Wladimir Sergeevich Tchertkoff began his career as a documentary-maker rather than a professional writer, although he felt a keen sense of envy and admiration about great works of literature from his childhood onwards.A child of the first wave of emigration from Russia, Tchertkoff was born in 1935 in the former Yugoslavia, the country to which his maternal grandfather, Mikhail Vladimirovich Rodzianko (the Chairman of the last State Duma), emigrated with his family in 1920.At the end of the Second World War the Tchertkoffs moved to France and settled in the outskirts of Paris. The ten-year-old Wladimir was in luck: he was given a free place at the Boarding School of St Georgy, known as the 'Russian school of the Jesuit fathers', which, in the days of the civil war, had been a sanctuary for hundreds of Russian children, including a number of orphans who had been taken to safety; it helped them to avoid forgetting their mother tongue, gave them an education and set them on their way in life. The Boarding School had reception classes, and all subjects were taught predominantly in Russian, including history, geography and divinity. One of the school's mottos was: "Since you're Russian, speak in Russian!"Wladimir received French schooling in addition to his Russian education, and then obtained a classical education at the Sorbonne. One of the statements made by the director of the Boarding School, which seemed to him to be barely credible at the time, was to stay with him throughout his life: "Your mission is to serve as a link between East and West."In the early '60s W. Tchertkoff moved to Italy, where he got married and acquired Italian citizenship. This was a turning point in his life. His relationships with the Russian emigr� community and with the Russian language were put on hold for three whole decades.Over the course of more than 30 years of collaboration with the Italian TV company RAI, then with the Italian-language Swiss TV channel TSI in the southern canton of Tessin, Tchertkoff produced more than 70 investigative films, taking a particular interest in describing and analysing power struggles in society. He little knew, at the time, that his chosen craft would later serve as an unusual tool for the writing of a work of investigative literature exposing the criminal policies of the nuclear lobby, which represented a threat to the very existence of life on Earth.His first collaboration with RAI was the film 'The Autumn Drive' (La spinta dell'autunno) - a film which told the story, in five episodes, of Italy's Hot Autumn of 1969, when, for three months, five million Italian workers fought back against the outdated Fascist customs of the Confederation of industrialists. The unique experience of capturing a time of great social upheaval, which had engulfed the whole country within just three months, on his video camera, gave the young film-maker an insight into academic and investigative work which brought a touch of magic to his films.
"Wladimir Tchertkoff offers many startling insights into one of the worst nuclear disasters of the late twentieth century. This book provides useful information not only for historians, but also for scientists in many fields. Politicians, along with experts in human rights, emergency preparedness, disaster management, civil defence, and risk communication, could also learn valuable lessons about the tragedy of 1986 from this book." Alexander Belyakov, Canadian Slavonic Papers/Revue Canadienne Des Slavistes
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