Margarita Gabel

Margarita Orestovna Gabel (November 13, 1893 – 1981) was a Ukrainian literary critic and bibliographer. She held a Candidate of Philological Sciences degree.

Early life


She was born on November 13, 1893, in Kharkov (Kharkiv). Her parents were revolutionaries associated with the Narodnik movement: Orest and Augustina Gabel. After serving their sentence in exile in Irkutsk Governorate, they moved to Kharkiv, where Orest Gabel soon became a member of the board of the Kharkiv Public Library. Margarita was the youngest child in the family, she had four sisters: Ludmila, Elena, Valeria Hasselbrink, Maria, and a brother, Yuri Gabel, who later became a renowned chemist.

Margarita Gabel attended the private female gymnasiums of Pokrovsky and Ilyashev, from which she graduated in 1911. She continued her studies in the gymnasium for an additional eighth grade, which she completed the following year, receiving the title of home tutor. She continued her education at the Historical-Philological Faculty of the Kharkiv Higher Women's Courses. In 1916, she graduated from the historical department, and in 1919, from the philological department.

Academic career, librarian work
From 1920, she worked at the newly established Free Academy of Theoretical Knowledge, and after its liquidation the following year, she moved to the Kharkiv Institute of Popular Education, where she worked as an assistant at the Department of Russian Literature History and simultaneously as a librarian at the Literature Cabinet. In 1922, she became a graduate student at the Department of European Culture at the institute. After completing her graduate studies in 1925, she began working as a research associate at two departments simultaneously—European culture and literature. She became a senior lecturer at the Department of Literature and taught the history of Russian and Western European literature. In 1929, she became an associate professor at the Department of Russian Literature History. After the dissolution of the Kharkiv Institute of Popular Education in 1930, she worked as an associate professor at the Literature History Department of the Kharkiv Institute of Vocational Education until its dissolution in 1931. In the same year, she became the head of the bibliographic library of the Ukrainian Book Chamber, and from the following year—the head of the foreign enlightenment library of the Institute of Pedagogy at the National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine.

In 1940, she gained her Candidate of Philological Sciences degree on the topic of "Saltykov-Shchedrin's History of One City as an Anti-Nobility Satire" under the supervision of Oleksandr Biletskyi.

From 1933, she worked at the Kharkiv Korolenko State Scientific Library as a consultant bibliographer. She was engaged in the compilation of a collection of rare publications as part of the newly formed bibliographic group. As a result of the work of this group, the Department of Rare Editions and Incunabula was founded in 1940, which was headed by Gabel.

In 1919-1923, she taught Russian language and literature at the workers' faculty at the Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute.

During the Second World War, she was forced to leave Kharkiv and was evacuated to the Kyrgyz SSR, where from 1942 until 1943 she worked as a bibliographer in the N.G. Chernyshevsky State Library of the Kyrgyz SSR in Frunze (Bishkek). She later moved to Chkalov (Orenburg), where until 1944 she worked at the V. P. Chkalov State Pedagogical University.

In 1949 she became an associate professor of the Department of Literature and Languages of the Kharkiv State Library Institute. She worked there until her retirement in 1963.

Death and legacy
She was buried at City Cemetery no. 2 (Kharkiv). In 1998, her shared grave with her brother Yuri was destroyed. It was later restored by the efforts of the public.