Fortunatov, Aleksei Fedorovich

Born Aug. 7 (19), 1856, in Petrozavodsk; died Apr. 13, 1925. Russian statistician and economic geographer. Politically aligned with the Narodniki (Populists).

Fortunatov first studied at the St. Petersburg Medical and Surgical Academy. He then attended the Petrovskoe Agricultural Academy, from which he graduated in 1881. After graduation, he returned to medical school and received his medical degree. He took part in statistical surveys in Moscow Province in 1881 and Samara Province from 1883 to 1886 and was active in the statistical division of the Moscow Juridical Society. Between 1885 and 1902 he taught agricultural statistics at the Petrovskoe Agricultural Academy, Novo-Aleksandriia Institute of Agriculture and Forestry, and Kiev Polytechnical Institute. From 1902 he was a professor at institutes of higher education in Moscow. In 1893 he was awarded the Great Gold Medal of the Russian Geographical Society.

Fortunatov’s principal works were Agricultural Statistics in Russia (1886), A General Survey of Zemstvo Statistics of Peasant Agriculture (1892), Agricultural Statistics of European Russia (1893), and On Statistics (1907). In 1896 he published the first historical survey of attempts to classify Russia by economic region. His bibliographical reviews were important, especially his yearly surveys of zemstvo (elected district administration) statistical publications. Fortunatov sharply criticized the system of higher education in tsarist Russia.