Nikolai Bunge

Last updated April 27, 2019

Nikolai Karl Paul von^[1] Bunge (Russian : Никола́й Христиа́нович Бу́нге, tr. Nikolay Khristianovich Bunge; 23 November [ O.S. 11 November] 1823 –15 June [ O.S. 3 June] 1895), more commonly known as Nikolai Bunge, was the Russo-German preeminent architect of Russian capitalism under Alexander III. He was a distinguished economist, statesman, and academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. He had also served as the rector of the Kiev University and the Finance minister.

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Biography

Bunge was born to Christian Gottlieb von Bunge from the Lutheran Baltic German noble Bunge family (ru) of East Prussian origin, in Kiev and was second generation of Kievan. His grandfather, Georg Friedrich Bunge moved from the Stallupönen to Kiev sometime in the 18th century. Bunge was a professor of the Kiev University, of which he served as a dean between 1859 and 1880, when he was summoned to St. Petersburg to become a deputy minister and then (since 1881) Minister of Finance. Five years later, he became Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers, the highest position in the civil administration of the Russian Empire.

The Baltic or Baltic German nobility was the privileged social class in the territories of today's Estonia and Latvia. It existed continuously since the Northern Crusades and the medieval foundation of Terra Mariana. Most of the nobility were Baltic Germans, but with the changing political landscape over the centuries, Polish, Swedish and Russian families also became part of the nobility, just as Baltic German families re-settled in e.g. the Swedish and Russian Empires. The nobility of Lithuania is for historical, social and ethnic reasons often separated from the German-dominated nobility of Estonia and Latvia.

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Bunge undertook a number of reforms with the aim of modernizing the Russian economy. He consolidated the banking system of the Empire and founded the Peasants' Land Bank (1883) which helped peasants to purchase land. He introduced important tax law changes which seriously reduced the tax burden of the peasantry. The head tax was abolished and the inheritance tax was introduced.

Tax law or revenue law is an area of legal study which deals with the constitutional, common-law, statutory, tax treaty, and regulatory rules that constitute the law applicable to taxation.

An inheritance or estate tax is a tax paid by a person who inherits money or property or a levy on the estate of a person who has died.

Bunge's policies towards the Russian industries were extremely protectionist. He promoted the construction of railways and spearheaded the first Russian labour laws, some of them aimed at reducing child labour.

Child labour refers to the exploitation of children through any form of work that deprives children of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, and is mentally, physically, socially or morally harmful. Such exploitation is prohibited by legislation worldwide, although these laws do not consider all work by children as child labour; exceptions include work by child artists, family duties, supervised training, and some forms of child work practiced by Amish children, as well as by Indigenous children in the Americas.

However, in 1887 under pressure of conservative deputies, accusing him of incompetence and incapability to overcome the budgeted deficit, N.K. Bunge resigned.

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References

↑ In German personal names, von is a preposition which approximately means of or from and usually denotes some sort of nobility. While von (always lower case) is part of the family name or territorial designation, not a first or middle name, if the noble is referred to by surname alone in English, use Schiller or Clausewitz or Goethe, not von Schiller, etc.

Political offices
Preceded by Aleksandr Abaza	Finance Minister 1881–1886	Succeeded by Ivan Vyshnegradsky
Preceded by Mikhail von Reutern	Chairman of the Committee of Ministers 1887–1895	Succeeded by Ivan Durnovo
Educational offices
Preceded by Ernst Rudolf von Trautvetter	Rector of St.Vladimir Kiev University 1859–1862	Succeeded by Mykola Ivanyshev
Preceded by Aleksandr Matveyev	Rector of St.Vladimir Kiev University 1871–1875 1878–1880	Succeeded by Aleksandr Matveyev
Preceded by Aleksandr Matveyev		Succeeded by Konstantin Feofilaktov

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[1] In German personal names, von is a preposition which approximately means of or from and usually denotes some sort of nobility. While von (always lower case) is part of the family name or territorial designation, not a first or middle name, if the noble is referred to by surname alone in English, use Schiller or Clausewitz or Goethe, not von Schiller, etc.