Stepan Bokhonko

Stepan Bohonko (circa 1860, Minsk Governorate, Russian Empire – 22nd of July 1927, Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR) – a teacher of Russian language, a public figure.

Stepan Bohonko arrived in the Baltic Provinces in the late 1880s and devoted more than twenty-five years to public education in the region. He first served as a teacher of the Russian language at the Mitau/Jelgava Municipal Alexander School and, from 1907 to 1914, had been teaching at the German Private Gymnasium in Mitau.

As an educator, S. Bohonko enjoyed a strong reputation not only among the residents of Mitau but also far beyond the city. Many of the political leaders of the Republic of Latvia, proclaimed in 1918, had been his students. Among them was Kārlis Ulmanis, the future President of Latvia. Alphons Francis described this in his article Latviešu tautas vadoņa 60 gadi. Valsts un ministru prezidenta Dr. Kārļa Ulmaņa dzīve un darbi ("The 60th Birthday of the Leader of the Latvian Nation. The Life and Work of Prime Minister and President Dr. Kārlis Ulmanis"), published in the journal Aizsargs (1937):

"Ulmanis lived in the boarding house of teacher Bohonko and studied diligently, attaching the greatest importance to books, through which a much broader world opened before him, together with a deeper understanding of his own nation."

In 1906, the printing house of "I. F. Steffenhagen & Son" in Mitau published S.D. Bohonko's brochure The Most Important Rules for More Rapid Mastery of Russian Orthography, with an Outline of the Procedure for the Grammatical Analysis of Simple and Complex Sentences.

S. Bohonko received several state decorations, including the Order of St. Stanislaus, 3rd Class (1896).

Throughout his years in Mitau, S. Bohonko took an active part in the life of the local Russian community. For more than twenty years, he served continuously as a member of the parish trusteeship of the Cathedral of Saints Simeon and Anna.

S. Bohonko was also a member of the governing board of the Committee for the Care of Elderly Persons and Children of the Orthodox Faith and participated in the establishment of a shelter for Russian children in Mitau. His contemporaries remembered him as a kind, honest, and devoted worker.

The final years of S. Bohonko's life were spent in Kyiv, where, according to the newspaper Segodnya (Today) in 1927, he lived in extreme poverty.

Stepan Bohonko died in Kyiv on 22 July 1927 after a long and serious illness.