Vengerov, S. A. Collected Works. Volume I: The Heroic Character of Russian Literature (Geroicheskiy kharakter russkoy literatury), 1919. In Russian

Венгеров С. А. Собрание сочинений. Том I. Героический характер русской литературы. / Изд. 2-е.
Петроград : Светоч, 1919.
176 с. Мягкая издательская обложка, увеличенный формат.
***
Vengerov, S. A. Collected Works. Volume I. The Heroic Character of Russian Literature (Geroicheskiy kharakter russkoy literatury). / 2nd ed.
Petrograd : Svetoch, 1919.
176 pp. Soft publishing cover, enlarged format. In Russian.

This 1919 edition, published in Petrograd during the turbulent years of the Russian Civil War, represents the final intellectual synthesis of Semyon Vengerov (1855–1920). Vengerov was a titan of Russian bibliography and one of the most influential historians of social thought and literature in the late imperial and early revolutionary periods.
In this first volume of his Collected Works, titled "The Heroic Character of Russian Literature," Vengerov puts forward his famous thesis on the unique nature of Russian letters. He argues that unlike Western European literatures, which he viewed as more aesthetic or formal, Russian literature is fundamentally defined by its moral urgency, its "heroic" struggle against social injustice, and its profound sense of civic duty. Vengerov traces this sacrificial spirit from the early 19th-century classics to the radical thinkers of the mid-century, framing the Russian writer not merely as an artist, but as a prophet and social martyr.
The book was released by the Svetoch publishing house in Petrograd just one year before Vengerov's death. Despite the severe paper shortages and economic collapse of 1919, the volume maintains a high academic standard, featuring an enlarged format. This second edition allowed Vengerov to refine his core philosophy during a time when the very "heroic character" he described was being reshaped by the revolutionary reality surrounding him.
For historians of Russian thought, philologists, and collectors of revolutionary-era imprints, this volume is a critical artifact. It marks the end of an era of classical Russian literary criticism and provides the essential ideological bridge to understanding how pre-revolutionary intellectuals viewed the spiritual mission of the Russian word.