Semyon Afanasievich Vengerov (Russian: Семён Афана́сьевич Венге́ров; 17 April O. S. 5 April">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O. S. 5 April1855, Lubny, Poltava Governorate – 14 September 1920, Saint Petersburg, Petrograd) was the preeminent literary historian of Imperial Russia. Vengerov was the son of Chonon (Afanasy) Vengerov and memoirist Pauline Wengeroff, a prominent Jewish family. His parents were of the few acculturated Russian Jews, and sent him to a Christian school, of which he once was expelled for refusing to kneel before an icon. As academic careers were barred to Jews, he converted to Orthodoxy after matriculating. He was the

pater familias The ''pater familias'', also written as ''paterfamilias'' (: ''patres familias''), was the head of a Roman family. The ''pater familias'' was the oldest living male in a household, and could legally exercise autocratic authority over his extende ...

of an artistic clan that included his sisters

Isabelle Vengerova Isabelle Vengerova (; 7 February 1956) was a Russian, later American, pianist and music teacher. She was born Izabella Afanasyevna Vengerova (Изабелла Афанасьевна Венгерова) in Minsk (now in Belarus) in the family o ...

, a co-founder of the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, and Zinaida Vengerova, a noted literary critic, as well as nephew Nicolas Slonimsky, a Russian-American composer. Vengerov studiously researched the careers of "second-tier" Russian authors of the 19th and (especially) 18th centuries. His materials proved indispensable for several generations of Russian literary historians. His archives contain the largest private collection of

Dostoyevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. () was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist. He is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in both Russian and world literature, and many of his works are considered highly influenti ...

's letters and manuscripts. He was a great admirer of

Ivan Turgenev Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev ( ; rus, links=no, Иван Сергеевич ТургеневIn Turgenev's day, his name was written ., p=ɪˈvan sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ tʊrˈɡʲenʲɪf; – ) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, poe ...

, the subject of his first major work of criticism (approved by Turgenev himself). Vengerov also presided over an influential Pushkin seminar and the Russian Book Chamber (which he had helped found). In the early 20th century he issued a detailed overview of recent

Russian literature Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia, its Russian diaspora, émigrés, and to Russian language, Russian-language literature. Major contributors to Russian literature, as well as English for instance, are authors of different e ...

and edited the grand Brockhaus-Efron edition of Pushkin's works (1907–16) in 6 large

quarto Quarto (abbreviated Qto, 4to or 4º) is the format of a book or pamphlet produced from full sheets printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded twice to produce four leaves. The leaves are then trimmed along the folds to produc ...

volumes; D. S. Mirsky refers to this edition as "a monument of infinite industry and infinite bad taste".Google Books
/ref> Vengerov's interest in academic biographism gained him a reputation of being a positivist compiler of biographical data. According to Mirsky, his works contain "a great mass of prefatory, commentatory, and biographical matter, most of which is more or less worthless". In ''Noise of Time'', Osip Mandelshtam claimed that Vengerov had "understood nothing in Russian literature and studied Pushkin as a professional task". For Vengerov, the greatest merit of Russian literature was its essential

didacticism Didacticism is a philosophy that emphasises instructional and informative qualities in literature, art, and design. In art, design, architecture, and landscape, didacticism is a conceptual approach that is driven by the urgent need to explain. ...

: "For the Russian reader, literature has always been a holy thing; contact with it makes him purer and better, and he always relates to it with a feeling of real religiosity".Google Books
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vengerov, Semyon 1855 births 1920 deaths People from Lubny Converts to Eastern Orthodoxy from Judaism Russian bibliographers Russian editors Russian Jews Russian literary historians