Mikhail Osipovich Gershenzon was a Russian scholar, essayist and editor. He studied history, philosophy, and political science at Moscow University, graduating in 1894. From graduation until the Bolshevik revolution he was unable to obtain an official academic position because he was Jewish. He was a literary reviewer for Nauchnoe Slovo from 1903 to 1905 and for Vestnik Evropy in 1907–08, and was literary editor of Kriticheskoe Obozrenie, 1907–09. He had a common-law relationship with Maria Goldenveizer from 1904 ; they had a daughter and a son. In 1909 he edited the famous essay collection Vekhi, for which he wrote the introduction and an essay.
