Free Economic Society
Other important ancestor of Vasily Polenov was his great grandfather, Alekseï Polenov (1738–1816). As a famous scholar, he was the first Russian jurist with a multidisciplinary education (economics, history, philosophy...). He participated to an essay competition organized by the Free Economic Society in 1766 on the following subject: “"what is more useful to the State: that peasants should own land or own only property?"”. His text was then entitled “"On the abolition of the serfdom of russian peasants"”, which became effective 100 years after.