Background
Ostrovsky was born March 30 (April 11 new style), 1827, in the Zamoskvorechye District of Moscow. His father was a first-generation nobleman of the church estate, and his older brother Alexander Ostrovsky became a noted playwright.
statesman Minister of State Property
Ostrovsky was born March 30 (April 11 new style), 1827, in the Zamoskvorechye District of Moscow. His father was a first-generation nobleman of the church estate, and his older brother Alexander Ostrovsky became a noted playwright.
Ostrovsky studied at the First Moscow Gymnasium and in 1848 was graduated from Moscow Imperial University.
He entered government service in the office of the Civil Governor of Simbirsk, assisting Auditor General V. A. Tatarinov in the introduction of auditing reforms. From April 17, 1871 to 1878, Ostrovsky was Associate State Comptroller. He was assigned to perform audits in Vladimir, Tula, Kaluga, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Pskov, Vilna, Grodno, Kovno Province, and the former Kingdom of Poland (then a Russian possession).
In 1877 he performed a field audit of the Caucasus Army.
In 1872, Ostrovksy was a made a senator, and in 1878 a member of the State Council of Imperial Russia. Ostrovsky was an honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, Chairman of the Museum of Applied Knowledge in Saint St. Petersburg, and (from May 15, 1883) an Actual Privy Counsellor, a civilian rank equivalent to full general or admiral.