Merchants and Nobles Luginins: Three Generations of the Zlatoust Factories Owners of the Second Half of the 18th Century

Abstract

The article presents the history of the ownership of Zlatoust mining plants by three generations of the Luginin family. It shows direct dependence of the dynamics of ownership and inheritance of plants on the vicissitudes of the family history. It is established that the founder of the Zlatoust factory farm, L. I. Luginin, relied in his business activities on the help of his son Maxim, who took over the management and control of a new part of the family business — the Ural factories in 1769. M. L. Luginin died in the middle of 1770s and L. I. Luginin was left without an assistant and a trained heir. The grandchildren of the factory owner, due to the life circumstances associated with their new noble status, character traits and age, failed to adopt the grandfather’s experience and did not become an equivalent replacement for their father. After the death of the founder, during the period of guardianship management of the factories, the middle grandson, Larion Maksimovich, showed interest in the factories, but he also died before he had been in the factories for two years. The transfer of ownership of the district to the most unworthy of the heirs, I. M. Luginin, eventually led to the exit of the estate from the possession of the family. Zlatoust factories, located far from the rest of the family’s possessions, required constant control of the owner, his participation in the management. In this case, the succession should have been manifested in the active participation of the heirs in the management of the district, personal control over the execution of orders. It is concluded that the succession of generations of the family is of great importance in the early stages of the organization of the business, when the personal control of the owner is a significant factor in the preservation of the business in the hands of the family. © 2021 Institute of History and Archeology of the Ural Branch of RAS. All rights reserved.