Roslavsky-Petrovsky, Oleksander

Roslavsky-Petrovsky, Oleksander [Рославський-Петровський, Олександер; Roslavs'kyj-Petrovs'kyj], b 9 April 1816 in Slabyn, Chernihiv county, Chernihiv gubernia, d 25 December 1871 in Kharkiv. Historian, statistician, and pedagogue. After completing studies at Nizhyn Lyceum in 1834, he attended Kharkiv University (1839) and taught there (from 1837, as professor from 1839) and at the university’s pedagogical institute (1844–52). He improved the study of statistics by introducing new Western techniques and approaches, headed the first separate department of statistics (from 1841), and wrote two statistics textbooks (1841, 1844). His PH D dissertation (1845) was a historical, political-economic, and statistical comparison of the population of the Russian Empire with that of other European countries. He was appointed dean of the history and philology department (1853) and rector of Kharkiv University (1859–62). In the 1850s he also carried out studies on the potential economic impact of a railway in Kharkiv gubernia. Roslavsky-Petrovsky wrote articles on the economy and trade of Kharkiv gubernia for the journals Khar’kovskie gubernskie vedomosti and Ekonomicheskii ukazatel’ and the series Sbornik statisticheskikh svedenii o Rossii (Collection of Statistical Data about Russia). He also wrote on the history of Kharkiv University and higher education in the Russian Empire.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]