Участие потомственного дворянства Санкт-Петербурга в предпринимательской деятельности в 1914 г.
Participation of the Hereditary Nobility of St. Petersburg in Business Activity in 1914

Summary/Abstract: In search of the exit from the difficult economic situation in which nobility found itself after the Peasant reform of 1861 and several following actions of the imperial government, the essential number of representatives belonging to the highest estate turned to the sphere of private business which was actively developing in Russia in post-reform years. During the next decades the number of noble businessmen was constantly increasing. In this article the main forms of participation of noblemen in business at the end of the post-reform period are investigated on the materials of St. Petersburg. The attempt was made to reveal the number of the highest estate representatives among the owners of the individual trade and industrial enterprises, the heads of the trading houses, the joint-stock and share companies. In this article the total number of Petersburg noblemen engaged in the field of private initiative is also estimated. For fuller interpretation of the subject the examples of the businessmen with the noble origin at all levels of business activity are given. The article demonstrates that on the eve of First World War in Petersburg there was a considerable layer of hereditary noblemen, directly busy in commercial activity. Due to various reasons, the main of which are considered in this work, the most serious involvement of noblemen took place in the enterprise structures of the highest level — joint stock companies and share associations. Among the Petersburg noblemen who were really involved in the sphere of private initiative the representatives of the known and titled aristocratic families were rare. After all business remained the lot of the unnotable part of the highest estate. Apart from considering the situation with real businessmen of the noble origin this article draws attention to the noblemenrentiers who were indirectly connected with commerce.

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