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y separately published work icon The Hand that Signed the Paper single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 1994... 1994 The Hand that Signed the Paper
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'The brothers Kovalenko...did not kill Jews just because they were poor and Ukrainian, and did not know any better. They killed Jews because they believed that they themselves were savages.'

'The Hand that Signed the Paper tells the story of Vitaly, a Ukrainian peasant, who endures the destruction of his village and family by Stalin's communism. He welcomes the Nazi invasion in 1941 and willingly enlists in the SS Death Squads to take a horrifying revenge against those he perceives to be his persecutors.

'This remarkable novel, a shocking story of the hatred that gives evil life, is also an eloquent plea for peace and justice.' (Publication summary)

Exhibitions

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • St Leonards, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Allen and Unwin , 1994 .
      image of person or book cover 4534512141969334698.png
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: viii, 157 p.p.
      Description: port.
      Written as: Helen Demidenko
      Note/s:
      • Published September 1995
      ISBN: 1863736549 (pbk.)
      Series: y separately published work icon Allen and Unwin Original Fiction Allen and Unwin (publisher), Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 1990 7513778 1990 series - publisher
    • St Leonards, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Allen and Unwin , 1995 .
      image of person or book cover 3628332163899582066.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: viii, 157 p.p.
      ISBN: 1864480181 (pbk.)
    • Balmain, Glebe - Leichhardt - Balmain area, Sydney Inner West, Sydney, New South Wales,: Ligature , 2017 .
      image of person or book cover 4335423982349785811.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 1v.p.
      Written as: Helen Dale
      Note/s:
      • Published 21 April 2017.
      • The cover lists the author as 'Helen Dale', with the names 'Darville' and 'Demidenko' visible as shadows behind the main name.
      ISBN: 0994384076, 9780994384072
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Untapped , 2021 .
      image of person or book cover 18342761978906341.png
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 1v.p.
      Written as: Helen Dale
      ISBN: 9781922730367

Works about this Work

Editorial [Aurealis : Australian Fantasy and Science Fiction no.16, December 1996] Dirk Strasser , single work criticism
Unreliable Narrators Kylie Maslen , 2018 single work column
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , June 2018;

'Recent scandals in Australian non-fiction have highlighted publishers’ responsibilities not only to their readers but to their authors’ subjects. But is a failure of fact-checking solely to blame? Or are there further hidden risks in the way these revelations are reported?' (Introduction)

The Culture Wars in the Demidenko Affair Wang Labao , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: A History of Australian Literary Criticism 2016; (p. 438-449)
Reshaping the Holocaust : Australian Fiction, an Australian Past, and the Reconfiguration of 'Traditional' Holocaust Narratives Kirril Shields , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Holocaust Studies : A Journal of Culture and History , vol. 22 no. 1 2016; (p. 65-83)

'This article argues that some Australian fiction promotes a unique stance in regards to the Holocaust and the Third Reich. Reading Helen Demidenko/Darville's The Hand that Signed the Paper and James McQueen's White Light, I show that a cultural naivety exists in Australia, forged due to historical and cultural influences played out since the Second World War. These factors have influenced the country's memorialization of, and responses to, the Holocaust and the period's ensuing after-effects, as exampled in these two pieces of Australian fiction.'

Source: Abstract.

Teaching Australian Multicultural Literature Wenche Ommundsen , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Teaching Australian and New Zealand Literature 2016; (p. 77-86)

'Multiculturalism, introduced in Australia after the Whitlam Labor Government came to power in 1972, represented a significant shift in government policy. The White Australia policy, introduced on federation in 1901, had effectively barred non-white immigration for the last seventy years of the young nation’s history, and twenty-three years of unbroken conservative rule ensured that the nation retained its cultural identity as British, despite the large numbers of non-British and non-English speaking migrants who arrived after the Second World War. Multiculturalism, initially a policy framework focusing on issues of social justice affecting Australia’s postwar migrant communities, gradually entered other fields, and the 1980s saw vigorous debates about its place in the area of cultural production. In recent decades, the Australian nation has become increasingly diverse both ethnically and linguistically, but we have also seen a backlash against the policy of multiculturalism in some segments of the population. Multicultural literature, generally defined as writing by Australian writers of non-indigenous, ethnic minority background, has often found itself at the center of heated debates about cultural and literary legitimacy, debates that inevitably have affected how literature is studied and taught in Australian schools and universities. Ironically, the very fact that this writing has come to embody so many of the tensions and contradictions in contemporary Australian culture makes it an ideal teaching tool : as a reflection of social and cultural relations, as a catalyst for discussion of how cultural production is framed and received, as a lightning rod for paradoxes surrounding writing from cultural minorities in national and global contexts.’ (Introduction)

Two Sides to the Story : For Cameron Woodhead , 2003 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 13-14 December 2003; (p. 14)

— Review of The Hand that Signed the Paper Helen Demidenko , 1994 single work novel
Two Sides to the Story : Against Nicola Robinson , 2003 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 13-14 December 2003; (p. 14)

— Review of The Hand that Signed the Paper Helen Demidenko , 1994 single work novel
Assassins of Memory Peter Christoff , 1995 single work review
— Appears in: Arena Magazine , August/September no. 18 1995; (p. 44-48)

— Review of The Hand that Signed the Paper Helen Demidenko , 1994 single work novel
Back in the USSR John Hughes , 1994 single work review
— Appears in: Meanjin , Summer vol. 53 no. 4 1994; (p. 765-767)

— Review of The Hand that Signed the Paper Helen Demidenko , 1994 single work novel
Courageous Writing Frank O'Shea , 1994 single work review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 27 August 1994; (p. wkd 6)

— Review of The Hand that Signed the Paper Helen Demidenko , 1994 single work novel
The Demidenko Affair and Contemporary Holocaust Fiction Sue Vice , 2000 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Holocaust and the Text : Speaking the Unspeakable 2000; (p. 125-141)
Tautological Modernity : Democracy, Magic and Racism in the Demidenko-Darville Affair Suneeta Peres da Costa , 2002 single work criticism
— Appears in: Cultural Studies Review , May vol. 8 no. 1 2002; (p. 72-92)
Jews and Forgiveness David van Gend , 1996 single work correspondence
— Appears in: Quadrant , October vol. 40 no. 10 1996; (p. 4-5)
Untitled B. J. Wright , 1996 single work correspondence
— Appears in: Quadrant , October vol. 40 no. 10 1996; (p. 5-6)
The Fabrication of Ukrainian-Australian Identity by Helen Darville Sonia Mycak , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Complicities : Connections and Divisions : Perspectives on Literatures and Cultures of the Asia-Pacific Region 2003; (p. 215-222)
Discusses Darville's literary hoax in the context of Ukrainian-Australian writers and writing.
Last amended 6 Dec 2021 15:35:35
Settings:
  • c
    Poland,
    c
    Eastern Europe, Europe,
  • c
    Ukraine,
    c
    c
    Former Soviet Union,
    c
    Eastern Europe, Europe,
  • 1939-1945
  • 1940s
  • 1990s
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