Miklashevskii, Ivan Nikolaevich

Miklashevskii, Ivan Nikolaevich 

Born 1858 in Chernigov Province; died Dec. 3 (16), 1901, in Kharkov. Russian economic historian and statistician.

After graduating from Novorossiia University (Odessa) in 1882, Miklashevskii taught at a number of higher educational institutions and became a professor of political economy and statistics at the University of Kharkov in 1896. He gained fame for his works on the history of Russian agrarian relations. In his main work, On the History of Economic Life in the Muscovite State, part 1: Colonization and Agriculture in the Southern Border Regions of Russia in the 18th Century (1894), he tried, on the basis of a great deal of factual and statistical material, to explain Muscovite state policies in terms of economics. He also criticized serfdom from a liberal point of view and stressed the opposing interests of peasants and landlords. Miklashevskii’s other major works were Essays on the Peasant Agriculture of Little Russia (1887), Water Laws and Legislation in Russia (1895), and On the Quantitative Method of Studying Social Phenomena (1897).