Alexander Vasilievich Nikitenko was a Russian Empire literary historian. A well-educated Ukrainian serf of Count Sheremetev who was granted freedom under pressure from Kondraty Ryleyev and other men of letters. He narrowly escaped persecution in the wake of the Decembrist Uprising and served as censor through much of Nicholas I's reign. He was also a literary historian, censor, Professor of Saint Petersburg University, and ordinary member of St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Nikitenko is notable for a very detailed diary that he kept from an early age. It appeared in print in 1888-92; an abridged English translation was published in 1975.
