April 26, 2015
Today, in the Centenary of Gallipoli landing, let’s remember the names of Russian born Anzacs who took part in this historic event.
They were
- Alexander Arn, Thomas Baer, and Robert Mayer (1st Battalion)
- Julays Beern, Adolf Eckland, and Arnold Sander (3rd Battalion)
- Abraham Levene, Alfred Markowicz, Erwin Rosberg, Nicholas Sindeeff, and Frederick Turner (4th Battalion)
- George Ball (7th Battalion)
- August Arreta, John Hendrickson, Karl Ljung, Albert Lukander, Alexander Sast, Charles Zander (10th Battalion)
- Alexander Hiltunen, and Edward Watson (12th Battalion)
- Martin Antin, Schija Fels, Martin Hamman, Fritz Zeeman (13th Battalion)
- Paul Zenewich and Thomas Lind (15th Battalion)
- Marian Pshevolodsky, Charles Cepkouski, Rudolph Mahlit, Eliazar Margolin, Charles Reppe, Kazis Walinkevic (16th Battalion)
- George Kamishansky and Francis Dyson (Artillery brigades)
- Sidney Luck (1st Hospital)
- Charles Haroldson (Service Corps)
Antti Kujala (he served as Thomas Lind), a fisherman from Vyborg, was killed during the landing, while Arn, Baer, Beern, Ball, Lukander, and Hiltunen were wounded.
April 24, 2015
Victor Romul Sylvester Vort-Ronald
- Victor Romul Sylvester Vort-Ronald is a bit of a mystery man. He stated he was born in St Petersburg, but sometimes referred to other places in France. He also stated that his father was Scottish, and his mother French. He, nevertheless, served in the Russo-Japanese war. He also claimed to have a good university education with subjects studied including commerce, political economy, history and philology. He probably came to South Australia from the Far East not long before his enlistment in the AIF. He stated his occupation as ‘formerly interpreter’ and a clerk with accounting experience.
- While still in the depot he married an Australian girl, Hilda Hoskins, their son Eugene Romul was born when Victor was already with the army in Britain. Originally he was in the 10th Battalion, but in London he was transferred to the AIF pay corps section. In 1918 he was returned to Australia suffering from fibrosis of lungs.
- After the war he worked for Broken Hill Smelters as Stores Accounting Officer for a while, and his second son Ron was born in 1919. In 1920 he joined no. 1 Flying Training School of Australian Air Force in Laverton, Victoria on an administrative position. He was discharged a year later due to medical problems. He found employment as a storekeeper with the Irrigation Department in Barmera in South Australia. In 1927 he suicided by drowning. His both sons fought for Australia in WWII.
Constantine Pinkevitch
- Constantine Pinkevitch, a Ukrainian from Kiev area, came to Brisbane from Harbin in 1911 and worked in Mount Morgan.
- Enlisting in the AIF, he was allocated to Field Ambulance and served at Gallipoli and on the Western Front, occasionally being detached to work as a cook.
- After the war he returned to Mount Morgan and married an Australian girl, Ellen Reynolds; they later moved to Newcastle where Pinkevitch worked as a turner and mechanic in the Railway workshops. Their two sons served in the 2nd AIF in WWII.
George Plotnikoff
- George Plotnikoff from Ekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains was a civil engineer. By the time he landed in Brisbane in 1913 he was a widower approaching to his forty. In Australia he had to work as a labourer.
- When war broke out he enlisted in the AIF and served at Gallipoli and on the Western Front where he was in July 1916 he was wounded in face and left thigh at Pozieres. After recovering in British hospital he was employed by the Russian Government Committee in London. But after the Russian revolution he made his way to Vladivostok and from there returned to Australia in March 1918. He immediately reenlisted in the AIF and returned to the Western Front. But, as his sight became failing he was repatriated to Australia and discharged.
- He had a hard time, being unable to find engineering job and being unfit to work as a labourer. In 1923 he returned to Russia and disappears from the documents.
April 11, 2015
Vasily Boltinkof
- Vasily Boltinkof, an engine fitter, came from the village of Boguchar near Voronezh in Central Russia. In 1912 he boarded a ship in India together with Jackow Petroff and landed in Fremantle. They worked together in Holyoake district, but then Boltinkof moved to Sydney and Melbourne.
- His service in the AIF was not long: he was discharged six weeks after entering with a note ‘to rejoin his regiment in Voronezh’.
- He disappears from the records after that.
Arthur Florentin Carlsson
- Arthur Florentin Carlsson from the Kimito in Abo area in Finland came to Australia in 1907 and worked as a labourer and a miner in Gippsland, King Island and in Derby in Tasmania.
- He was the first Russian subject to enlist in the AIF in Tasmania. He served with the 7th Field Ambulance in Gallipoli and on the Western Front. In July 1916, in the battle for Pozieres, he received a gunshot wound to the forehead and shell shock and was invalided to Australia.
- After the war he lived in Derby with his wife.
Frank Novotny
- Frank Novotny was a Bohemian from Prague, which was within the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time. He came to Australia in 1911 and lived in Sydney working as a tailor.
- In 1915 he enlisted in the AIF as a Russian Pole from Warsaw. While training in the camp, he wrote a letter to the military authorities, admitting that he was a Bohemian, rather than Russian, and asking to allow him to serve in the AIF, as, he argued, ‘we, Bohemians, are the bitter enemies of Germans’. Nevertheless he was discharged as an enemy subject.