Alexander Nikiforovich Skrebitsky: Strokes to the Portrait of a Simbirsk Land Entrepreneur

Abstract

Introduction. The article examines the life path and entrepreneurial activity of the large Simbirsk landowner Alexander Nikiforovich Skrebitsky, which absorbed all the contradictions of the feudal-serf era, in many ways becoming its personification. The economic system of Russia in the 19th century, despite the continued dominance of traditionalism in its feudal guise, underwent quite significant changes. They occurred in a number of directions, one of which was the commercialization of landowner farms, their transformation into “economies”. But if in the second half of the 19th century for landowners the movement in this direction was essentially a matter of “survival” essentially the only possible scenario for maintaining their economic viability, then in the first half of the 19th century it was more of an innovation. Results. The history of the business success of Russian landowners, who managed to overcome the inertial effect of the class environment and go beyond the feudal-serf restrictions, deserves close attention. Each of them followed their own path to success, using their existing competitive advantages to realize their entrepreneurial aspirations. A. N. Skrebitsky belonged to the most progressively minded part of the landowner-entrepreneurs in the first half of the 19th century. In their desire to create productive “economies” of a commercial nature within their estates, they formed a fairly stable economic trend that involved more and more enterprising landowners. By striving to commercialize their farms, give them a diversified focus, and carry out technical and technological modernization of their industrial complex they thereby reconfigured the existing system. Discussion and Conclusion. Life path of A. N. Skrebitsky is quite typical for a Russian nobleman. The first stage of his life was entirely devoted to military service. In addition to career success, by the early 1830s he was able to significantly improve his financial situation, which in the context of his further activities can be regarded as the initial accumulation of capital. Having become a landowner-entrepreneur, he quite successfully realized himself in this field, not only preserving, but also increasing the potential of his Simbirsk factories.