Gatsiskii, Aleksandr

Gatsiskii, Aleksandr Serafimovich 

Born May 30 (June 11), 1838, in Riazan’; died Apr. 27 (May 9), 1893, in Nizhny Novgorod, now Gorky. Active figure in zemstvo (district assembly) and municipal self-government in Russia. Historian, ethnologist, writer, statistician.

Gatsiskii graduated from the University of Kazan in 1861. Between 1865 and 1893 (with brief interruptions) he was secretary of the provincial statistical committee in Nizhny Novgorod and, from 1887, chairman of the city’s archival commission. Gatsiskii’s works contain valuable factual material on the features of economic conditions and the way of life in the Nizhny Novgorod region. Gatsiskii’s sociopolitical views reflect the influence of the Narodnik (Populist) theories in their attitude toward the peasantry, as well as the views of the historian A. P. Shchapov on the prevailing importance of the principles of the zemstvo and oblast in the history of the Russian people.

WORKS

Nizhegorodskii sbornik, vols. 1-10. Nizhny Novgorod, 1867-90.
Nizhegorodskii Letopisets. Nizhny Novgorod, 1886.
Deistviia nizhegorodskoi gubernskoi uchenoi arkhivnoi komissii, issues 1-9. Nizhny Novgorod, 1887-90.
Liudi nizhegorodskogo Povolzh’ia, book 1. Nizhny Novgorod, 1887.

REFERENCE

Aleksandrov, K. D. (ed.). A. S. Gatsiskii: Sb., posviashchennyi pamiati A. S. Gatsiskogo. Gorky, 1939. (Bibliography of Gatsiskii’s works.)