Borys Mykolaiovych Martos

Who was Borys Mykolaiovych Martos?

Borys Mykolaiovych Martos was a public and political activist, pedagogue, economist.

He was born in Gradizk, in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire and died in exile in the United States at the age of 98. He was born into a long-lived Cossack family of Martos.

Martos was a political leader, cooperative organizer, and the full member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society. He finished the Lubny Classic gymnasium in 1897 and enrolled into the Mathematics Department of the Kharkiv University. Martos became a member of a secret Ukrainian student hromada of Kharkiv. Here in 1900 in Kharkiv he met with Symon Petliura and his future wife M.Kucheryavenko. In summer of 1900 Martos participated in the First Ukrainian Student Congress in Halychyna.

He was arrested three times for collaboration with the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party. After graduating and until 1917 Martos worked in several different places: a co-ed in Volyn, a financial director at the Black Sea-Kuban Railway board, a director of the Kuban Cooperative Bank, and a cooperative instructor for the Poltava Governorate zemstvo. In 1917 Martos served on numerous official positions as delegate in the Central Rada and its Executive Committee, and the General Secretariat. After the Hetman coup-d'etat worked as a cooperator. During that time Martos was heading the Central Ukrainian Cooperative Committee as its executive director as well working at the board of directors for the Dniprosoyuz, giving lectures at the Kiev Commercial Institute, and had established the Kiev Cooperative Institute.