Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen · 1900
Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen’s joint review introduces Gerhart von Schulze-Gävernitz’s Volkswirtschaftliche Studien aus Russland and Nicolai-on’s Die Volkswirtschaft in Russland nach der Bauernemancipation. Its organizing concern is the inadequacy of Western knowledge of Russia, whose diverse peoples and coexisting stages of economic development make it important for both contemporary policy and economic history. Schullern welcomes informed investigation while cautioning against treating present Russian conditions as straightforward analogues of Western Europe’s past.
He commends Schulze-Gävernitz’s firsthand observation and historical inquiry. The book’s six chapters examine older mercantilism, the central Russian cotton industry, Slavophiles and Panslavists, trade policy in the 1880s, agrarian conditions, and currency reform. Schullern singles out the agrarian chapter as the most interesting and important. These selective studies gain coherence through their connections:
Dass der innere Zusammenhang zwischen den verschiedenen bezeichneten Themen immer dem Verfasser vor Augen geblieben ist und auch dem Leser stets zum Bewusstsein kommt, sei noch angedeutet.
English translation: Let it further be indicated that the inner connection between the various themes designated has always remained before the author's eyes and likewise constantly comes to the reader's awareness.
For Schullern, the book’s strength lies in connecting particular economic and social institutions across past and present, rather than attempting exhaustive coverage. His account of Nicolai-on shifts from this praise of empirical breadth to the explanatory framework of German scientific socialism. Nicolai-on relates Russian economic tendencies to theories derived from Western European experience; Schullern also notes his use of North American comparisons, while questioning how closely those conditions resemble Russia’s.
Das ganze Werk zeigt eine düstere und pessimistische Beurtheilung der russischen Verhältnisse (siehe z. B. Seite 91) und lässt in eine trübe Zukunft blicken.
English translation: The whole work displays a gloomy and pessimistic assessment of Russian conditions (see e.g. page 91) and gives a view into a bleak future.
This pessimism frames Nicolai-on’s analysis of capitalization. The first part studies grain production and circulation, beginning with railways and credit as accelerators of the transition from a subsistence economy to a money economy. The much longer second part traces the destruction of older industrial forms and the consequences of capitalist production. Schullern highlights the social division of labour, grain prices, sharecropping and monetary rent, different forms of production, and factory labour’s effects on workers’ physical development.
Ausserordentlich wertvoll sind die zahlreichen statistischen Tabellen, welche dem Werke angeschlossen sind.
English translation: Extraordinarily valuable are the numerous statistical tables that are appended to the work.
His appreciation of the statistics shows that reservations about Nicolai-on’s standpoint do not negate the work’s evidentiary value. Schullern closes by defining his purpose as drawing attention to the two books, leaving their substantive intersections unexplored. Nevertheless, he makes a consequential evaluative distinction: Nicolai-on’s position as a Russian calls for a different reading, whereas Schulze-Gävernitz is credited with greater objectivity. The review thus combines an appeal for better knowledge of Russia with judgments about comparative method, theoretical commitment, and the observer’s relation to the society studied.
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