Russian AnzacsCentenary Stories
To mark the Centenary of the First World War in 2014-2018, this site, in a weekly post, celebrated the Russian Anzacs who enlisted in the AIF that week.
Granit, Sipan, Petroff
- Rainer Granit was born in Kotka in Finland as Einar Matias Lautala. According to family legend he had to flee his country because of his uncompromising honesty in a court case. As a result in 1911 he landed in South Australia and made his living as a farm labourer and a seaman.
- Enlisting in the 25th Battalion in Townsville he served at Gallipoli and on the Western Front. He was wounded at the battle for Broodseinde at Ypres in October 1917 and his left hand was amputated.
- Returning to Australia, he became a coach painter. In 1920 he went to England, married an English girl, Amy May Green, brought her back to Australia and settled at Cummins in South Australia. Both their children served in the AIF during WWII.
- Hugo Sipan, a Latvian seaman, came to Australia around 1912 and continued his seafaring life, working on coastal and ocean ships.
- He enlisted in the AIF in Brisbane but any records after that about him wane; obviously he left the Army soon after enlistment.
- Jackow Petroff grew up in the village of Tokmak in the Tien Shan foothills, central Asia (now Kirghizia); although ethnically Russian, he knew Turkish as well. He served for three years in the Russian Cavalry as a Cossack and in 1912 came to Western Australia with another Russian. He worked in Holyoake district, Karridale and Collie on the railway construction as a sleeper cutter and hewer.
- Enlisting in the AIF, he served at Gallipoli and the Western Front in the 11th and 51st battalions.
- In 1919 he was returned to Australia and seems to disappear from Australian records. It is quite likely that he returned to Russia where his widowed mother lived.
Gulevich, Carlson, Vengert
- Nicholas Gulevich from Odessa came to Brisbane in 1910 via the Far East. In spite of his training as a fitter, upon arrival he worked as a labourer on the Kannagur and Blackbutt railway line, north-west of Brisbane and then found a job as a tailer at a sawmill near Benarkin in the same area; by the time of the war he had become a sugar cane farmer in Cairns area.
- Enlisting in Cairns, he sailed to Egypt with the 2nd Light Horse Regiment and served at the Western Front as a gunner. In 1918 he was invalided back to Australia after suddenly developing traumatic neurasthenia. His medical history has only a brief reference to its possible causes, stating that he was ‘well … until April 1918 – mistaken for spy – very nervy’.
- He recovered in Australia and worked as an overseer in North Queensland shire councils.
- Carl Carlson, a Latvian seaman from Riga, toiled the sea since his youth and claimed to serve as a marine in the American Navy. Landing in South Australia in 1909 he worked on coastal vessels, and later moved to Newcastle, where he worked as miner.
- Enlisting in the AIF in Sydney, he was discharged two months later on medical grounds.
- Jack Vengert, a cook from Ukraine, came to Australia in 1913 from the Far East and settled in Sydney.
- Enlisting in the AIF, he sailed to Gallipoli with the 18th Battalion. They landed at Gallipoli in August 1915; a few days later, during a fierce engagement at close range in the battle forHill 60, Vengert was bayoneted in the wrist. He was returned to Australia and worked as a railway watchman at Dora Creek Bridge near Newcastle. There he met Emma Adeline Gudshus, a fisherman’s daughter. They married and had a baby, but the marriage did not work; they separated, and Jack enlisted in the AIF once again. He sailed to England in July 1918 but arrived to the Western Front already after the armistice.
- Returning to Australia, he had several turbulent years in Sydney running a ‘gyx-shop’ (illicit wine bar), allegedly selling ‘sly grog’ and being involved in a couple of court cases with prostitutes. Finally he left for Brisbane where he opened a fruit shop on Stanley Street, the focal point of the Russian-Jewish community. Later he returned to Sydney, making his living as a flat proprietor.
Kozakovshonok, Nesterinko, Bortzell
- Vlas Kozakovshonok (in Australian documents his name was misspelt in all possible ways) was a Russian seaman from Riga.
- He came to Australia on the eve of the war and, joining the AIF in Sydney, sailed to Gallipoli with reinforcements to the 4th Battalion. He was killed a couple of days after the landing at the Lone Pine battle of August 1915.
- Kozakovshonok’s parents in Riga were found in 1917 and received an Australian pension.
- Phillip Nesterinko was a seaman and locksmith from Konotop in Ukraine.
- He enlisted in the AIF on the same day as Kozakovshonok, but Nesterinko’s service was short: he was discharged a month later on medical grounds by his own request and continued to work as a seaman.
- The origins of Samuel Bortzell are a bit of mystery. Near the end of the war, when he took part in the recruiting campaign, he posed as a ‘Frenchman bred and born’ who came from Noumea to enlist in the AIF, but according to his enlistment application he was a Jewish man born in Irkutsk in Siberia. By the time of the outbreak of the war he lived in Sydney with his father.
- He was just 21 when he enlisted in the AIF as an interpreter. In August 1915 he landed at Gallipoli with the 17th Battalion. A month later he was injured when a bomb exploded a yard from him and spent several months in hospitals. He continued his service on the Western Front where he was severely wounded at the battle of Passchendaele in October 1917; as a result his leg was amputated.
- Returning to Australia he took part in the recruiting campaign, posing as a recipient of the Military Medal and Distinguished Conduct Medal, neither of which he had. For years he worked as a lift driver in Sydney and several times attracted the attention of the press due to his extramarital liaisons.
Chirvin, Rosalieff, Krantz
- Peter Chirvin was born on Sakhalin Island and worked as a newspaper reporter before coming to Brisbane in October 1914.
- Three months later he enlisted in the AIF and sailed to Gallipoli with the reinforcements to the 9th Battalion. He continued his service on the Western Front in the 49th Battalion. In September 1916 he was wounded in the wrist at Mouquet Farm while serving as a stretcher-bearer. He was recommended for an award but did not receive it. After his second casualty in September 1918 he was awarded the Military Medal for his work as a stretcher-bearer during the St Quentin battle. He returned to Australia in April 1919 at the time of Red Flag riots in Brisbane and, being ‘ragged owing to being a Russian’ by other soldiers, committed suicide aboard the ship.
- Chirvin’s story was told for the first time in ‘Russian Anzacs in Australian History’ and recently presented in the One Hundred Stories project at Monash University.
- Nicholas Rosalieff was born in Samara Province near the Volga River. Being a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party – working for radical political change in the Russian Empire – he was arrested in 1906 and exiled to Siberia. In 1910 he fled Siberia and landed in Brisbane in 1911. Although working in Russia as a printer and locksmith, in Australia he had to transform himself into a cane-cutter.
- Enlisting in the AIF together with Chirvin, he landed at Gallipoli in June 1915, but was soon returned to Australia for medical reasons. Waiting for reallocation he left the camp and was declared a deserter, ineligible for war medals. His reluctance to serve in the army was probably due to the fact that the Russian Socialists opposed imperialist war and discouraged Russians in Australia from serving in the Army.
- After the February 1917 revolution he left Australia for Russia, joined the Communist Party and made a career as a Soviet public servant. In 1930 he was posted as a Soviet trade representative to Korea where he died two years later. He is buried in the famous Novodeviche Cemetery in Moscow.
- Albert Krantz grew up in Novopavlovka in Ekaterinoslav Province. In 1905, at the age of 13, he came to Australia with his elder brother Samuel Krantz, following Jewish chain migration. He learnt the skill of a carpenter working in a Broken Hill mine, later moving to Sydney.
- Enlisting in the AIF, Krantz landed in Gallipoli with the 17th Battalion. Later he wrote: ‘I landed on Gallipoli several days after the original landing and served there until the final evacuation’. He continued his service on the Western Front where he was severely wounded in April 1918 in the battle for Amiens. He received a gun shot wound to the right wrist and was evacuated to Australia.
- Returning to Australia he learned the trade of electroplating and worked in Sydney. His wife Emily died in 1925, leaving their two young children in his care.
Baidakoff, Meesit, Gorbach
- Wadim Baidakoff, a Russian from Tiflis (Tbilisi) in Georgia, came to Western Australia on a Russian steamship in 1908. He worked as a sleeper hewer on the railway construction in south-east area of the state.
- He fought at Gallipoli with the 11th Battalion and later served in Egypt as a tugboat master with inland water transport.
- After the war he moved to Sydney and worked as a nightwatchman and special constable at Milson’s Point, later becoming a fish shop proprietor in the area.
- Walter Meesit, a carpenter from Vindava (Ventspils) in Latvia, came to South Australia in 1907.
- He served in the AIF in the 7th Field Ambulance at Gallipoli, and was returned to Australia as medically unfit in 1916.
- Phillipp Gorbach, a sailor from Odessa, came to Australia soon after the outbreak of the war.
- Enlisting in the AIF in Sydney, he sailed to Egypt with the 4th Battalion in March 1915, returning a few months later as an escort on a troopship. While in training camp in Liverpool, he joined a soldiers’ protest of the poor conditions at the camp, which turned into riots when thousands of soldiers broke out of the camp and invaded Sydney, drinking the bars dry and rampaging through the Sydney streets. Gorbach, like many others, was court martialled, sentenced to 90 days of hard labour and discharged with ignominy.
- He stayed in Sydney for a while, working on coastal vessels and in December 1916 came to San Francisco where he applied for naturalisation and even registered for Army service. By 1930 he lived in New York, running a tin shop.
Turner, Fedorovich, Domilovsky
- George Turner, a seaman from Finland, came to Western Australia in 1907 and worked as a labourer.
- Enlisting in the AIF he served in the Light Trench Mortar regiment at Gallipoli and on the Western Front.
- In 1917 he was returned to Australia as medically unfit.
- Nicholas Fedorovich from Odessa, a journalist working for newspapers in the Russian Far East, came to Queensland from the Russian Far East in 1911, becoming a cane cutter.
- He sailed to Gallipoli with a group of Russians in the 9th Battalion. Contracting enteric fever there, he received leave and went to Russia to visit his mother, but was held up by the Russian authorities. Only several months later he managed to return to London and rejoin the AIF, serving in the HQ in London as an interpreter. He published a short story, ‘Kismet’, about a wartime romance.
- Returning to Australia, he took up a soldier selection at Stanthorpe and later married a Russian woman.
- Nickefor Domilovsky came from the village Stavishchi near Kiev in Ukraine. He worked in Queensland as a labourer.
- Enlisting in the AIF together with Fedorovich he served in the 9th Battalion, fighting in Gallipoli and on the Western Front. He was killed in the battle for Pozieres in July 1916.
Gambrill, Ullstedt, Lambahirt, Poplawski
- Oscar Norton Gambrill came from a family of a British merchant who lived in St Petersburg for many years. His father died when he was 12. In 1914 Oscar came to Australia and tried himself as a station hand in Longreach, in outback Queensland.
- With the Light Horse Regiment he served in Gallipoli; he continued his service on the Western Front with the Division Ammunition Column as a driver, but was later transferred to his Division HQ.
- After the war he took a commercial course in Clark’s college in London and was discharged in England, planning to work for a company in Southern Russia. Later he worked as a trader in Egypt, ending up a company director. He died in Egypt and was buried in Cairo.
- Alfred Ullstedt, a Finish sea captain, came to Australia in 1907 and settled in the Rockhampton area, working as a sawyer. In 1913 he was involved in a mining accident.
- While in the AIF, he served as a driver in Egypt and on the Western Front.
- He married soon after discharge from the Army and lived in Sydney working as a painter. He served in the Garrison Battalion during WWII and died soon afterwards.
- Theodor Lambahirt came from Vindava (Ventspils) in Latvia; he studied at the school of commerce in Riga and came to Australia as a sailor.
- Enlisting in the AIF, he landed at Gallipoli in July 1915 with reinforcements to the 5th Battalion and was killed at the Lone Pine battle in August.
- His mate from the battalion gave him a tribute in a newspaper advertisement. Lambahirt’s mother was found in Latvia and received an Australian pension.
- George Poplawski from Warsaw, emigrating to Australia, worked in Cooma as a telegraphist.
- He enlisted in Brisbane and sailed with reinforcements to the 15th Battalion to Egypt. He did not reach Gallipoli, being returned to Australia as medically unfit.
- While still in the Army in Brisbane, he died in a tram accident.
Lakovsky, Popow, Sage
- Edward Lakovsky was born in Iuzovo (now Eastern Ukraine), later his family moved to Odessa and in the early 1900s, in the wake of Russian pogroms, sailed to Western Australia. Initially they lived in Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill.
- Enlisting in the AIF in South Australia, Edward sailed with the 10th Battalion to Egypt. He did not reach Gallipoli, being returned to Australia as medically unfit.
- He married soon after his return and raised a large family in Melbourne, working as a boot repairer.
- Alexander Popow, born in Glukhov, Ukraine, came from the family of Russian Army General Aleksandr N. Popov. Alexander studied electrical engineering at the University of Liège, Belgium, and worked for the Russian government.
- Enlisting in the AIF, he served with the 2nd Field Company Engineers at Gallipoli, where he was wounded a few weeks after landing in June 1915. In November 1916, in the battle for the Somme on the Western Front, he survived multiple shell-wounds only to develop gas gangrene, and spent nearly six months in English hospitals, undergoing three operations, which left him with 63 scars on his left leg alone.
- Luckily he recovered, came to the USA in 1919, settled near Boston working in metallurgy research. Here he changed his name to Peter Popow Alexander.
- Lamotte Alexis Sage from Odessa probably had French ancestry, as his father’s name was Louis and sister’s was Dolora. Nevertheless, Lamotte’s religion was recorded as ‘Slav’, which must have meant Russian Orthodox; he claimed a three-year service in a ‘Cossack Regiment’, while his sister lived in Archangelsk – all this suggests long-lasting connections with the Russian Empire. Landing in Albany in 1898, in Western Australia, he found employment in the south-western areas of the colony, working as a timber cutter, sleeper carter and hewer on the construction of the railway lines.
- Although he was in his forties, he enlisted in the AIF and soldiered through the whole war in the artillery regiments as a gunner and a driver.
- While in a British hospital he met English girl Rosa Hales and they married before Sage was sent to the Western Front. In 1919 they returned to Australia with a young daughter. They lived in Western Australia, where Sage took up farming.
Korotcoff, Soolcovsky, Romanovsky
- Nicolas Korotcoff, a Russian from Samara, spent two years in Manchuria deserting from the Russian Army. In 1912 he landed in Cairns and worked as cane cutter in Port Douglas in North Queensland.
- Enlisting in the AIF in Cairns he joined a group of Russians in the 5th reinforcements of the 9th Battalion. In June 1915 they landed at Gallipoli. In 1916 Korotcoff was transferred to the 11th Field Artillery Brigade, serving as a driver on the Western Front. He was wounded at the battle for Passchendaele in October 1917. When, after the Russian revolution of 1917 Russia withdrew from the war, a group of Russians which included Korotcoff applied for discharge and were returned to Australia ‘on account of Russian nationality’.
- Korotcoff returned to Northern Queensland working as a cane cutter and night watchman. During WWII he enlisted in the AIF again, serving in the Volunteer Defence Corps.
- Yan Soolcovsky, born in Mlava, Poland, came to Townsville from the Russian Far East in 1914. Later he lived in Gympie, working as a butcher.
- He enlisted in the AIF with the Russian Romanovsky and sailed to the front with a group of Russians in the 9th Battalion’s 5th reinforcements. He served at Gallipoli and on the Western Front where he was wounded at Mouquet Farm in 1916 and at Polygon Wood in 1917. As a result of the second casualty, his left hand was amputated.
- In 1920 his health failed and he died in Brisbane with his fiancée at his side.
- Nicholas Romanovsky was born in Achinsk in Siberia and worked on the railway as a construction engineer and probably came to Australia from the Far East.
- He enlisted in the AIF together with Soolkovsky and fought at Gallipoli and on the Western Front. He was wounded together with his mate at Mouquet Farm and at Polygon Wood. Two days after the last casualty he died of his wounds.
Mahlit, Berzin, Kozareff, Parsons
- Rudolph Mahlit, a Latvian teacher, organised the first social-democratic circles in Latvia. Exiled to Siberia, he fled to Japan and came to Western Australia in 1912. He worked in the Collie area as a timber hewer and foreman and was loved by all in the district.
- Enlisting in the AIF, he participated in the Gallipoli landing with the 16th Battalion. On 2 May 1915 he was wounded at the battle for Bloody Angle, at Quinn’s Post. He rejoined his unit after recovery, only to die not long after, during the attack on Hill 60 on 27 August.
- George Berzin, a sailor from Wolmar (Valmiera), Latvia, came to Australia from South America in 1911 and worked as a labourer in Broken Hill, Yorktown and Port Pirie.
- Enlisting in the AIF, he served at Gallipoli where he was promoted to Lance Corporal. He was killed at Pozieres, on the Western Front, on 4 August 1916.
- His uncle Edward Sinka, living in Latvia, was never found, but his Australian friends placed commemorative advertisements in newspapers.
- Evan Kozareff from Moscow was an engine driver; he served for four years in the Russian Army.
- Enlisting in the AIF in Liverpool, he deserted a month later.
- Sidney Herbert Parsons was born in St Petersburg in 1870, where his British parents lived for many years. In 1886 all their family emigrated to Sydney, where young Sidney worked as a saddler. By the time of the war he was married and had a daughter.
- He served in the 2nd Battalion as Corporal and Sergeant at Gallipoli and on the Western Front. He was wounded three times: during August battles at Gallipoli in 1915, and at Pozieres in 1916 and at Bullecourt in 1917 on the Western Front.
- After the war he worked as a tram driver in Sydney.