Shtorkh, Andrei

(also Heinrich Friedrich Storch). Born Feb. 18 (Mar. 1), 1766, in Riga; died Nov. 1 (13), 1835, in St. Petersburg. Russian economist, historian, and bibliographer. Academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1804); the academy’s vice-president (1830).

Shtorkh studied at the universities of Jena and Heidelberg from 1784 to 1787. After returning to Russia, he taught history and literature at the St. Petersburg Cadet Corps. For 20 years, beginning in 1799, he tutored the children of the imperial family. With F. P. Adelung he compiled The Systematic Review of Literature in Russia During the Five-year Period 1801–1806 (parts 1–2, 1810–11), which exhaustively surveyed the works printed in Russia in the indicated period and which marked the beginning of Russian book statistics.

Shtorkh wrote a textbook on political economy that gained wide recognition in the early 19th century. In economic theory, he borrowed a number of ideas, such as the theory of wages and profits, from A. Smith; he rejected Smith’s theory of labor value, however, siding with T. Malthus on several issues. Although he demonstrated the advantage of free over serf labor, Shtorkh asserted that Russian agriculture could develop successfully under serfdom. Shtorkh was a member of 21 academies and scholarly societies.