ПЕТР ИВАНОВИЧ РЫЧКОВ – ПЕРВЫЙ РУССКИЙ БУХГАЛТЕР

Abstract

The reign of Peter I marked a new stage in the development of accounting in Russia: bookkeeping began to be introduced into the legal state field, as a result of the reception of European accounting techniques, special accounting terminology arose, and in some government institutions a position “accountant” was introduced to maintain account books. Accounting historians have not yet come to a consensus on who should be considered the first Russian accountant. This article proposes to consider the prominent scientist-historian, geographer and economist Pyotr Ivanovich Rychkov (1712–1777) as such a person, describe his life path and provides facts about the professional activities of P.I. Rychkov, which served as the basis for the author’s conclusions. The research was carried out on the basis of archival materials stored in the St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the State Archive of the Orenburg Region, the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, and the Central State Historical Archive of St. Petersburg. According to the authors, with his literary works, Pyotr Ivanovich Rychkov made a significant contribution to the development of accounting in Russia. His activities were always aimed at streamlining and rationalizing accounting, which corresponded to the general spirit of reforms in the sphere of public administration of the 18th century.