Count Yegor Frantsevich Kankrin (Russian: Егор Францевич Канкрин) (16 November 1774 – 10 September 1845) was born Ludwig Daniel von Cancrin in Hanau. He accompanied his father, the mineralogist Franz Ludwig von Cancrin, to Russia in 1797, joining the imperial service and changing his name to Georg. In 1823, he was appointed Minister of Finance and held the office for 21 years. As a politician, Cancrin was an archconservative who vociferated against the construction of railways and the emancipation of the serfs. Kankrin died in Pavlovsk. Among his writings, The Military Economy (published in German) is the best regarded.
Kankrin's policies often sought to maintain the status quo due to the limitations of the Russian government in carrying out large scale economic reform. Because of his conservatism, he advanced loans to the gentry class in order to preserve, in the words of the historian Walter Pintner, "the social status quo." With a view toward limiting state expenditure, he refused to credit the Russian industry, thus eliminating the budget deficits that plagued the Russian economy for decades. Private banks were forbidden, and every step was taken to stymie the development of capitalism.
His major achievement was the monetary reform of 1839-43 which sanitized the Russian fiscal system. The reform started with the issue of a new silver rouble equal to 3.5 of the older Assignation ruble. Then, based on the silver roubles, new deposit notes were issued. Finally, the old Assignation rubles were removed from circulation in 1843, and replaced with the new banknotes. These reforms stabilised the Russian financial system considerably.
| Preceded by Dmitry Guriev |
Finance Minister 1823—1844 |
Succeeded by Fyodor Vronchenko |