 Born on 5 (17) October 1878 in Kharkiv, in the Kharkov Governorate of the Russian Empire (in present-day eastern Ukraine), he was the son of a metal turner (tokar', also translatable as lathe operator).Bibik was relatively better educated than many worker writers, which may partly explain his turn to prose, which a number of other samouchki tried and abandoned as too difficult compared to poetry, or came to later in life.Starting at the age of nine, he learned basic literacy at a privately owned school before enrolling in a regular city primary school in Kharkov.