Kosynsky, Volodymyr

Kosynsky, Volodymyr [Косинський, Володимир; Kosyns'kyj], b 13 August 1864 in Doroshivka, Hlukhiv county, Chernihiv gubernia, d 5 November 1938 in Riga, Latvia. Economist. A graduate of Moscow University (MA, 1901), he was a professor of economics at the Riga Polytechnical Institute, Odesa University (1905–9), the Kyiv Polytechnical Institute, and the Kamianets-Podilskyi Ukrainian State University. A member of the Hromada of Kyiv, in 1917 he was elected to the Central Rada from the Russian Constitutional Democratic (kadet) party. In November 1918 he became the third minister of labor in the Hetman government and a full member of the newly created Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and head of its Chair of Agriculture. After 1921 Kosynsky lived in emigration in Warsaw, Prague, and then Riga. A leading scholar of agriculture agrarian relations in the Russian Empire, his many works include O priemakh nauchnoi razrabotki statisticheskikh dannykh (On Methods for Processing Statistical Data, 1890), K agrarnomu voprosu (On the Agrarian Question, 1906), and O merakh k razvitiiu proizvoditel'nykh sil Rossii (On the Measures for Developing the Productive Forces of Russia, 1904). In 1913 he was attacked by Vladimir Lenin for his criticism of the theory of rural ‘proletarianization.’

[This article was updated in 2010.]