Michael Bialoguski

Michael Bialoguski (19 March 1917 – 29 July 1984) was a Polish-Australian medical practitioner, musician and intelligence agent, who played a significant part in the 1954 Petrov Affair.

Michael Bialoguski was born to Polish Jewish parents in 1917 in Kiev, then part of the Russian Empire and now the capital of Ukraine.

[1] He attended school there, studied violin at the Vilnius Conservatorium,[2] receiving a diploma in 1935,[3] and commenced a course in medicine at the Stefan Batory University.

[1] In 1941, he travelled across the Soviet Union by train to Vladivostok, on to Japan, departing ostensibly for Curaçao (then part of the Netherlands Antilles in the Caribbean) but using forged papers to come instead to Sydney, Australia, where he worked as a violinist and music arranger.

He married again in 1943, was naturalised in 1947, the same year in which he qualified as a doctor, and he practised as a general practitioner from 1948, initially in Thirroul and later in Macquarie Street, Sydney.

[3][4] Around 1945, Bialoguski had made himself known to the Commonwealth Investigation Service, the forerunner of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), and was recruited to gather information from Russian immigrants.

[7] After the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953 and the execution of Lavrentiy Beria, Bialoguski and Ron Richards were able to persuade Petrov that it was not safe for him to return.

His wife Evdokia was initially unaware he had taken this action; although she was recalled, she did not want to leave her husband, but knew that to remain in Australia against her government's wishes would have placed her sister Tamara in danger back home.

[1][3] Bialoguski had maintained his passion for music, and sought conducting lessons from Sir Eugene Goossens, then based in Sydney, but was rebuffed.

[11] He was accepted by the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy, where he obtained his Masters Diploma in 1967 under the guidance of Franco Ferrara.