Stepan Stepanovich Gromeka

Born in Poltava in 1823; died Sept. 15 (27), 1877, in the village of Vol’ka-Plebanskaia, Bel’sk District, Sedlets Province, now in Poland. Russian publicist and social figure. Born into a family of the dvorianstvo (nobility or gentry). Served as an officer of the railroad gendarmes.

Having resigned his regular position, Gromeka won fame in 1857–58 for his series of satirical articles on the police that appeared in Russkii vestnik (Russian Herald). In the early 1860’s he was a contributor to Otechestvennye zapiski (Fatherland Notes) and Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti (St. Petersburg Gazette). From 1859 to 1861 he was a correspondent of A. I. Herzen’s Kolokol, but he remained a supporter of the bourgeois monarchy and tried to “improve” the autocracy with his criticism. In 1862 in the sixth number of Otechestvennye zapiski he attacked Herzen. In the 1860’s and 1870’s he was governor of Sedlets Province and was noted for his harsh measures in the struggle against the peasants. Herzen, N. A. Dobroliubov, and N. G. Chernyshevskii exposed Gromeka’s political rhetoric.