Prisma Ukraïna
2022

Ihor Lantukh

The Formation of Entrepreneurship in Ukraine in 1861–1917

Ihor Lantukh graduated from Kharkiv State University with an MA degree in History, and Finance and Credit. He also holds a degree in Psychology from Kramatorsk Institute of Economics and Humanities, and an MA in Medial Psychology from Kharkiv Institute of IAPM. In 2001, he defended his PhD thesis, “The Formation of Market Infrastructure in Ukraine During the New Economic Policy, 1921–1928”, and was awarded the title of Associate Professor of Economic Theory in 2006. In 2020, he received a second PhD in Psychology with the dissertation “The Psychological Structure of the Personal Reliability of Business Entities”. He is the author of various publications in the fields of economy, economic history, and psychology. Ihor Lantukh is a remote Fellow of Prisma Ukraïna (April to July 2022) in Vilnius.

The Formation of Entrepreneurship in Ukraine in 1861–1917

After the abolition of serfdom, the Russian Empire entered a period of capitalism and the industrial revolution. The rapid development of industry led to primitive accumulation of capital, which impacted the fabric of society. Former serfs received personal freedom, joined the process of gaining capital, and were becoming part of the bourgeois society evolving in the Russian Empire at that time.  The overall result of this process was rapid economic growth, and particularly Ukrainian territories in the Russian Empire showed impressive economic development. European investment, technology, and entrepreneurs played a leading role in this. The growth ended during the First World War with the Bolshevik coup. This project seeks to trace historical parallels between the second half of the 19th century, the end of the 20th century, and the beginning of the 21st century to identify differences in the social development of entrepreneurship in the territory of Ukraine and the rest of the Russian Empire, and in Ukraine and Russia nowadays.