Place of Birth. Education. A native of the village of Pronozivka, Globinsky district, Poltava region. In 1968 he graduated from the faculty of journalism of the Taras Shevchenko University of Kiev.
Career. He began his career in 1960 as a literary worker for the newspaper Socialist Hradizhchina in the Poltava region.
In 1962-1974. Ivan Bokiy was in charge of the department, served as deputy editor of the Globinsk newspaper Dawn of Communism. After that, for eight years he led the regional publication Komsomolets of Poltava region.
In 1982-1987 headed the republican newspaper Molod Ukrainy, and in 1987-1998. He was deputy editor-in-chief of the newspaper Selskie Vesti, which became the main mouthpiece of the Socialist Party during the years of Ukraine’s independence.
Boky is a people’s deputy of Ukraine three times since 1998. From the first day of his deputyship he was a member of the socialist faction. In the parliament of the third convocation he worked in the committee on foreign affairs and relations with the CIS, in the fourth convocation – in the committee on European integration. In the Rada of the fifth convocation – First Deputy Chairman of the European Integration Committee.
In December 2006, Bokiy was elected leader of the Socialist faction – after the appointment of his predecessor Vasily Tsushko as head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
In the 2007 early parliamentary elections, the socialists did not enter parliament.
Views and assessments. Shortly before being promoted along the party line, the politician said in an interview that his parliamentary faction actually has a two-headed leadership: there is an official leader, but the speaker of parliament, Oleksandr Moroz, being the leader of the Socialist Party, also manages the faction. According to experts, Bokiy is a reliable supporter of Moroz, he is ready to clearly follow the planned line and the leader of the party does not have to be afraid of unforeseen surprises. Boky fully confirmed this during the protracted political crisis, which was accompanied by a sharp struggle between the ruling coalition and President Viktor Yushchenko, at the peak of which the head of state decided to dissolve the Verkhovna Rada of the 5th convocation ahead of schedule. Like the leader of the SPU, the head of the socialist faction opposed the president and his initiative to hold early parliamentary elections.
Bokom sees the situation in the SPU as such that the party “has no particular attraction to either the Orange or the Regionals.” According to him, only Joseph Vinsky and Galina Garmash, who left the faction (immediately after the SPU entered into a coalition with the Party of Regions and the Communist Party of Ukraine), had a desire to join the “orange” ones. And then, according to the politician, his colleagues made a demarche not for ideological, but for personal reasons.
Speaking about businessmen, heads of enterprises who came to the SPU, Bokiy does not feel in them “a craving for the regions or somewhere else.” “They are pragmatic people, they know what they want, so sometimes their interests coincide with pragmatists from other factions … Now this is required by the development of the economy,” he said. As for the oligarchs, according to him, there are no such in the SPU, “so – only oligarchs” (for example, at that time the Minister of Transport and Communications Nikolai Rudkovsky).
Ranks. Ivan Bokiy has been holding the title of Honored Worker of Culture of Ukraine since 1980. He is an excellent student of the press of the USSR, laureate of the Republican Prize named after Y. Galan, the International Ukrainian Prize named after. G. Pans.
Creation. Author of the book of essays “The Branch of the Pushkin Family”, the cycles “Let’s Talk, Friend”, “In the Light of Day”, published back in the Soviet period.
Family, hobby. The politician has a daughter. Her hobbies include reading literature, filming videos, and poetry.
Death. Ivan Bokiy died on March 24, 2024 at the age of 79.
03/25/2020