Nicholas Rosalieff

Alias Rozal’ev      Russian spelling Николай Павлович Розалиев

Born 28.12.1886     Place Mogutovo, Samara, Volga River area, Russia    Ethnic origin Russian     Religion Russian Orthodox

Father Rosalieff, Paul (Pavel Georgievich)    Mother Elizaveta Alekseevna

Residence before arrival at Australia Member of Eser (Socialist-Revolutionary) Party. Arrested in 1906 and exiled to Siberia. Fled from Siberia to Australia in 1910.

Arrived at Australia

            from Nagasaki     on 8.01.1911     per Yawata Maru     disembarked at Brisbane

Residence before enlistment Cairns, Toowoomba

Occupation in Russia – printer, locksmith, 1915 labourer, sugar-cane cutter, 1916 labourer

Service

service number 2011     enlisted 1.02.1915     POE Brisbane

unit 9th Battalion       rank Private

place Gallipoli, 1915

final fate RTA 4.08.1915       discharged posted as deserter 18.11.1915, not eligible for awards

Naturalisation served as Russian subject

Residence after the war Brisbane till 1917; 1918 returned to Russia, 1920 joined Communist Party, 1922 was expected to arrive at Australia for propaganda; 1930-32 worked in Korea as Soviet official

Family in Russia: wife Nina Alekseevna Rosalieff (née Nikitina), son Iurii (Yuri), b. 1922, daughter Irina b. 1927 (information from grandson, Nicholas Rosialieff / Николай Юрьевич Розалиев)

Died 9.01.1932

Materials digitised service records (NAA)

alien registration (NAA)

Rosalieff - Soviet Commissary Russia (NAA)

From Russian Anzacs in Australian History:

While researching my book My Dark Brother (the story of Ngadjon Aboriginal Kitty Clarke and her Russian husband Leandro Illin), I was looking through their daughter Flora Hoolihan’s papers. There I came across a bundle of Russian postcards, of around 1911–12, sent by his Russian comrades-in-arms to Nicholas Rosalieff, a socialist revolutionary who fled from exile in Siberia to Australia in 1911. Their words are carefully couched, their messages elliptical: one has to read between the lines to grasp their meaning. And Flora, who couldn’t understand Russian in any case, kept them safe for over half a century. Rosalieff later enlisted in the AIF. Even ephemeral things like postcards turn up in unexpected ways, to make surprising connections.

    [...] Russians who joined the army together, or who met up at training camp, would often embark together. Six Russians from Brisbane, for instance — the journalists Chirvin and Fedorovich, the engineer Romanovsky, the labourer Domilovsky, the former revolutionary turned cane-cutter Rosalieff, and the butcher Soolcovsky — all ended up together in the 9th Battalion’s 5th reinforcement, departing on the Kyarra on 16 April 1915, along with Korotcoff, a cane-cutter from Port Douglas.

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