VICTOR VASILENKO AS AN ECONOMIST AND LOCAL HISTORIAN (TO THE 180TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTHDAY)

Abstract

In such subject area as the history of economy and economic thought, key value belongs to those individuals, due to whom the contemporaries have an impression of certain views on relevant issues related to the development of productive forces and, therefore, human progress. The late XIX and early XX when Ukrainian society was undergoing the transformation of market relations in accordance with the best international standards at the time, many well-known names with respectable university education appeared in the field of economic knowledge. However, it would be unfair to underestimate those who by their tireless work step by step accumulated the same knowledge to the best of their strengths and abilities. It was to this category of scientists that the son of a Cossack from Poltava region Viktor Ivanovych Vasylenko also belonged. Without special economic education over the material difficulties, he, alone, due to his persistence and natural abilities, has achieved remarkable success in studying the economy of Poltava region, which at that time had a pronounced agrarian trend of development. The paper used the following research methods: method of generalization, historical and logical methods. V.I. Vasylenko’s sphere of scientific interests was rather broad, as evidenced by his numerous publications, around which at that time there were sharp discussions. Among the most important in terms of their social significance, there was the so-called agrarian question, the main content of which was unfair from the point of view of the working peasantry distribution of land between non-privileged states on the one hand and landlords-nobles on the other. Occupying small positions in Poltava Provincial Zemstvo and its Statistical Bureau, V.I. Vasylenko was able to collect and summarize a large array of economic information. V.I. Vasylenko tried to protect the interests of the least privileged part of the Poltava village by criticizing those latifundists who, by renting all or a significant part of their agricultural land to land-poor and landless peasants and Cossacks, ruthlessly exploited this disenfranchised part of the inhabitants of the Poltava region, since the rent often deprived them of the opportunity to obtain the desired profit due to the necessity to pay for renting someone else’s land too much. Analyzing V.I. Vasylenko’s economic views, one cannot but mention in this regard his publication at the early XX century of a business plan for the creation of a model land-poor household, which was first in the Ukrainian economic thought. V.I. Vasylenko’s economic studies were published both in Russian and Ukrainian languages. However, both in the first and the second case, they were accompanied, as a rule, by numerous old saws and proverbs, which made the analysis of one or other statistic data more attractive in terms of perception of the content of this text, which thus looked more convincing and better remembered. Thus, V.I. Vasylenko left a notable mark in the study of the economy and culture of the Poltava region.