Timiriazev, Dmitrii Arkadevich

Born 1837; died Mar. 2, (15), 1903, in St. Petersburg. Russian statistician. Brother of K. A. Timiriazev.

D. A. Timiriazev graduated from the University of Kiev. Between 1876 and 1894 he performed various duties in the Ministry of Finance. In addition to being a member of the ministry’s council, he was in charge of statistics for the ministry and served as editor of Ezhegodnik Ministerstva Finansov (Yearbook of the Ministry of Finance) and Vestnik finansov, promyshlennosti i torgovli (Journal of Finance, Industry, and Trade). During this period he also carried on trade negotiations with Rumania, Serbia, and Turkey. When the Ministry of Agriculture and State Property was formed in 1894, Timiriazev became head of the ministry’s department of agricultural economics and statistics, a member of the ministry’s council, and editor of the ministry’s Izvestiia (Proceedings).

Timiriazev represented the Free Economic Society on the Commission for Study of Cottage Industry in Russia. He served as the Ministry of Agriculture’s representative on the Chief Census Commission for the General Census of 1897. He was a member of the International Statistical Institute.

Two volumes of the work Historical and Statistical Survey of the Industry of Russia were published under Timiriazev’s editorship between 1883 and 1886. In his later years he was a member of the editorial staff of the journal Syn otechestva (Son of the Fatherland).

Timiriazev resolutely criticized the system of collecting raw statistical data on industry. His efforts to improve the organization of Russian industrial statistics for the 1870’s to 1890’s, however, did not meet with success.