Vengerov, Semen

Born Apr. 5 (17), 1855, in Lubny; died Sept. 14, 1920, in Moscow. Russian historian of literature and bibliographer. Graduated from the law department of the University of St. Petersburg (1879) and the extern courses of the history and philology department of the University of Iur’ev (1880). Representative of the school of cultural history. In such works as The Heroic Character of Russian Literature (1911) and Wherein Lies the Charm of Russian Literature of the XIX Century? (1912) Vengerov demonstrated that Russian literature was always a rostrum from which the words of teacher and citizen resounded. He published monographs on A. V. Druzhinin, K. S. Aksakov, V. G. Belinsky, A. F. Pisemskii, I. A. Goncharov, N. V. Gogol, and others. He compiled the Criticobiographical Dictionary of Russian Writers and Scholars: From the Beginning of Russian Letters to Our Days (vols. 1-6, 1886-1904), Sources for a Dictionary of Russian Writers (vols. 1-4, 1900-17), and Russian Books (vols. 1-3, 1897-99). He prepared the first complete collected works of Belinsky (finished by V. S. Spiridonov, vols. 12 and 13). In 1891 he became editor of the literary section of the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedia. Vengerov was the organizer (1917) and first director of the Russian Book Chamber.