Whether you track backwards in time from the hidden pestilence that is Chernobyl, or forwards from the vengeful terror of Stalin’s collectivisation and anti-nationalist policies, it is an inescapable fact that the Ukraine has had a bloody and awful century. In the winter of 1932-33 alone some four to five million Ukrainians died in the famine caused by Stalin’s brutal agricultural ‘reforms’.

A brief flowering of Ukrainian national culture in the 1920s paralleled a period of Jewish freedom following the Bolshevik revolution, with terrible consequences; the pre-revolution anti-Semitism of the Ukraine found new vigour in the 1930s, as the bitterness caused by Stalin’s policies was focused by the Ukrainians on the Jewish Bolsheviks who held positions of authority in the new regime. It is not surprising that Hitler’s invading armies were at first welcomed by Ukrainians as liberators, and Nazi anti-Semitism found many sympathisers in this brutalised nation.

Some fifty years later the ugly history of the Second World War in the Ukraine became the stuff of daily news presented to a largely bemused Australia, when several old men of Ukrainian descent were charged here with war crimes, and one case in particular – that of Ivan Polyukhovich – was brought to trial in Adelaide.

Helen Demidenko has written The Hand That Signed the Paper as a fictionalised account of the life of a Ukrainian man thus charged. The book is written from the point of view of the man’s niece, who interviews family members and records their view of the events that took place. We are, then, as readers, given the opportunity to act as the jury for a case that is ultimately not brought to trial, because of the poor health of the defendant.

‘Years ago we threw the old didacticism (dowdy morality) out of the window; it has come back in at the door wearing modern dress (smart values) and we do not even recognise it.’ John Rowe Townsend’s words, from more than a quarter of a century ago, retain a fresh ring of truthfulness. I recalled them after reading The Girl with No Name (Puffin, $8.95 pb), Pat Lowe’s first novel for children.

The story, about a white boy’s encounter with an Aboriginal girl, is clad in such confident ‘modern dress’ that its didacticism may well escape the notice of adults whose interest is in keeping pace with fashion. Alert children of independent thought, however, may resent its underlying self-righteousness and be unimpressed by its ‘superior adult’ tone. There is indeed an enormous gulf of understanding between white and black Australians and books can help bridge it. To succeed, however, they need to be sufficiently subtly composed to convey their purpose without sledge-hammered interpolations designed to ensure that readers won’t escape reaching the intended conclusions.

The title of this book has a faint dash of Ouida, but actually it signifies not a dashing cavalry regiment but the officiers bleus of the French navy under the Ancien Regime, who were not of the nobility and so socially inferior to their aristocratic colleagues, though often (or usually) superior as seamen. Duyker has written a good businesslike account of a remarkable career. The book is very well presented, with genealogies, bibliography and glossary, many plates (some in colour), and above all plenty of maps. An appendix by Rex Nan Kivell recounts his rescue, in the confusion at Calais when the German’s were overrunning France in 1940, of the painting of Marion’s death. He rolled up the canvas and stuffed it down his trouser leg, doubtless walking rather stiffly. A wry footnote to history.

Feminism is one of the great, enduring intellectual movements of the twentieth century. This collection of essays, mainly by academics, examines how that movement has advanced to date and where it appears to be headed.

Australian women have been attending international conferences on feminism since the 1890s when their high international profile was at odds with their lack of parliamentary representation at home. Women in South Australia gained the vote in 1894, but it was 1943 before Enid Lyons was returned to Parliament. When, after the Second World War, British and American women were rewarded with the vote, Australian women were already enfranchised, so for them there was no reward.