Ivan Rostislavovich Sokolovsky,
Candidate of Historical Sciences, Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Review of the Book: Lizunov P.V. Merchant Exchange in Russia in the 18th − First Third of the 19th Century. St. Petersburg: Historical Illustration, 2024. 488 p. + 32 p. ill.
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2025-4-19
For the existence, humans need sources of water and food. They need protection from external weather conditions and other unfavorable factors. If people can get all this where they live, then no trade can arise. But there are not many such places on the planet. People are everywhere, and things that are useful to them are far from everywhere. And, at the same time, in different places these things are different. Therefore, very early on, grounds for exchange arise. And with the growth of exchange, people's lives become more complicated, they get richer, and, thus, complicate the conditions of exchange. Such an abstract thing as money creates not only trade, but also debts. Having arisen, debts and obligations begin to live their own life. To understand all this, people came up with an entire science − economics, and economists, in turn, came up with how to complicate it all even more. In 2001, three economists, including J. Stiglitz, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for the discovery of the effects of information asymmetry in trade transactions. Since then, their works have become even more popular, and many interesting conclusions have been made from them. However, the rich historical material most often remains outside the field of view of economists, who prefer to limit themselves to “models”. The book under review by P.V. Lizunov about the history of the Russian stock exchange contains exactly such material. The Russian reformer − Peter the Great was keenly interested in the economic institutions and phenomena of his time. He visited trading floors in the cities where he was. He сommunicated with merchants and financiers. The secrets of the emergence of the stock exchange in the new capital of the Russian Empire are well shown in this book. However, for the new institution to live its own life, people and years were needed. All this is in the book by P.V. Lizunov, who collected and summarized the rich historical material about the institution, which is undeservedly ignored. The reviewer believes that the book will be of interest not only to historians, but also to economists, as well as to all other lovers of economic history.
Publishing: 28/08/2025
The article has been received by the editor on 01/08/2025
How to cite: Sokolovsky I.V. Review of the Book: Lizunov P.V. Merchant Exchange in Russia in the 18th − First Third of the 19th Century. St. Petersburg: Historical Illustration, 2024. 488 p. + 32 p. ill. // Historical Courier, 2025, No. 4 (42), pp. 277−282. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2025/ISTKURIER-2025-4-19.pdf]
The article was completed within the framework of the topic of the state assignment of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation “Siberian Society as a Factor in the Territorial Growth and Unity of Russia (Late 16th − Early 20th Centuries)” (FWZM-2024-0007).
Links: Issue 4 2025
Keywords: trade; stock exchange; economic theory; review; information asymmetry; markets; reforms of Peter the Great, court broker