Paul Avrich

Paul Avrich

Avrich circa 1980
Born (1931-08-04)August 4, 1931
New York City
Died February 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

Avrich was born on August 4, 1931, into a Jewish family originally from Odessa. He studied at Cornell University, B.A. 1957, and Columbia University, Ph.D. 1962. Avrich traveled to the USSR as an exchange student in 1961 following Premier Nikita Khrushchev's 1959 visit to the United States.

While in the Soviet Union working on his thesis, The Russian Revolution and the Factory Committees, Avrich 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, Avrich 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), 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]

Avrich died on February 16, 2006.

Works

References

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