Glazunovs

Glazunovs 

proprietors of a firm in Moscow and St. Petersburg that sold and published books. Matvei Petrovich Glazunov (1757-1830) was the founder of the firm. He opened bookstores in Moscow (c. 1782) and St. Petersburg (1783-84), of which his brothers Ivan and Vasilii became joint owners.

Among the best-known members of the Glazunov family are Ivan Petrovich Glazunov (1762-1831), who opened his own bookstore in St. Petersburg in 1788, began to publish books in 1790, and founded his own printing house in 1803. (It issued 178 publications.) His son Il’ia Ivanovich (1786-1849) took over his father’s publishing business, issuing nearly 100 publications. Il’ia’s sons, Ivan (1826-89) and Konstantin (1828-1914), published several hundred titles in St. Petersburg. After 1890, Il’ia Ivanovich Glazunov (1856-1913) headed the family’s St. Petersburg company. In the course of a century (1803-1903), the Glazunov printing house released nearly 900 publications, most of which were the classics of Russian literature and textbooks. One of the largest Russian publishing enterprises, the Glazunov firm survived until the end of 1917.

Beginning in the 1860’s, the Glazunov family attracted prominent bibliographers (for example, P. A. Efremov and V. I. Mezhov) to the work of compiling the firm’s book catalogs. These catalogs still have bibliographical importance, for they contain a vast amount of data on books from the second half of the 19th century.