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History of the world economy - Polyak GB

22. Economic development of Russia in the XIX century.

XIX century. Was a time for Russia, although a slow but steady rise. Europeanization of Russia has intensified, and the country has become an important part of the world community - both in terms of political and economic. Significant shifts were made in the life of Russian society itself - a country where almost half of the population was in a slavish condition at the beginning of this period, became free. However, new progressive trends often did not supplant the old, hindering the development of the country, but only superimposed on them, creating bizarre combinations - Russian specificity.

22.1. General characteristics of the era

Territory and population. Cities

In the XIX century. The territory of Russia has grown, and yet. More significantly increased the population - from 33 to 130.5 million people. However, in fact the country's territory was inhabited poorly - even in 1897, an average of 1 square kilometer in the country accounted for about 9 people. (In England - 208) and very unevenly - from 310 people. For 1 km2 in European Russia to 0.2 people. For 1 km2 in Siberia. A significant part of the territory was occupied by tundra, taiga, marshes, deserts, inconvenient for industrial and agricultural activities and therefore not economically developed.

The overwhelming majority of Russians lived both in the countryside at the beginning and at the end of the century: 96% and 87%, respectively. Cities, however, there were many and their number grew rapidly: from 600 to the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries. Up to 1000 at the beginning of the 20th century.

In the first half of the XIX century. Most of all cities were small cities (with a population of 1 - 5 thousand), they were home to about a third of the urban population of the empire. The average cities (with a population of 20 - 50 thousand) were about a half dozen; They included Kazan, Tula, Kaluga, Yaroslavl, Kursk, Voronezh. The largest cities were St. Petersburg (336 thousand) and Moscow (270 thousand). The number of large and medium-sized cities was negligible, but they were home to one third of the urban population.

By the end of the century, there was a clear tendency towards the predominant growth of the largest cities, and the larger the city, the faster it grew: in 1897 the number of St. Petersburgers exceeded 2 million, and the number of Muscovites - approached this threshold. But the share of large cities (the population of more than 200 thousand) of cities was still insignificant and did not exceed 2%, the average cities (with a population of not less than 100 thousand) were about 18%, small - 80%.

Not surprisingly, even at the end of the XIX century. Russian cities were not well-equipped: only 18% of cities had running water, 7% - electric lighting.

The level of education

The achievements of scientific and technological progress were slowly introduced into Russian life, which was the inevitable consequence of a low level of education. At the beginning of the XIX century. In the country as a whole there were no more than 4-5% of literate people (for comparison, 40% of the population were literate in Japan during this period). By the middle of the XIX century. The situation practically did not change for the better - only 6% of Russians were literate, despite the fact that access to education was introduced and a network of lower, middle and higher educational institutions was established.

After the reforms of the 60-70s of the XIX century. Some progress has been made in public education: the system of primary education has been expanded at the expense of free zemstvo and peasant schools, the middle step has been improved, supplemented by real and female gymnasiums, which gave the right to enter universities and new institutes and universities. The right to enter any educational institution was provided to immigrants from all classes. However, the changes for the better were slow: in 1897 21% of Russians were literate. By this time in Japan, as well as developed Western countries, a compulsory primary education had long been introduced.

The science

It is not surprising, therefore, that Russian science developed more slowly than in the advanced countries of the world, however, in comparison with the level of the domestic science of the previous period, growth was palpable.

The largest mathematician was N.I. Lobachevsky. The discoveries of Lobachevsky (1826): the sum of the angles of a triangle can be more or less than 180 °, two parallel lines can intersect at infinity - they have revolutionized the notion of the nature of space. In the West, these problems were developed simultaneously with Lobachevsky by the prominent scientists of the KF. Gauss and B. Riemann, who came to similar conclusions. In the second half of the XIX century. Formed the famous Petersburg mathematical school, whose leaders were PL. Chebyshev, A.N. Lyapunov, A.A. Markov. Their research contributed to the development of new branches of mathematics. In general, Russian mathematical thought in the XIX century. First came to the level of world science.

The achievement of the world level was the creation by DI Mendeleev in 1869 of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements. Arranging the chemical elements in order of increasing their atomic weights, he established the periodic frequency of their properties.

Astronomical thought in was born in the XIX century. The most famous scientists were V.Ya. Struve, the founder and first director of the Pulkovo Observatory, who established the fact of light absorption in interstellar space, and his son, O.V. Struve, who discovered more than 500 double stars.

The general social portrait of the intelligentsia, which supplied mainly cadres to science, looked at the end of the 19th century. in this way. According to the census of 1897, engineers and technologists for the whole country were 4010 people. (Including four women), scientists and writers - 3296 (284 women), doctors - 16956. At the same time, beggars, vagabonds, pilgrims, pilgrims and fortune-tellers were 363 thousand 201 people, and peasants - 97 million.