In prerevolutionary Russia, sociology occupied a marginal position. The state universities offered no instruction in the field, but there was a solid intellectual tradition of historical and theoretical sociology (Maxim Kovalevsky, Nikolai Mikhailovsky, Evgeny de Roberty), the sociology of law (Leon Petrajizky, Pitirim Sorokin), and the sociology of social problems (living conditions of industrial workers and peasants, public health, crime and prostitution in the cities). Beginning in the 1860s, the provincial intelligentsia initiated a kind of social movement, Zemskaja statistika (Statistics for Local Administration). Since official governmental statistics were unreliable, local statisticians made systematic surveys of households, daily life and public health conditions, and the reading preferences of the population (N. A. Rubakin). A modern system of sampling was elaborated by the statistician A. A. Chuprov for those surveys; K. M. Takhtarev introduced the concept of statistical sociological methods in social research...