Sergei Filippovich Kovalik

Born Oct. 13(25), 1846, in present-day Zen’kov Raion, Poltava Oblast; died Apr. 26, 1926, in Minsk. Russian populist-revolutionary. Son of a member of the dvorianstvo (nobility or gentry).

Kovalik graduated from the University of Kiev in 1869. He participated in the organization of the first populist circles in the 1870’s and was one of the pioneers of the “Going to the People” movement. In 1873 he went abroad, where he became acquainted with M. A. Bakunin, P. L. Lavrov, and P. N. Tkachev. After returning to Russia, Kovalik was engaged in propaganda work in Kharkov, Moscow, Kiev, and villages along the Volga. He was arrested in July 1874. In what has become known as the Trial of the 193 (1877–78) he was sentenced to ten years at hard labor. He served out his sentence mainly in Siberia. Later, living under surveillance in Verkhoiansk and Irkutsk, he collaborated in the journal Vostochnoe obozrenie. He also took part in ethnographic expeditions in Iakutia. In 1898 he moved to Minsk, where he served in government institutions and taught. After the October Revolution of 1917 he lectured in mathematics at the Minsk Polytechnic Institute until 1922.