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'''Aleksander Aleksandrovich CHUPROV (or TSCHUPROW)'''

b. 5 February 1874 (o.s.) -  d. 19 April 1926

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'''Summary''' The correspondence between Chuprov and Markov marks the coming
together of statistics and probability into mathematical statistics in the
Russian Empire. As an &eacute;migr&eacute; after the Revolution in Russia, Chuprov worked
on statistical dependence, and discovered optimal allocation of a sample between
strata. 

Chuprov was born in Mosal'sk, Russia, and died an &eacute;migr&eacute; in Geneva,
having fallen ill in autumn of 1925 during the Rome session of the
International Statistical Institute, to which he had been elected in 1911.

His father (A.I.) Aleksander Ivanovich Chuprov (1842-1908), with whom our
Chuprov (A.A.) is often confused, particularly when the patronymic middle initial
is omitted in their writings, was for many years a professor of political
economy and statistics at Moscow University.  A.I. was the ideological driving
force behind ''zemstvo'' (an institution of local government) statistics,
wherefrom the practice of sample surveys in the Russian Empire originated.  He
heavily influenced his son's formative years.  A.A. initially (1892-1896)
studied in the Physico-Mathematical Faculty of Moscow University which he
completed with a dissertation on probability theory as a basis for theoretical
statistics under the partial supervision of P.A. Nekrasov (1853-1924), who was
a direct cause of A.A.'s later association with [[Markov, Andrei Andreevich|Markov]].  Chuprov then
travelled to Germany to study political economy.  The years 1897-1901 were
spent at Strasbourg University where his teachers were [[Bortkiewicz, Ladislaus von|L. Bortkiewicz]]
with whom he established a lasting friendship, and G.F. Knapp who supervised
his doctoral dissertation ''Die Feldgemeinschaft, eine morphologische
Untersuchung'' published in 1902.  After his return to Russia in 1901,
specifically to Moscow,  A.A. was offered a position in 1902 in the newly formed
Economics Section of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute, where he was in
charge of the organization and teaching of statistics till mid-1917.  In 1909
his ''Ocherki po Teorii Statistiki (Topics in the Theory of Statistics)'' for
which he was awarded a doctorate by Moscow University, was published and ran
into a second edition within a year.  It had great influence for a time in
Russia because of its stress on the logical and mathematical approach to
statistics, and because it contains an account of the then fast-developing
stability theory of statistical series of trials (dispersion theory) of W.
[[Lexis, Wilhelm|Lexis]] and Bortkiewicz.  A postcard in response to its appearance from
Markov brought Chuprov into awareness of Markov's work.  The subsequent
prolonged correspondence between them resulted into a focussing of Chuprov's
researches into a theoretical direction, and indeed marks the coming together
in the Russian Empire of probability and statistics into mathematical
statistics.  During the St. Petersburg period he produced a number of notable disciples,
including O.N. Anderson (1887-1960) later to become eminent in Bulgaria and Germany, N.S.
Chetverikov (or Tschetwerikoff) (1885-1973), B.I. Karpenko (1892-1976); and S.S. Kon (or
Kohn) (1888-1933).

Chuprov left Russia in June, 1917 (at the time of the Provisonal Government of Kerensky),
to use, during the summer break, the materials of the Statistical Bureau in Stockholm to
pursue his demographic studies on fertility and mortality as affected by the Great War;
and on sample surveys.  He had written on both topics during his St. Petersburg period.
Proposed as Corresponding Member to the then Russian Academy of Science in his absence by
P.B. Struv&egrave; (1870-1944), on 29 November, 1917, he was confirmed on the 2nd of
December.  Chuprov had meant to return to Petrograd (as St. Petersburg had been renamed)
in September, 1917, but fell ill.  In April 1918 the Soviet authorities invited him to
take up the headship of the Central Statistical Office, but in fact he was never to
return, possibly through lack of funds, possibly through unwillingness to face the
post-revolutionary turbulence.

In the years 1917-1919 he published in Stockholm a bulletin on world economy sponsored 
by Russian &eacute;migr&eacute;
cooperative centres.  This kind of publicistic work was the continuation
of Chuprov's activity in St. Petersburg where he worked with V.A. Rosenberg and wrote on
the need for agricultural reform and demographic questions, for the newspaper ''Russkie Vedomosti (Russian News)'' upto the time the newspaper was closed down by the
Soviets.  Its last number bears the note: \, publisher: A. Chuprov.  In his obituary for 
Chuprov for the &eacute;migr&eacute; ''Russkii Ekonomicheskii Sbornik (Revue Economique Russe)''
Rosenberg stresses repeatedly that Chuprov remained apolitical.  More entensive information, 
however, is available in Sheynin (1996).  There is a pamphlet published in Stockholm, 1919, 
entitled ''La D&eacute;composition du Bolchevisme'' which is signed 
A. Tchouprov, Professeur d'&Eacute;conomie politique \`{a} l'Universit&eacute; de 
Moscou, on the mismanagement by the Bolsheviks of power and economy, with a stinging attack
on Lenin.  The fact that the "A. Tchouprov" who was ``professor of political economy at 
Moscow University" was A.I., deceased in 1908, suggests that the pamphlet (not written in 
A.A.'s usual German) may be a provocation.  The stay in Stockholm also served to establish 
some prominence for Chuprov in the Scandinavian and English Statistical Schools, with 
publications in "Skandinavisk Aktuarietidskrift'' and ''Biometrika''.

He moved to Dresden in 1920, and after some years spent in solitary and intense
productivity without steady income, he was invited in 1924 to the University of
Christiania (now Oslo), and in the same year elected Honorary Fellow of the
Royal Statistical Society.  From his course of lectures in Christiania where
his main contact appears to have been Alf Guldberg, arose Chuprov's (at the time)
celebrated book published in 1925 as ''Grundbegriffe und Grundprobleme der
Korrelationstheorie'', in 1926 in a Russian version (with a new Foreword, dated
Rome, 21 November, 1925); and in English translation in 1939.  His influence in
Scandinavia was now substantial, with several publications in ''Nordisk
Statistisk Tidskrift'', founded in 1922.  He spent the Spring and Summer of 1925 
in Prague, where he was appointed professor in the Russian Juridicial Faculty 
and associate of the Economic Cabinet of Prof. S.N. Prokopovich, editor of 
''Russkii Ekonomicheskii Sbornik'' which appeared in Prague over the years 
1925-1928, and was perhaps the most important academic Russian &eacute;migr&eacute; 
journal of the post-revolution period.  S.S. Kon, V.A. Rosenberg and P.B. 
Struv&egrave;, all now &eacute;migr&eacute;s in the Russian colony in Prague, provided 
the necessary connections. 

The &eacute;migr&eacute; period was intensely productive for Chuprov.  The earlier 
work on dispersion theory led to an extensive investigation of sample moments 
in terms of population moments (estimation by the method of moments), under,
ultimately, very general conditions involving correlated observations,
published in ''Metron'' in 1923.  This contained an obvious application of
such results to sample survey theory, anticipating several results of [[Neyman, Jerzy|J. Neyman]], especially the well-known fomula for optimal allocation, which Chuprov
obtained in the most elegant way: an application of the Cauchy-Schwarz-Buniakovsky 
inequality.  (Neyman recognized Chuprov's priority in 1952).  Work of such general
nature led to Chuprov's propagation of the modern stochastic view of statistical 
theory: the sampling distribution for sample statistics, with inference based on
conceptual repetitions of samples, and the Weak Law of Large Numbers.  His 
lasting contribution to mathematical statistics rests on an
early recognition of these fundamental ideas and their lucid and extensive
popularization on the Continent.  He is often credited with unifying several
streams of statistical thinking: the Russian probabilistic; the German
(typified by Lexis and Bortkiewicz and developing into the "Continental
direction" of statistics); and that of the English Biometric School of Galton
and [[Pearson, Karl|Karl Pearson]].

Almost unknown, because of publication in 1922-23 in a Russian-language 
Berlin-based émigré journal is some remarkable work on finite
exchangeability by Chuprov and his student Ya. Mordukh (Seneta, 1987).  The
latter was helped to settle in London by Dr. Leon Isserlis, who was one of
Chuprov's supporters in England.  Others included 
[[Keynes, John Maynard|J.M. Keyne]]s, [[Edgeworth, Francis Ysidro|F.Y. Edgeworth]] and A.L. Bowley.  In his 1921 "A Treatise on Probability'', Keynes
speaks of 3 great Russian names in the general theory of statistics: 
[[Chebyshev, Pafnutii Lvovich|Chebyshev]], Markov and Chuprov.

The Russian community in Prague reacted with great grief to the news of Chuprov's 
death.  The ''Russkii Ekonomicheskii Sbornik'' printed the news in No.5 (1926), 
with a photograph on p. 5 followed by a black-bordered anonymous obituary on pp. 6-8, 
and Chuprov's brief autobiography followed by some supplementary biographical 
information on pp. 9-10. There was a public meeting on the 27 April 1926 in memory 
of him, and pp. 5-33 of No.6 (1926) were given over to obituaries by Rosenberg and Kon.  
Page 3 printed a Resolution of Condolence from the Royal Statistical Society.  
There was a similar meeting on 6 May 1926 in the USSR, with orations by Chetverikov, 
[[Slutsky, Evgenii Evgenievich|Slutsky]] and N.M. Vinogradova. Obituaries were later published in ''Metron'' 
by Chetverikov, and ''Nordisk Statistisk Tidskrift'' by Kohn (Kon) in particular, 
with ''Biometrika'' publishing a portrait.  A.A.'s standing in the statistical 
world is well-expressed by the above-mentioned Resolution of Condolence (dated 
16 June, 1926):

<blockquote>
''The premature death of Professor Tschuprow has deprived the world of an investigator
whose contributions to science were admired by all and which did much to harmonise the
methods of statistical research developed by continental and British workers.''
</blockquote>


====References====
{|
|-
|valign="top"|{{Ref|1}}||valign="top"|  Eliseeva, I.I. Dmitriev, A.L. and Storchevoi, M.A. (eds.) ''Aleksandr  Aleksandrovich  Chuprov (1874-1926)''.  [Proceedings of a conference on the 70th anniversary of his death, 27-28 November, 1996, in Russian.]  St. Petersburg University of  Economics and Finance, St. Petersburg, 1996. 
|-
|valign="top"|{{Ref|1}}||valign="top"|  Seneta, E. (1982).  Chuprov (or Tschuprow), Alexander Alexandrovich. ''Encyclopedia of  Statistical Sciences'' '''1''', 477-479. Wiley, New York. 
|-
|valign="top"|{{Ref|2}}||valign="top"|  Seneta, E. (1985).  A sketch of the history of survey sampling in Russia. ''Journal of the  Royal Statistical Society'', Series A, '''148''', 118-125.  
|-
|valign="top"|{{Ref|3}}||valign="top"|  Seneta, E. (1987). Chuprov on finite exchangeability, expectation of  ratios and measures of association. ''Historia Mathematika'', '''14''', 243-257.  
|-
|valign="top"|{{Ref|4}}||valign="top"|  Sheynin, O.B. (1996). ''A.A. Chuprov: Life, Work, Correspondence.'' Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, G&ouml;ttingen.
|-
|}
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Reprinted with permission from
Christopher Charles Heyde and Eugene William Seneta (Editors),
Statisticians of the Centuries, Springer-Verlag Inc., New York, USA.

[[Category:Statprob]]
[[Category:Biographical]]