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Paul Avrich

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Paul Avrich
Avrich circa 1980
Born(1931-08-04)August 4, 1931
New York City
DiedFebruary 16, 2006(2006-02-16) (aged 74)
New York City

Paul Avrich (August 4, 1931 – February 16, 2006) was a professor and historian. He taught at Queens College, City University of New York, for most of his life and was vital in preserving the history of the anarchist movement in Russia and the United States.

Life and work

Born on August 4, 1931 into a Jewish family originally from Odessa, Avrich traveled to the USSR as an exchange student in 1961 following Nikita Khrushchev's 1959 visit to the United States. While there working on his thesis, The Russian Revolution and the Factory Committees, he researched the Kronstadt rebellion and the role of anarchists in the Russian Revolution. This information allowed him to produce pioneering and important works on these subjects.

Teaching at Queens College, he sought to communicate to his students an "affection and sense of solidarity with anarchists as people, rather than as militants." He was described as a "trusted friend" to many older anarchists whom he had met and interviewed, saving their stories for history.[1]

Avrich wrote extensively on topics related to anarchism, including books on Sacco and Vanzetti, the Haymarket Riot, and the Kronstadt Rebellion. Other important works include a biography of Voltairine de Cleyre, The Modern School Movement (a study of an anarchist-inspired educational program) and Anarchist Portraits, and an important oral history collection, Anarchist Voices (edited). He also spoke regularly at the Libertarian Book Club in New York.

He was interviewed for long segments for the Anarchist documentary the Free Voice of Labor.

Avrich donated his collection of nearly 20,000 twentieth-century American and European anarchist publications and manuscripts to the Library of Congress.[2]

He died on February 16, 2006.

Works

  • The Russian anarchists (1967)
  • Kronstadt, 1921 (1970)
  • Russian Rebels, 1600-1800 (1972)
  • The Anarchists in the Russian Revolution (1973)
  • An American Anarchist: The Life of Voltairine de Cleyre (1978)
  • The Modern School Movement: Anarchism and Education in the United States (1980)
  • The Haymarket Tragedy (1984)
  • Anarchist Portraits (1988)
  • Sacco and Vanzetti, The Anarchist Background (1991)
  • Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America (1995)
  • Sasha and Emma: The Anarchist Odyssey of Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman (2012) [co-authored with Karen Avrich]

References

  1. ^ Marianne Enckell, "Paul Avrich (1931–2006)", Centre International de Recherches sur l'Anarchisme, February 22, 2006
  2. ^ "Pamphlet Collections: Rare Book and Special Collections Division". Library of Congress. Archived from the original on October 5, 2013. Retrieved October 5, 2013. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

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