Iosif Goshkevich

He graduated from the Saint Petersburg Theological Academy in 1839 and served in the Russian clerical legation in Beijing from 1839 to 1848.

Along with a Japanese co-author, Goshkevich compiled the first Japanese-Russian dictionary, which was published in Saint Petersburg in 1857.

After returning to St. Petersburg in 1848, Goshkevich became an official for special tasks in the Asia Department of the Foreign Ministry in 1850.

In July 1855 he left Japan on the brig Greta, on which he became a British prisoner in Hong Kong due to the still ongoing Crimean War.

In captivity, with the help of the Japanese Tazibana-no Koossai (1820-1885, after baptism Vladimir Iossifovich Yamatov), he compiled the first Japanese-Russian dictionary.

His wife Yelizaveta Stepanovna died in 1864 at the age of 43 and was buried in the Russian cemetery in Hakodate.