped by the blurred boundaries between fact and fiction spread across multiple media platforms. This analytical model involves the intra-medial aspects of how memory is expressed within the representation itself, the inter-medial relations that designate the interplay with other representations of the same historical event, and the pluri-medial contexts in which memory-making representations are received and exert influence, encompassing reception and discussions in diverse media spheres. The research findings indicate that a deeper understanding of historical fiction as a genre has the potential to alleviate the ethical implications of the series, thus enriching the audience interaction and guiding public discussions toward new perspectives. The inherent tension within the genre not only gives rise to ethical considerations for the audience as they navigate the gray area between fact and fiction but also accentuates the compelling nature of Chernobyl as a representation that ingrains memories of the nuclear disaster into the public sphere.

References

Assmann, Jan 2011. Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance, and Political Imagination. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Erll, Astrid 2010. Literature, Film, and the Mediality of Cultural Memory. In: Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning (eds.) A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies. Berlin: De Gruyter, 389–398.

Erll, Astrid 2011. Memory in Culture. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

Gambarato, Renira Rampazzo and Alessandro Nanì 2016. Blurring Boundaries, Transmedia Storytelling and the Ethics of C.S. Peirce. In: Steven Maras (ed.) Ethics in Screenwriting: New Perspectives. London: Palgrave Macmillan,147–175.

Gambarato, R. R., J. Heuman and Y. Lindberg 2022. Streaming media and the dynamics of remembering and forgetting: The Chernobyl case. Memory Studies 15 (2): 271–286.

Shepperson, Arnold 2009. Realism, logic and social communication: C.S. Peirce’s classification of science in communication studies and journalism. Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies 22 (2): 242–294.