Sergey Jacques Paramonov[1] (Russian: Серге́й Я́ковлевич Парамо́нов; 4 November 1894, Kharkiv – 22 September 1967, Canberra) was a Soviet and Australian[2] entomologist, specializing on flies (Diptera), of which described about 700 species and subspecies.

[9] Although in private life he often used Ukrainian transliteration of his full name Сергій Якович Парамонів - Serhiy Yakowich Paramoniv, and the inscription on his gravestone is written in this way.

During his studying Yakiv Paramonov got under influence of the Narodniks movement, as the result he was taking part in student unrest and was arrested in 1893, together with the future Bolshevik functionary Alexander Tsiurupa.

At that time Sergey was studying at Veliky Ustyug Gymnasium, which was more than 50 kilometres from their home through difficult forest roads.

Yakov Paramonov got a job as a forester on the opposite bank of the Dniester river in Cioburciu village, now in Moldova, of the Bessarabia Governorate.

Despite the fact that in all known official documents[clarification needed] Paramonov was mentioned as an ethnic Russian, he took part in the Ukrainian National Revival movement.

In 1914 and 1915 Ukrainian organizations were trying to conduct the celebration of Taras Shevchenko's 100 years anniversary, as a result the police arrested some activists.

In 1915 Sergey Paramonov published his first scientific note "On the record of the spotted cuckoo in Bessarabian Government" in the Ornithological Journal.

In 1940 Sergey Parmonov wrote and defended the thesis "Palearctic Bombyliidae", thus he earned the Doctor of Sciences in Biology, soon he was appointed as a director of the Zoological Museum.

Another Sergey's friend the entomologist Boris Uvarov asked the chief of CSIRO Alexander John Nicholson about vacancies in Australia.

The issue of his appointment at CSIRO was raised by MP Joe Abbott in the Parliament of Australia as he guessed that Paramonov might have been a Soviet spy.

After thorough consideration, it was decided to keep the position at CSIRO for Paramonov, but to restrict him the access to certain areas in Australia for national security reasons.

Paramonov was not very good at English at first so he continued writing his scientific articles mainly in German in the first few years, thus there were some difficulties to publish them in Australia.

Being in Paris in 1945, Sergey Paramonov met the editor of the Russian emigrant magazine Vozrozhdeniye [ru] S. Plautin.

They were discussing the article of Paramonov's Kiev colleague the zoologist Mykola Sharleman [uk] "The Tale of Igor's Campaign in terms of Natural science",[19] which was published in Ukrainian language in 1940.

Thus he wrote the article "The Tale of Igor's Campaign from the point of view of a naturalist" and signed it as Sergey Lesnoy for some reasons.

[21] After writing his first article, the ancient history of the East Slavs became his topic of interest, so while he was living in Australia Paramonov wrote series of compositions about it.

His most significant works in Russian were: In 1954 Sergey Paramonov received the white émigré magazine Zhar-ptitsa (Firebird), which was published in San Francisco, from Aleksandr Kurenkov [ru].

The magazine contained a letter from their Brussels' reader Yury Mirolubov [uk], where he reported about strange artifacts – carved planks, which had been found by Fedor Izenbek [ru] near Kharkiv, when he had been serving as a colonel of the Volunteer Army.

Initially Sergey Paramonov believed in the Book of Veles authenticity and reckoned that it had been written in the Proto-Slavic language.

Paramonov needed to prove the Book of Veles authenticity so he sent all his researches and all materials, he had, to the Academy of Sciences of the USSR under the mediation of the University of Melbourne.

During the last ten years of his life Sergey Paramonov severely suffered from arthritis, angina and chronic nephritis .

After the visit him by the slavist Boris Unbegaun in September 1967, who strongly criticised Paramonov's investigations into the Book of Veles, his health deteriorated significantly.

Laid to rest by the very reverend A. TedorowychBefore his death Sergey Paramonov made a will according to which he left all his savings for the St. Nicholas Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church construction in Canberra.

[23] After some time the St Nicholas church became a core of the Ukrainian Orthodox Centre,[24] where the Memorial to victims [uk] of the 1932-1933 enforced famine-genocide in Ukraine was erected in 1985.