Digitised naturalisation (NAA)

Digitised service records (NAA)

Digitised Embarkation roll entry (AWM)

Alien registration (NAA)

Publications

Елена Говор, Белорусские Анзаки. - Białoruskie Zeszyty Historyczne, 2013, no. 40, c. 53-108.

Blog article

Russian

English

Newspaper articles

W. Kallashnikoff, 'A Russian Protest', Daily Mail, Brisbane, 27 August 1918, p. 2; Daily Standard, Brisbane, 28 August 1918, p. 7.

L. Berk et al., 'Protest by Russian Soldiers'. - Daily Mail, Brisbane, 5 September 1918, p. 8.

W. Kalashnikoff, 'Russian Soldiers' Protest', Daily Mail, Brisbane, 12 September 1918, p. 2.

L. Berk et al., 'Russian Soldiers' Protest'. - Daily Mail, Brisbane, 17 September 1918, p. 7.

W. Kalashnikoff, 'A Rejoinder', Daily Mail, Brisbane, 26 September 1918, p. 4.

L. Berk, 'The Bolsheviks'. - Daily Mail, Brisbane, 8 November 1918, p. 6.

A. Mendrin, L. Berk, 'Can it be true? Bolshevism in Russia'. - Daily Mail, Brisbane, 18 November 1918, p. 4.

L. Berk, 'Treatment of Russians'. - Daily Standard, Brisbane, 20 May 1919, p. 3

Russians at law. Action for defamation. - Daily Standard, Brisbane, 13 May 1920, p. 5

From Russian Anzacs in Australian History:

Later on, disillusioned by the bloodshed of war, some Russians would bitterly say that this 6 shillings was the price of their betrayal. Walter Kalasnikoff, who came back from the war, half-blinded by an explosion was one who expressed this sentiment. In 1918 at the Russian Association in Brisbane he had the courage to say, pointing to his returned soldiers' badge: 'It is my dishonour! I have sold myself for 6s and went to kill my fellow-men!' The newspaper carried the response of a group of Russian returned soldiers, headed by Leo Berk, who dissociated themselves from Kalasnikoff, by saying, 'we think that Mr Kalashnikoff [Kalasnikoff] is the only returned Russian soldier who possess the bad instinct of the renegade'. They went on to declare, 'We went to the front not for 6/- as Mr Kalashnikoff did, but to give our lives in the fight for Russia and her allies in this Great World war for democracy and peace'.

[...] Kalasnikoff's opponents were all men from a different social background and with different political sympathies: Leo Berk, Serguey Kalinin, Nicholas Silantiff, Matfeus Oleinikoff, Akim Petroff, Steven Orloff, George Diaconescu, Conrad Shlipnekoff, and Nicholas Fedorovich. They accused Kalasnikoff of having connections with Simonoff, the Soviet-appointed consul, and declared that they 'will fight the so-called Bolsheviks to the bitter end'. Of these, Serguey Kalinin was considered to be a socialist who opposed bolshevism; but Leo Berk, the instigator of this campaign, was an informant for the security services, according to Raymond Evans. Moreover, in a couple of years' time two of the others, Nicholas Silantiff and Steven Orloff, will apply for Simonoff's assistance to return to Russia -- to join these very bolsheviks that, here, they claimed to be fighting.