Departures #2

We first encountered Jonas BALAIKA in the 19 February 2015 post (a single man who had settled in Sydney in 1912 having previously lived for 5 years in England and 2 years in Canada).  The following story is based on his naturalisation file, held by the National Archives of Australia.

Jonas Balaika (left of picture),
in Sydney, circa 1920.
(Source: Metrastis No 1) 

Jonas was born on 13 December 1886 in southern Lithuania, near the city of Marijampolė and the current Lithuanian/Polish border, in the town of Kalvarija.  He would have left czarist Russia by 1905.  He arrived in Quebec, Canada, in July 1909 from Liverpool, England, with his occupation listed as cabinet-maker.  By 1921 he was working as a cabinet-maker in Sydney, employed by an auction house in Redfern, and living at 259 Cleveland Street, Redfern.  He took the Oath of Allegiance on 27 August 1921, thus becoming a naturalised Australian and a British subject.  He travelled overseas around that time, possibly to Lithuania, and is recorded as a passenger on the Ormuz returning from London to Australia in December 1922. 

By 1925 he had decided to permanently return to Lithuania, which had declared its independence in 1918.  He took out Lithuanian citizenship in 1926, whereupon his Australian Certificate of Naturalisation was cancelled.

Jonas appears to have survived the Second World War and the horrors associated with the German and Soviet occupations of Lithuania.  However he appears again in Australian files in 1947, living in the Marijampole region of Soviet Lithuania, aged 66, with a wife and 6 children.  He is recorded as Ivan Ivanovich Balaika and his wife as Anna Ivanova Balaika; the eldest child, Maria, is aged 20 (ie born around 1927) and the youngest child Kazimir is aged 8 (ie born around 1939).  

The reason for the Australian Government's interest in this family in 1947 was that Mrs Balaika had approached the Australian Legation in Moscow to ascertain her husband's nationality "as he desires to return to Australia with his family".  The Australian Government's response was that Balaika's Certificate of Naturalisation and Australian passport had been cancelled in 1926 and that he was therefore no longer a British subject; nevertheless he could apply for permission to return to Australia with his wife and family, however "no assurance can be given that the application will be approved".

Given that there is no further annotation on this record, it appears that the family did not pursue the option of applying to return to Australia.  Or if they did wish to apply, they were not allowed to return.

Today there are a number of people with the Balaika surname in the Kalvarija and Marijampolė region, but it is not clear whether any are related to Jonas Balaika.   

Departures #1

Lithuanian migration to Australia has not always involved one-way traffic.  It was not unusual for people to arrive in Australia, spend some time here, and then move on.

For example, probably several hundred World War Two Displaced Persons from Lithuania made their way from Australia to North America after they had worked off their debt to the Australian Government by completing their contractual 2 year employment obligations in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Overseas migration statistics published by the Australian Government in the late 1920s and early 1930s give us an indication of the mobility of earlier Lithuanian migrants:

• 51 Lithuanians arrived in Australia during 1928 and 7 departed;
• 13 Lithuanians arrived in Australia during 1931, and 7 departed;
• no Lithuanians arrived in Australia in the first quarter of 1932, but 2 departed; 
• 2 Lithuanians arrived in the last quarter of 1932, none departed;
• 3 Lithuanians arrived in the quarter ended 30 June 1933, but 5 departed.   

Somewhat surprisingly both inward and outward flows continued as the Great Depression gathered momentum.  The landing requirement was raised in 1928 from 50 pounds to 200 pounds (while British immigrants needed only 3 pounds).  Assisted migration from the UK was suspended as unemployment became a major issue from 1929 onwards.  Soon there were reports of 20,000 British immigrants stranded in Australia.  The risks for non-British migrants would likely have been even higher.

Metrastis No 1 provides details of several Lithuanians who left Australia during the 1920s:

• Stasys URNIEŽIUS - who we have already encountered in an earlier post on First World War Anzacs - returned to Lithuania in 1920;  
• Jonas BALAIKA had arrived from England around 1912 and left Australia for Lithuania via England in 1922 (there will be more on this man's story next week);
• ? ŠLEKYS, having arrived in 1928 returned to Lithuania the following year;
• Vladas DAPKUS arrived in Australia in 1928 and was one of the founders of the Australian Lithuanian Society in Sydney, but left for Argentina in 1930 and from there for Lithuania;
• J JASIUNAS, also one of the founders of the Australian Lithuanian Society, returned to Lithuania in 1930.

Sources: Trove; Metrastis No 1; Eric Richards, Destination Australia (UNSW Press 2008)