In earlier works, Russian-born historian Elena Govor has written of changing Russian perceptions of Australia between 1770 and 1919 and – in My Dark Brother (2000) – of a Russian-Aboriginal family. In her latest book, Russian Anzacs in Australian History, the canvas is broader. She investigates the third largest national group (after the British and Irish) to enlist in the First AIF. Her indefatigable and imaginative research has taken her on a ‘quest for the thousand Russian Anzacs’ who comprised ‘a virtual battalion’. More exactly, they amounted to one in every four male Russians who were in Australia at the outbreak of the Great War.
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