Bekza Gasieff

Alias Gassieff        Russian spelling Бекза Гасиев

Born 1881   Place Gizel, Vladikavkaz, Ossetia, the Caucasus    Ethnic origin Ossetian   Religion Russian Orthodox

Arrived at Australia

from Far East via Moji   on 3.12.1912   per Eastern   disembarked at Melbourne

Residence before enlistment Port Pirie, Melbourne, Sydney

Occupation farmer, smelter; after the war shopkeeper

Service

service number 8604, 4780   enlisted 7.10.1915 POE Adelaide

unit 10th Battalion; 50th Battalion   rank Private

place Western Front, 1916-1917

final fate RTA 10.09.1917       discharged 28.12.1917 MU

Naturalisation served as Russian subject

Residence after the war 1917-18 Adelaide, 1919 Brisbane, left for Russia in the 1920s

Family wife Doris (Dunia) Gasieff, (née Lapassova), married 1914, children Lida (Eva) Gasieff b. 1913 and Peter Gasieff, b. 1915, Doris left Australia with children in 1921; in 1934 Peter Gasieff, refugee from Russia, destitute in India, applied for return to Australia and lived in Sydney serving in the AIF in WWII

Materials digitised service records (NAA)

army pay file (NAA)

Gasieff, D - Arrived 1917 at Melbourne (wife's travel document, digitised) (NAA)

Peter GASIEFF - repatriation to Australia (NAA)

Peter Gasieff - Repatriation to Australia - Whereabouts of Beksa Gasieff (Father) (NAA)

Newspaper articles

Waiting for the priest. A claim for maintenance. - Barrier Miner (Broken Hill, NSW), 29 May 1914, p. 4

Wife or slave? - The Advertiser (Adelaide), 23 Dec. 1914, p. 11

From Russian Anzacs in Australian History:

[...] in April [1916] the Mongolia brought ten Russians from South Australia, among them five Ossetians from the Port Pirie smelters who had joined up together in October 1915 — Soltanoff, Gasieff, Mamsuroff, Dezantoff, and Tolparoff.

[...] Even less is known about what happened to the family of Bekza Gasieff. He was an Ossetian married to a Russian woman, and they left for Russia in the 1920s. In 1934 Peter Gasieff, his Australian-born son, turned up in India, destitute, where he appealed to Australian authorities after escaping from Russia. Unfortunately, the available documents shed no light on this family’s misfortunes.

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