Alexander Ivanovich Ertel managed large estates located in various governorates of the Russian Empire and was naturally interested in literature on agriculture, following the latest innovations in this field. Feodor Andreyevich Shcherbina’s book “The Communal Land of Kuban Cossacks”, published in Voronezh in 1889, was presented to Ertel by the author himself. At that time, the life and work of Feodor Andreyevich Shcherbina, a historian and one of the main figures of Russian statistics, were closely connected with the Voronezh region. In 1884, he came to Voronezh, where he was to head the statistical bureau of the governorate zemstvo.
In almost 20 years of his career, he managed to achieve great success, establishing himself as a competent statistician and a true researcher of the life of the Russian people. Under Shcherbina’s leadership, peasant farms in 12 uyezds of the Voronezh Governorate were studied from 1884 to 1900. The statistical bureau collected data on the total amount of land and its division into allotments, the quality of soil and location of an allotment, land tenancy, types of land ownership, use of lands, land prices, cattle breeding, local crafts, public education, fires and arrears.
In 1897, Shcherbina summarized the statistical materials in his “Consolidated Collection of Twelve Uyezds of the Voronezh Governorate”. In 1887, he received a gold medal from the Imperial Russian Geographical Society for his work “Peasant Economy in Ostrogozhsky Uyezd”. Feodor Shcherbina and his bureau prepared and edited 66 volumes of statistical materials on the life of peasants in the Voronezh Governorate.
In his numerous works, published by Voronezh periodicals, Feodor Shcherbina presented an objective picture of the economic situation of Voronezh villages and suggested measures to improve the lives of peasants and improve agriculture. In 1891, Shcherbina received the Emperor Alexander II Prize from the Academy of Sciences for his work “Voronezh Zemstvo. 1865–1889. The Historical and Statistical Review”.
The works of the hereditary Kuban Cossack author covered two main areas of interest: the peasant economy and the history of the Cossacks. In the late 1880s, his historical works “Kuban Cossack Host, 1696–1888. The Information on the Army” and “The Communal Land of Kuban Cossacks” were published in Voronezh.
