Nikolay Bordonos

Nikolay Bordonos (14th/26th of May 1865, Chernihiv, Russian Empire – 15th of May 1945, Riga, Latvian SSR) – an official, a public figure, a teacher.

The biography of N. Bordonos can be clearly traced in his petition addressed to the Minister of Education, dated July 15, 1926. The purpose of the petition was to obtain the position of director at the Russian State Secondary School in Ludza, which was being prepared for opening.

In 1890, N. Bordonos graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Vladimir University in Kyiv. However, according to Bordonos himself, there were no vacancies available within the Kyiv Educational District. Therefore, he accepted an offer to take a position in Riga within the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

“But the clearly expressed direction I had maintained for more than ten years in favor of the peasantry and against the dominance of the nobility was the reason that, in the interval between the death of Governor Surovtsev and the appointment of a new governor in 1901, I was forced to leave the region and was appointed to the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Resettlement Administration, with assignment to Mogilev-on-Dnieper. <> In Mogilev, under the pressure of a feeling best described by the exclamation ‘I cannot remain silent!’, I published in 1904 the book Foundations of Land Relations in the Livland Province. It received favorable reviews in legal and other periodicals, including Estonian and Latvian ones. In his recently published brochure Agrarjautājums latvju tautas dzīvē (‘The Agrarian Question in the Life of the Latvian People’), Dr. Bilmanis devoted many warm words to this book, placing me alongside Y. Samarin. ‘Bordonos simply tears off the mask and shows things as they really were,’ the author noted.”

At the end of 1905, I was summoned to St. Petersburg to work on a draft law introducing the Peasants’ Land Bank in the Baltic region, and from 1906 to 1920—that is, for 14 years—I served as the manager of its Mitau/Jelgava branch (which is why I am well known to statesmen from Courland).

During the First World War, I spent about two years with the active army, as a person without military training, serving in the Red Cross. For my work under actual artillery and rifle fire, I was awarded the St. George Medal.

When I returned to Latvia in the spring of 1921, the Minister of Internal Affairs, Kviesis, wrote the following note on my petition:
“I know Mr. Bordonos very well from earlier times and can attest that he was one of those high-ranking Russian officials who showed the greatest sympathy toward the aspirations of the Latvian people at that time and always sought to use his influence in this direction within the higher spheres of the Russian government. A. Kviesis, Minister of the Interior” (President of Latvia from 1930 to 1936 – Ed.).

And the President added in his own hand:
“I also know him very well as a Russian public figure and one useful to us. J. Čakste.”

I have lost all my property and for more than five years have lived only on occasional work—proofreading, editing manuscripts, correcting textbooks for new editions <>, but this work is irregular and intermittent.

Last winter, I temporarily replaced an absent teacher of history and Russian at Binc’s gymnasium, and Mr. Binc issued me a certificate stating that I “in a short time aroused a lively interest among students in the subjects taught, gained great authority among them and their affection <>.”

Last year, I published A Guide to the New Russian Orthography <>. This guide received a favorable review in the journal Russian School Abroad, July 1925.

In his petition, N. Bordonos did not fail to mention his participation in Russian public life. In particular, in 1925 he was elected deputy chairman of the Russian National Union. He remained closely associated with this organization until its closure in 1934. At the same time, he was actively involved in the work of the Russian National Association.

However, neither his past achievements nor the petitions of Russian organizations helped him obtain the desired position. It may be assumed that the reasons were his lack of substantial pedagogical experience and his insufficient knowledge of the Latvian language.

Nevertheless, from at least 1925 to 1930, N. Bordonos had been working at the gymnasium of Gustav Binc, and later at that of Isaac Rauchverger.

In 1922–23, he had been editing and writing articles for the newspaper Mayak, and later published in Slovo, Segodnya, and other periodicals.

Nikolai Bordonos died in Riga on May 15, 1945. He was buried at the Pokrov Cemetery (the grave has not survived).

Sources of information:

ЛГИА, ф.1632, оп.1, д. 2731.

Бордонос Н. Основы поземельных отношений в Лифляндской губернии. – Могилёв, 1904. – 192 с.

Бордонос Н. Русская общественность в Латвии. – Рига, 1922. – 16 с.

Бордонос Н. Русские реформы последнего времени. – Русские в Латвии. Сборник. – Часть 1. – Рига, 1933