Fomin, Aleksandr

Born Mar. 13 (25), 1887, in Gusiatino, now the village of Gusiatin, Chemerovtsy Raion, Khmel’nitskii Oblast; died May 20, 1939, in Leningrad. Soviet bibliographer, specialist in bibliology, and literary scholar; professor (1938).

Fomin studied at the University of St. Petersburg from 1906 to 1911. He taught history, bibliography, book science, and Russian literature in higher educational institutions. In the 1920’s he worked at the Scientific Research Institute of Book Science of the State Public Library in Leningrad, and in the early 1930’s, at the Institute of Books, Documents, and Writing of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Fomin made a major contribution to the development of Soviet bibliography, particularly in the area of literature. His chief works were The Present State of Russian Bibliography and Its Immediate Tasks (1927), Methods of Compiling Bibliographic Indexes (1929), Book Science as a Science (1931), Guide to Literary Bibliography, Biobibliography, Historiography, Chronology, and Encyclopedias (1934), and Survey of Editions of the Works of Russian Prerevolutionary Writers Published After the Great October Socialist Revolution (1938).