Boris Iljuk, Czech Republic
Dr. Boris Iljuk is a Volhynian Czech and at the time of the Chernobyl accident he and many others of this ethnic group lived in an enclave in the Soviet Union, about 100 km away from the Chernobyl power plant. He talked about how he experienced the days of the Chernobyl catastrophe with his interviewer, Vojtech Pojar.
Introduction
Dr. Boris Iljuk is a member of a group of Volhynian Czechs. Their ancestors left the Czech part of the former Austrian Empire in the 1860s and moved to imperial Russia where they hoped to find national and religious tolerance and also a better living. There they inhabited some provinces (Volhynian gub. and the neighbouring ones; i.e. certain areas which are now on Ukrainian ground). It was more than 40 000 people. Through many generations they managed to preserve their language, customs and their national identity.
Because of the unbearable conditions during Stalinism, the decision was made to leave the country and to return back to Czechoslovakia. This massive exodus took place in 1945/6 and was based on a bilateral Czechoslovak-Soviet agreement. But for specific reasons not all Czechs were allowed to leave the country and so there remained thousands of people, who had to spend the following years in the Soviet Ukraine.
The inhabitants of the village of Malá Zubovščina were among those people. They lived about 100 kilometres from the site of the nuclear power plant Chernobyl. The catastrophe, its consequences and the fall of the Iron curtain sparked their desire to attempt again to return to their homeland. After many negotiations with the Czechoslovak and the Soviet (and then Ukrainian) officials, they finally managed to get back to the Czech Republic in 1991/2.
Read the full interview
