[1][2] Angel Bogdanovich was born in Haradok, in the Gorodoksky Uyezd of the Vitebsk Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Belarus), an heir to a noble family of the Polish and Lithuanian origins.

His younger brother was a famous Polish geologist, an expert in mining geology and physical geography Karol Bohdanowicz.

As a student of the medical faculty, he became a member of a Narodnik political circle, was expelled and got deported to the Nizny Novgorod governorate.

In 1893, now a Saint Petersburg resident, he founded there Narodnoye Pravo (People's Right) group and issued its political program in a brochure called Nasushchny Vopros (A Vital Question, 1894).

In the early 1890s Bogdanovich regularly contributed to Russkoye Bogatstvo, in 1894-1906 was a co-editor of and a key figure in Mir Bozhiy.