Alexander Ivanovich Chuprov (Александр Иванович Чупров; 1841–1908) was a professor of political economy and

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...

Moscow University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

whose lectures provided the standard introduction to economics for late 19th-century Russian students. Chuprov's father was an Orthodox priest based in

Mosalsk Mosalsk (russian: Моса́льск) is a town and the administrative center of Mosalsky District in Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located west of Kaluga, the administrative center of the oblast. Population: History First attested in 1231 as Masalsk ...

. Alexander attended the Law Department of the

where he became interested in

Wilhelm Roscher Wilhelm Georg Friedrich Roscher (; 21 October 18174 June 1894) was a German economist from Hanover. Biography Roscher studied at Göttingen, where he became a member of Corps Hannovera, and Berlin, and obtained a professorship at Göttingen in ...

's research. He founded the Moscow Society to Disseminate Technical Knowledge in 1869 and was elected into the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...

in 1887. Chuprov has been described as the founder of

transport economics Transport economics is a branch of economics founded in 1959 by American economist John R. Meyer that deals with the allocation of resources within the transport sector. It has strong links to civil engineering. Transport economics differs from ...

and the multiple-factor analysis of economic regions. In his landmark work ''The Railway Economy'' (1875–78) he analyzed statistics on railway traffic. He distinguished one region from another according to "the value of the market, the cost of transportation, and demographic indicators". Chuprov became known as "the heart and soul" of

zemstvo A ''zemstvo'' ( rus, земство, p=ˈzʲɛmstvə, plural ''zemstva'' – rus, земства) was an institution of local government set up during the great emancipation reform of 1861 carried out in Imperial Russia by Emperor Alexander ...

statistical investigations and

sample survey In statistics, quality assurance, and survey methodology, sampling is the selection of a subset (a statistical sample) of individuals from within a statistical population to estimate characteristics of the whole population. Statisticians attem ...

s in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

. His researchers are said to have interviewed 4.5 million Russian

muzhik Agriculture in the Russian Empire throughout the 19th-20th centuries Russia represented a major world force, yet it lagged technologically behind other developed countries. Imperial Russia (officially founded in 1721 and abolished in 1917) was am ...

s. Their mission was to provide a modern statistical description of the Russian peasant commune, or

obschina Obshchina ( rus, община, p=ɐpˈɕːinə, literally "commune") or mir (russian: мир, literally "society", among other meanings), or selskoye obshchestvo (russian: сельское общество, literally "rural community", official ...

. Chuprov viewed the Russian obshchina as a valuable social institution which should be preserved. Chuprov was a lifelong friend of another prominent statistician,

Ivan Yanzhul Ivan Ivanovich Yanzhul (russian: Иван Иванович Янжул; – ) was a professor of financial law at Moscow University who established the Russian state factory inspection. He helped enforce the first Russian labour code (1 June 18 ...

. One of his students at the Moscow University was

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj; – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...

. His son Alexander A. Chuprov (1874–1926) is said to have given "much impetus to statistics in pre-revolutionary Russia".E. Seneta. ''A Sketch of the History of Survey Sampling in Russia''. // Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Vol. 148, No 2, 1985. Page 118.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Chuprov Statisticians from the Russian Empire Economists from the Russian Empire Transport economists Moscow State University alumni Professorships at the Imperial Moscow University 1841 births 1908 deaths