Konstantin Konik

Who was Konstantin Konik?

Konstantin Konik was an Estonian politician and surgeon, member of the Estonian Salvation Committee

Konstantin Konik was born to a working-class family in Tartu; his father made living as a carter. After studying at the Governorate Gymnasium in Tartu, Konstantin Konik graduated from the faculty of Medicine of the University of Dorpat in 1873, and made his doctorate degree at the Odessa University in 1903.

On 8 March 1920 Konik made history at the University of Tartu by giving the first lecture ever made on medicine in Estonian language. The University of Tartu was established as an Estonian institution only in 1919, it had been the University of Dorpat, a Baltic German institution, before, where only German and since the 1880s–90s Russian language had been used.