Riappo, Yan

Riappo, Yan or Räppo, Jaan [Ряппо, Ян], b 11 April 1880 in what is now Vyru oblast, Estonia, d 14 April 1958 in Kyiv. Pedagogue. He graduated from Saint Petersburg University in 1909 with a degree in history, philosophy, and Eastern languages. In 1921–8 he was deputy people's commissar of education of the Ukrainian SSR and, working under Hryhorii Hrynko, played a leading role in developing Ukraine’s independent public education system, known as the Hrynko-Riappo system (see Unified labor school). In 1922–7 he was editor of the journal Shliakh osvity. In 1928–38 he worked in industry, and in 1938–48 in public education in Ukraine and RSFSR. Riappo’s books include Reforma vysshei shkoly na Ukraine v gody revoliutsii, 1920–24 (Reforms of the Higher School in Ukraine in the Years of the Revolution, 1920–24, 1925) and Systema narodn'oï osvity na Ukraïni (The Elementary School System in Ukraine, 1926).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]