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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
Mini series based on the 1953 defection of Vladimir Petrov, a minor KGB agent at the USSR's Canberra embassy, and the snatching of his wife Eva, by Australian officials, from a Russian-bound plane at Darwin. The mini-series also covers the political fallout from the Royal Commission set up to examine Petrov's claims and ASIO's treatment of the situation.
According to Moran, in his Guide to Australian TV Series,
The Petrov Affair is very much part of a Laborist view of Australian politics in the twentieth century. Important political movements, which might form the dramatic highlights of a conservative history -- such as Menzies' downfall at the hands of Earle Paige, the formation of the Liberal Party, the electoral triumph of 1949 and the Suez crisis -- are instead ignored in favour of a chain of narratives that sets the Labor Party and its leaders, warts and all, on centre stage.
Moran also notes that the Nine Network was cautious in its treatment of the mini-series: 'It lay on the shelf for some time after production and was finally aired without fanfare over two consecutive nights in an out of ratings period.'
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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The Petrov Affair : An Ambivalent Migrant Narrative
2011
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Studies in Australasian Cinema , 24 August vol. 5 no. 2 2011; (p. 121-130) 'Well after the end of the Culture Wars, the televisual representations of The Petrov Affair continue to flourish. `The Petrov Affair' profoundly changed the Australian ideals of modernity and conception of Communism, political espionage and migration in the 1950s. The 1987 miniseries The Petrov Affair (Michael Carson) was released at the height of the 1980s promotion of multiculturalism and the historical miniseries boom. It is not a spy thriller, nor a courtroom drama about the Royal Commission. The Petrov Affair is a delicate character study of the difficulties of deciding to immigrate and the ambivalence that lies at the nexus between modernity and migration. This article seeks to rehabilitate this forgotten docudrama and examine the relationship between modernity, mobility and migration in the cultural production that explored emerging multicultural policies. (Editor's abstract)
-
The Petrov Affair : An Ambivalent Migrant Narrative
2011
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Studies in Australasian Cinema , 24 August vol. 5 no. 2 2011; (p. 121-130) 'Well after the end of the Culture Wars, the televisual representations of The Petrov Affair continue to flourish. `The Petrov Affair' profoundly changed the Australian ideals of modernity and conception of Communism, political espionage and migration in the 1950s. The 1987 miniseries The Petrov Affair (Michael Carson) was released at the height of the 1980s promotion of multiculturalism and the historical miniseries boom. It is not a spy thriller, nor a courtroom drama about the Royal Commission. The Petrov Affair is a delicate character study of the difficulties of deciding to immigrate and the ambivalence that lies at the nexus between modernity and migration. This article seeks to rehabilitate this forgotten docudrama and examine the relationship between modernity, mobility and migration in the cultural production that explored emerging multicultural policies. (Editor's abstract)
- Canberra, Australian Capital Territory,
- Darwin, Darwin area, Northern Territory,
- 1953
