Anthony Minkshlin: soldier, sailor, witness to historical events

Anthony Minkshlin (also written as Minkslin or Minkshtin) was born 13 October 1892 in Vilnius to 'William' (Waltrome, or Baltromy) and Agatha Minkshtin. His father appears to have previously resided in Vidzy (now in Belarus, about 3km from the present Lithuanian border), before moving to Vilnius. Anthony stated that his father was a Lithuanian citizen. His mother's maiden name was Christopher - perhaps meaning the Latvian surname Kristofers - which may explain why the family moved to the port city of Liepaja in Latvia around the turn of the 20th century. Anthony attended schools in Vilnius and Liepaja before embarking on a seaman's career and leaving home at the age of 15.

With thanks to Dr Elena Govor (Canberra) for sharing this image (British merchant marine registration card)) and other details of her research on Anthony Minkshlin at The National Archives, (Kew, UK).

Before long, however, Anthony was based in Australia and working on a farm at Branxton in the Hunter region of New South Wales in between journeys away as a seaman (Branxton is around 40km from the port city of Newcastle). This continued until the First World War; he enlisted in August 1915 and was sent to serve as a trooper with the AIF's 4th Light Horse regiment in the Middle East. By mid 1916 he was in France on the Western Front with the Second Anzac Corps. After the war ended he decided to re-enlist, this time with the British Army and the North Russia Relief Force. His military experience and language skills were presumably well regarded, as he was taken on as a scout and interpreter with the 45th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers. Wikipedia notes that:

The 45th and 46th Battalions of the Royal Fusiliers were part of the North Russia Relief Force, which landed in early 1919 to support the withdrawal of international forces assisting "While" (anti-Bolshevik) Russian forces during the Russian Civil War. The understrength 45th Battalion was composed mainly of former members of the Australian Imperial Force – many of them veterans of the Western Front – who had volunteered for service in Russia.

 
The Relief Force was evacuated by September 1919, and Anthony Minkshlin was subsequently awarded a Meritorious Service Medal for his service in the Northern Dvina River region. By December 1919 he had returned to Liepaja to visit his parents, and shortly thereafter found another posting that appealed to him - that of interpreter with the British Military Mission in Kaunas, working for Colonel Henry Rowen-Robinson. However by the second half of 1920 Minkshlin was back at sea, based in England, and had applied for naturalisation as a British subject. He received good references and a police check recorded that "he appears to be a respectable man".

With thanks to Dr Al Taškūnas (Hobart) for supplying this image from 1920 (Anthony Minkshlin in Kaunas wearing an Australian Army slouch hat).

Anthony returned to Australia in 1923, married Irene Serova in 1926, and the couple settled in North Sydney. Anthony continued to maintain his links with the sea, working as a seaman for some years and naming his new home "Albatross". Irene was listed on the electoral roll as a tailoress. In older age Anthony resided at the War Veterans' Home in Narrabeen and displayed his craft skills in creating abalone shell jewellery. He died in 1983 at the age of 92 and is buried in the Roman Catholic section of the Frenchs Forest cemetery. Irene had been born around 1905 and died in 1987.    


Sources and further reading:
National Archives of Australia - https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/SearchScreens/BasicSearch.aspx
Elena Govor: personal communication and and her publications on 'Russian Anzacs', including https://russiananzacs.net/
Trove -  https://trove.nla.gov.au/result?q=minkslin&l-availability=y
Dr Al Taškūnas, Lithuanian Studies Society, University of Tasmania.
 




 

Anzacs from Ukraine: Part 1

A new book appeared earlier this year which I think would be of value to anyone interested in late nineteenth/early twentieth century migration from the former Russian empire to Australia. Dr Elena Govor's Falling Stars: the story of Anzacs from Ukraine is an exploration of these migrants viewed through the prism of the First World War.

The men with origins in Ukraine who served in the Australian Army 1914-18 were a diverse group - they included ethnic Ukrainians, Jews, Russians and others - whose individuality as well as collective identitiy is brought out through a narrative with numerous biographical sketches. Many of these stories could easily have had Lithuanian parallels.  

Falling Stars examines the stories of 136 Ukrainian-born Anzacs. Although some arrived here in the late nineteenth century, most arrived in the few years immediately preceding World War One: this 'reflects the general pattern of emigration from the Russian Empire to Australia'.

The most common route for emigrants coming from Ukraine was via Siberia and the Russian Far East: 'nearly half of the natives of Ukraine arriving in Australia 1910-1915 took this route'. They tended to travel via Harbin, a Russian city in northeastern China, and then Japan 'from where Japanese steamships plied the Australian route, calling at Darwin, Cairns, Townsville, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne'. Most immigrants disembarked at Brisbane.

I was particularly interested in some of the background material in the book, such as the reasons for the growth of emigration through the Far East and the role played by the city of Harbin. Another fascinating story was the development of a 'Russian-born' immigrant precinct around the old Immigration Depot in South Brisbane.

Some of the biographical stories in this book are inspiring or even amazing (such as that of Alexander Sast who was captured by the Turks at Gallipoli, but then escaped from a POW camp in Bulgaria and made his own way across Russia to join the British forces at Archangelsk). Many are melancholic or sad, as some veterans were later affected by war trauma or others became victims of twists of fate (such as Alexander Sank, a veteran of the Western front who decided to return to his family in Harbin only to be arrested some decades later and sent to the gulags).

     

Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians

Neighbouring Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are often collectively called the 'Baltic States'.

By Hayden120 [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)
or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

While the three countries have had similar recent histories (all were part of the Russian Empire during the nineteenth century and independent republics 1918-1940) their early migration patterns were not identical. Here are a few sources which provide some comparative insights into early migration from these countries:

1. The Baltic Peoples: Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians in Australia (by Betty and Antanas Birškys, Aldis L Putninš and Inno Salasoo, AE Press, Melbourne 1986)

Putninš advises that the earliest person from Latvia to arrive in Australia may have been a convict named Aaron Woolf who had been born in Riga in 1793 and was transported from England in 1829. Many Latvian sailors are recorded as having visited Australia during the second half of the nineteenth century, and the 'Baltic Wharf' at Port Pirie (South Australia) - named for the Baltic Pine - is a remnant of the early timber trade.  One estimate claims as many as 158 Latvian-born residents in Australia in 1891, but a stronger immigration flow began after the 1905 revolution in the Russian Empire, when "all shades of the political spectrum were represented". The Lettish Association of Sydney was founded in 1913, with club rooms in Argyle Place, Millers Point.

Salasoo writes that the earliest known Estonian immigrant was Alfred Julius Siekler, from Tallinn, who arrived in 1853, lived in Dubbo (New South Wales) and was naturalised in 1859.  By 1899 there were at least 9 Estonians living in Australia, all males. And by 1904 the number had grown to 21.  Like the Latvians, "the predominance of men may imply that the settlers were mainly seamen" while some "had been involved in the 1905 revolution in one way or another".  By 1914 the known number had risen to 126, including 4 women. However the first wave of Estonian emigration to Australia really started only after the First World War: "some decided to emigrate for economic, others for political reasons".  Around 700 Estonians emigrated to Australia during the period 1924-29, while arrivals during the 1930s averaged 30 per year.

As for the Lithuanians, Birškys noted that there were Lithuanians among the internees/political exiles from the failed 1831 insurrection who had found their way to Australia. They continued trickling in during the late 1800s and early 1900s, with several serving in the First AIF.  Of the several hundred living in Australia by the early 1930s, "around 70-75% came while Tsarist Russia controlled Lithuania", while over 150 had arrived after independence  in 1918.

2. The 1933 Census

The 1933 National Census in Australia was the first census to record Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as a place of birth:

• There were 997 people recorded as born in Estonia;
• 427 had been born in Latvia; and
• 235 had been born in Lithuania.

66% of these respondents were resident in New South Wales, with smaller proportions throughout each of the states.   The proportion of females to males was highest for the Estonians (36%), followed by the Lithuanians (34%), and the Latvians (25%).  

3. Russian Anzacs in Australian History (by Elena Govor, UNSW Press, 2005) and updated at http://russiananzacs.net/

Govor has identified over 240 'Baltic Anzacs' - men from the Baltic provinces of the Russian empire who were mostly ethnic Estonians, Latvians or Lithuanians - who served in the First AIF (1914-18); of these, 41% had been born in present-day Estonia, 53% in Latvia and 6%  in Lithuania.  Most had left the Russian empire as young men and been employed as seafarers (59%) before stopping in Australia. Govor noted that "Beyond the 'call of the sea' - or at least the prospects it held out for work - economic hardship was probably the greatest push factor for emigration" (p.47).

In addition to the ethnic Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, there was also a significant migration of Jews from the Baltic provinces, in particular from Lithuania. However, Jewish migration followed a different pattern with family groups being most common.

Govor's analysis of the 'Russian Anzacs' concluded that at least a quarter of all male immigrants from the Russian empire had joined the AIF during World War One.