Beyond the red shoe: Searching for Mrs Petrov

A fictionalised account of the Petrov Affair begins with its most famous incident.This occurred on the tarmac of Sydney's Mascot airport on 19 April 1954: Evdokia knew this crowd was here for her.They were hunting her.They were here to prevent her escaping through the terminal, onto the plane … Her escorts had revolvers in their jackets.If it was Moscow's instruction, they'd do away with her here … She could not believe it, the number of people, the lights, the shadows … Evdokia wanted to stop.She wanted to stop and turn and run.Zharkov at her elbow, insisting otherwise … The crowd thought the men were dragging her, pushing her, physically compelling her to move.They swept towards them, shouting, appealing. 1This retelling barely approximates what happened on that dramatic evening.Certainly, the iconic photograph (see Figure 1) capturing a vulnerable and anguished woman, missing one shoe, being escorted by burly Soviet couriers towards the Moscowbound plane, has entered our historical memory.But, as to be expected, there is a disjuncture between historical imagination and the archival record. 2 The drama of this event overshadows the complexity of negotiations and tactics used when the plane reached Darwin.The truth of what happened then, behind the scenes, is still opaque.A similar issue lies at the heart of our search for the truth about Evdokia Petrov.We began with the intention of a conventional biographical portrait-one that extended, but was still consistent with, previous studies.Instead, what we discovered was that, in investigating the dialogue between truth and illusion, we entered a world of deception and dissembling from which we emerged more uncertain than ever.This article, then, is an exercise in biography as frustration.In part it is an exploration of what is known about Evdokia.In tracing her history through her own words, through Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), government and newspaper reports, through oral history and through secondary studies, we highlight the ways in which elements of her story unravel.We argue that there can be no certainty in its retelling.Evdokia Petrov's words and her portrayal by contemporaries demonstrate that any attempt at biography is plagued by ambiguity.