Uma catástrofe do tempo: remontagem da História em Vozes de Tchernóbil, de Svetlana Aleksiévitch

Abstract

This dissertation explores the relationship between literary form and the creation of meaning and intelligibility of trauma in collective memory, based on the work of the Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich, particularly in the book Vozes de Tchernóbil. The author employs oral testimonies, narrated directly in the first person, to reconstruct the history of the Soviet Union through individual experiences, contrasting with the State’s totalizing narrative. The dissertation discusses how Alexievich uses literary montage techniques to organize the sequence of testimonies and the structure of her books, thus creating an image of time as multifaceted, anachronistic, and fragmented—opposed to the linear time of positivist historiography. The study also addresses the Chernobyl disaster as a traumatic milestone that redefines the notion of time and collective memory, highlighting the importance of testimony in reconstructing historical events. Furthermore, the dissertation reflects on the fictionalization of history, arguing that historical writing is a narrative construction that employs literary techniques to make sense of past events. In this way, we believe that literary montage in Alexievich’s work is the author’s way of inscribing in collective memory the temporality inherent to remembrance and oral narration. Thus, we conclude that montage in her writing is more than just a technical and stylistic device; it is a way of thinking about History.