Voices in the Wilderness

Between 1912 and 1919 seven weekly Russian newspapers were published in Australia. Today they are little known and the small community which produced them is largely forgotten. These newspapers show us a body of immigrants struggling to establish themselves in what some had viewed as a 'working man's paradise'. Educated radicals and newly literate workers of various political persuasions expressed their opinions, along with representatives of the Russian Empire's different ethnic groups, feeling increasingly that they were 'voices crying in the wilderness'. The rich material presented in this digest is an unrivalled source of information on Russian settlement in Australia and the broader social history at a critical historical moment.