A.A. Chuprov – An Outstanding Russian Statistician (to the 150^th Anniversary of his Birth)

Among the great names of representatives of the St. Petersburg school of probability theory – P.L. Chebyshev, A.M. Lyapunov, A.A. Markov – Alexander Alexandrovich Chuprov stands on a par, but apart. However, his contribution to world statistics is no less valuable. The paper offers a brief overview of A.A. Chuprov’s life path and the influence that his father, Alexander Ivanovich Chuprov, had on him, helping his son obtain a double education – both in mathematics and the humanities, and introducing him to zemstvo statistics. The authors highlight the significance of A.A. Chuprov’s book «Essays on the Theory of Statistics» which evoked a keen response from leading Russian scientists and brought him to the forefront of Russian statistical science. In this work, A.A. Chuprov substantiated the need for a statistical method in both social and natural sciences. He consistently advanced the idea of a stochastic world, arguing that all data statisticians work with are nothing more than a sample: they necessarily contain a random component. All of A.A. Chuprov's works focus on finding a priori (true) characteristics based on a posteriori (observed) data. The authors of the article draw attention to A.A. Chuprov's characteristic approach to considering the logic of the statistical method in studying the stability of statistical series, the nature of the correlation relationship, and his broad outlook and understanding of the laws of development of statistical science. The cognitive potential of A.A. Chuprov was formed by a combination of Russian and European education and later by diverse scientific contacts with the foreign scientific community.

The article identifies A.A. Chuprov's place as a teacher who managed to create his school of teaching statistics. His contribution to demographic research is emphasized, especially in establishing proportions in the sex ratio and the effect of war on marriage rates. Alexander Chuprov's expertise in philosophy and mathematics, combined with his understanding of the problems of practical statistics, enabled him to foresee the future development of the theory of statistics as a mathematical statistics, i.e. a science in the centre of which are the problems of statistical estimates of general distributions and parameters.

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