Mikhail Andreevich Balugianskii

Born Sept. 26, 1769; died Apr. 3, 1847. Russian economist. Doctor of law (1796); professor of political economy at the St. Petersburg Pedagogical Institute (from 1804) and then the University of St. Petersburg.

A Ukrainian from Transcarpathia, Balug’ianskii studied in Hungary and the University of Vienna’s faculty of law. He was the first rector of the University of St. Petersburg (1819–21). On the peasant question, he supported liberal reforms and reorganization. He worked in the Ministry of Finances and participated in M. M. Speranskii’s commission on drawing up a code of Russian laws. Balug’ianskii was one of the theoreticians of the liberal nobility. A critic of mercantilism, he tried to combine the views of the physiocrats with the teaching of A. Smith and adapt them to conditions in Russia. Balug’ianskii was popular among the progressive instructors at the University of St. Petersburg, influencing such democratic professors as K. Arsen’ev, A. Kunitsyn, and K. German. The Statisticheskii zhurnal for 1806 (vol. 1, part 1) and 1808 (vol. 2, part 1) contains his articles “National Wealth: A Description of Various Economic Systems” and “On the Division and Circulation of Wealth.”