Ethnic Breakdown of Russian Central Bank Heads
Who ran the Russian and the Soviet State Banks?
There have been many people studying the ethnic makeup of the American Federal Reserve. I have decided to do the same thing, focusing on Russia and see which groups are overrepresented relative to their general population.
Russian Empire State Bank (1860-1917)
Alexander von Stieglitz - Jewish
Evgeniy Lamanskiy - Russian
Alexey Tsismen - Russified German
Yuliy Zhukovsky - Russian
Eduard Pleske - Russified German
Sergey Timashev - Russian
Alexey Konshin - Russian
Ivan Shipov - Russian
*Russified German - they are of partial German descent or are married to Russians*
Russian Empire 1897 census:
Russians: 44.31%
Jews: 4%
Germans: 1.4%
Others: 51.29%
Factors of Overrepresentation:
Percentage of Russian bankers is 62.5%. Factor of overrepresentation is 1.41 relative to the general population
Percentage of Jewish bankers is 12.5%. Factor of overrepresentation is 3.13 relative to the general population
Percentage of German bankers is 25%. Factor of overrepresentation is 17.8 relative to the general population
Nobody else has made it to the list. 51.29% of the population is unrepresented.
Main Commissars of RSFSR’s People’s Bank (1917-1921):
Stanislav Pestkowski - Polish
Valerian Obolensky - Russian
Georgiy Pyatkov - Russian
Alexander Spunde - Latvian
Tikhon Popov - Russian
Jacob Ganetsky (real surname Fürstenberg) - Jewish
There was no census at this time, while a good portion of the bankers were born outside of RSFSR. So I decided to compare them to the USSR official census of 1926.
Russians: 52.3%
Jews: 1.77%
Poles: 0.53%
Latvians: 0.1%
Others: 45.3%
Factors of Overrepresentation:
Percentage of Russian bankers is 42.86%. Factor of overrepresentation is 0.81 relative to the general population
Percentage of Jewish bankers is 14.3%. Factor of overrepresentation is 8.07 relative to the general population
Percentage of Polish bankers is 14.3%. Factor of overrepresentation is 26.9 relative to the general population
Percentage of Latvian bankers is 14.3%. Factor of overrepresentation is 142.9 relative to the general population
Nobody else has made it to the list. 45.3% of the population is unrepresented.
Soviet Union’s State Bank (1921-1991):
Aaron Sheinman - Jewish
Nikolai Tumanov - Russian
Georgiy Pyatkov - Russian
Moses Kalmanovich - Jewish
Lev Maryasin - Jewish
Solomon Kruglikov - Jewish
Alexei Grichmanov - Russian
Nikolai Bulganin - Russian
Nikolai Sokolov - Russian
Yakov Golev - Russian
Vasily Popov - Russian
Alexander Korovushkin - Russian
Alexey Poskonov - Russian
Myfodiy Sveshnikov - Russian
Vladimir Alkhimov - Russian
Viktor Dementsev - Russian
Nikolai Garetovsky - Russian
Viktor Gerashenko - Russian (father is Belorussian)
Andrei Zverev - Russian
Soviet Union 1989 census:
Russians: 52.4%
Jews: 0.7%
Belorussians: 3.61%
Others: 43.29%
Factors of Overrepresentation:
Percentage of Russian bankers is 75%. Factor of overrepresentation is 1.42 relative to the general population
Percentage of Jewish bankers is 22.22%. Factor of overrepresentation is 12.5 relative to the general population
Percentage of Belarussian bankers is 2.78%. Factor of overrepresentation is 5.2 relative to the general population
Nobody else has made it to the list. 43.29% of the population is unrepresented.
Russian Central Bank (1991-now):
Georgiy Matyukhin - Russian
Viktor Gerashenko - Russian
Tatyana Paramonova - Russian
Alexander Khandurev - Russian
Sergei Dubinin - Russian
Sergei Ignatiev - Russian
Elvira Nabiulina - Tatar
Russian Federation 2010 Census:
Russians: 77.6%
Tatars: 3.7%
Others: 18.7%
Factors of Overrepresentation:
Percentage of Russian bankers is 85.7%. Factor of overrepresentation is 1.1 relative to the general population
Percentage of Tatar bankers is 14.29%. Factor of overrepresentation is 3.8 relative to the general population
Nobody else has made it to the list. 18.7% of the population is unrepresented.
Imperial times saw the relative dominance of Germans all of whom were either married to Russians or were of partial German descent. During the Revolutionary period, the Central Bank was primarily dominated by groups who were overrepresented in the revolution: Latvians, Jews and Poles. Since the formation of the USSR and 1937, 66.7% of the heads of the Soviet State Bank were Jews.
Russians were always generally overrepresented relative to the total population except for the times of the revolution and until 1930s. Perhaps the bigger surprise is the lack of any Ukrainian on the list. There was Georgy Pyatakov who was born in the Ukraine, however he is an ethnic Russian.
I may produce more content like this in the future.