Jonas Zeleniakas (John Green)

An earlier post [click link here] featured Kazys Brazauskas ('Key Braz', 1898-1980) who had served as a volunteer in Lithuania's independence movement after WW1 and settled in Australia from 1927.  A very similar path was followed by Jonas Zeleniakas ('John Green', 1898-1975) who arrived in 1929.  They undoubtedly knew each other, living in Sydney and Port Kembla, and both served on the committee of the pre-WW2 Australian Lithuanian Society.

Jonas Zeleniakas was born in Panemunė, Lithuania, but grew up in England. The family returned to Lithuania before the First World War and settled in Šančiai, a suburb of Kaunas.  He had two sisters and two brothers, Antanas and Karolis. After the declaration of Lithuanian independence in 1918, Jonas was one of the first to volunteer and join the new Lithuanian army which was trying to defend the new national borders (in the Lithuanian language he was a Lietuvos Kariuomenės Kurėjas Savanoris). His brother Antanas also joined the army and rose to officer rank, however he died during the Second World War.

By the mid 1920s Jonas had decided to try his luck elsewhere; he left London aboard the Orvieto on 31 August 1929 bound for Australia.  Almost immediately after arriving, in October 1929, he was elected to the founding committee of the Australian Lithuanian Society.  Initially he lived in Sydney, but later settled at Port Kembla where he worked in a steel mill with the intention of saving enough to buy a house and bring a bride out from Lithuania.  Unfortunately the Second World War interrupted those plans and he remained a bachelor for the rest of his life.

In October 1939, after 10 years residence in Australia, Jonas published a notice of his intention to take out Australian citizenship.  He gave his place of residence as Perkins Beach, Port Kembla.
 
After WW2 his brother Karolis, who had escaped the soviet occupation, came out to Australia with his family. Karolis had been born in 1901 in England, his wife Marija in Kaunas, and their son Algirdas in 1928 in Kaunas.  The Australian press reported in 1949 that both Karolis and Algirdas were commercial photographers who hoped to open a studio in Sydney; however by the mid-1950s Karolis and his family had moved to the USA.

When Jonas retired from the steel mill he bought a motor boat; he enjoyed fishing in the Pacific ocean and many Lithuanians would come down from Sydney to go fishing with him. He died at Port Kembla on 8 June 1975 and was buried at the West Dapto Catholic cemetery.  A cemetery record at http://www.interment.net/data/aus/nsw/southcoastillawarra/wdcatholic/catholic.htm shows he also used the name 'John Green' in Australia (seemingly an appropriate play on words for him as the Lithuanian surname Zeleniakas - while having no specific association in that language - was likely derived from Polish, where the word for green is zielony). 

The headstone for John Green (Zeleniakas) at the West Dapto Catholic cemetery, image courtesy of Wendy Nunan, 

 

Much of the above material is from the obituary for Jonas Zeleniakas written by Antanas Baužė and published in Mūsų Pastogė, Nr. 24 of 23rd June 1975.

The Australian Lithuanian Society

Establishment

The Australian Lithuanian Society (Australijos Lietuvių Draugija) was established in Sydney in 1929. The Lithuanian chronicle Metraštis No 1 records that the founders were:

• J Jasiūnas, a former teacher, who returned to Lithuania in 1930;
• Vladas Dapkus, a former railwayman who left Australia for Argentina, and then Lithuania, in 1930;
• Jonas Viedrinaitis (John Wedrien) - see the post of 5 March 2015 for his story; and 
• Ksaveras (Alexander) Skierys - see the post of 12 March 2015 for his story.

Here is my rough translation of the minutes of the first meeting:

On 27 October 1929, we the undersigned having met in the apartment of J Viedrinaitis (Wedrien), East Street, Arncliffe, Sydney, and with him chairing the meeting, decided to establish a Lithuanian society with the object of bringing all of Australia's Lithuanians together.  On a majority vote the following were elected to the society's committee: J Viedrinaitis - president; V Dapkus - secretary; I Geryba - vicepresident; and K Skierys - treasurer.  Audit committee - P Kazlauskas, J Zeleniakas, and M Marcinkevicius. Membership fees: joining fee - 2 shillings and monthly membership fee - 1 shilling.  The committee was tasked with preparing regulations and setting the forward agenda.  Once that has happened, the committee will call an extraordinary general meeting.

[signed: Wedrien, Dapkus, Skierys, Jasiūnas]

The general meeting was held together with a celebration of Lithuania's Independence Day on 20 February 1930.  Participants accepted the draft objectives and regulations prepared by the committee; the principal aim would be to:

Join all those who hold themselves to be Lithuanian in one society with the object of improving coordination among ourselves, the development of national consciousness and education.

An article in the newspaper Australijos Lietuvis on 23 January 1950 recorded that the founding members had been J Vedrinaitis, A Skerys, P Kazlauskas, V Dapkus, J Jasiukevicius, J Geryba, M Marcinkevicius, O Marcinkeviciene and J Zeleniakas. The society maintained ties with Lithuania, organised various national celebrations and family gatherings and tried as much as possible to raise Lithuania and Lithuanian matters in the local Australian press. The first president was Jonas Vedrinaitis, followed by Kazys Brazauskas and then Antanas Bauze. [see the blog post dated 15 December 2019 on the Australian Lithuanian Archive's site https://SAlithohistory.blogspot.com]


Achievements

Much of the Society's activity revolved around the annual celebration of Lithuanian national holidays (e.g. Independence Day in February) and other social events.  Christmas picnics by Sydney beaches were popular and seem to have been held most years from 1929.  The Society's coordination function seemed successful, at least in Sydney where practically all Lithuanians became members.  There was less success outside of Sydney, however; although the Society included members living in Dapto and other NSW centres, no other branches were established.  It was a small localised organisation, with perhaps 100 members, and its leaders and supportive membership base gave it continuity.

The main constraints appeared to be financial (the Society was established just as the Great Depression was starting) and a lack of community resources.  Nevertheless, a library was established around 1933, soon followed by a choir.  Soon, however, the Second World War forced a temporary halt to the social activities of the Society, with the last function held at the end of 1941.  The Society continued its work in a more subdued fashion, for example by raising 30 pounds from its members in 1945 to help displaced Lithuanians in Europe and by lobbying the Australian government in 1946 to allow displaced Lithuanians to migrate to Australia.


Metamorphosis

By the time the Society recommenced its broader activities in 1947, its operating environment had changed dramatically.  The first post-war Lithuanian migrants (displaced persons) had arrived in 1947 and were keen to join.  Over the next few years their numbers continued to grow; a branch of the Society was established in Melbourne in 1948, followed by Adelaide, Bathurst, Beechworth, Bonegilla, Brisbane, Canberra, Greta, Melbourne and Woomera.  By 1950 the Society had been reorganised, reoriented and transformed into the Australian Lithuanian Community, which continues to this day.

One of the enduring legacies of the Society in its later years was the establishment, in 1949, of an Australian Lithuanian community weekly newspaper, Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) which also continues to this day.

What's in a name?

When I was growing up in Adelaide I was well aware that some Lithuanian DP families had shortened their surnames after arrival in Australia in order to make them easier to pronounce in a society and culture dominated by English speakers. For example:

• Stasiškis became Statkus;
• Vasiliauskas became Vaskas;
• Venslovavičius became Vens.

First name simplifications (Antanas to Anton, Pranas to Frank, etc) were even more common. I went through the Australian educational system being known as John rather than Jonas. It was only later that I realised there was also an economic dimension to such name changes; your competitiveness in the jobs marketplace is improved if you have a more local-sounding name.

What was also clear was the fact that many families chose not to dilute their identity and used their 'difficult' Lithuanian names in both the confines of the Lithuanian community and in wider society.

Early Lithuanians and name changes

As with the DPs, many of their predecessors also chose to simplify or anglicise their names. Some did so in Australia, others while they were resident in Britain, North America or elsewhere before arrival in Australia:

Kazys (Key) and Jadvyga Brazauskas (Braz), Sydney
 (source: Metrastis No. 1)

• Stasys Žygas became Stanley Zygas;
• Aisikas Segalis became Isaac Segal; and
• Kazys Brazauskas became Key Braz.

However, the pattern of name changes for early Lithuanians seems broader. There was likely more pressure on them to assimilate or disguise their cultural identity:

• Jonas Vedrinaitis became John Wedrien;
• Zigmas Baltrušaitis became Sid Bolt.

Jonas Vedrinaitis/John Wedrien, Sydney
(source: Metrastis No.1)

Others made more wholesale changes:

• Jonas Zeleniakas became John Green;
• Kazys Astrauskas became Charles Ashe;
• Juozas Plaušinis became Joe Miller;
• Zale Zapolski became Levi Zalman;
• Lozoraitis became Brown, Petraitis became Patrick, Ruzga became Ross.

Further complications for the amateur historian arise when people are known by or use several variations of a surname, for example:

• Piliulis/Paliulis/Phillules;
• Mikėnas/Makeness/Mekenass;
• Čepkauskas/Capouski/Cepkouski.

Also, even without simplified or anglicised names, some people alternated their names depending on the cultural context they were in:

• Max Lipschus (a german name) from Memel/Klaipeda was known to the Lithuanian community as Maksas Lipšius;
• Stanislaus Urniarz (a polish name) from Vilnius was known as Stasys Urniežius.