![]() ![]() During these same years, the scholarly papers he had published during his time in Russia (based on his explorations) had gradually percolated through the scientific community. Since his escape to Switzerland from Russia almost a decade before in 1876, when he was 33 years old, he had earned his living as a scientific journalist, contributing articles to magazines and newspapers. Petersburg, he was arrested again, this time by French authorities, who charged him with sedition and locked him up anew after his "conviction" on these charges.īy this time, however, Kropotkin was able to rely on his growing international reputation to protect him from the worst of the mistreatment various political authorities had in mind for him. Again, Kropotkin fled, this time to France but within a couple of years, thanks to the continuing machinations of his enemies in St. There he remained for the next five years, until, in 1881, after the assassination of the Czar, the Swiss caved in to pressure from the Russian government and agreed to expel all Russian "nationals" living on Swiss soil who were known radicals or revolutionaries. In 1874, Kropotkin, now 31, was imprisoned for this "crime." After two years behind bars, he escaped and fled to Switzerland. Though the circle's principal activity seems to have been the publication of foreign books in editions for Russian readers (Marx, Darwin, and John Stuart Mill were among the authors they made available) the members began gradually to be picked off - arrested by the Czar's secret police and tried on charges of belonging to a banned organization. Under the influence of these new ideas, he joined an illegal society, the Tchaikovsky Circle, which had been named for one of its members, a younger brother of the celebrated composer. ![]() By sometime late in 1872, near the time of his 30th birthday it would appear, he decided he was an anarchist. But by then, his enthusiasm for geography and zoology, though still very strong, had begun to play second fiddle to a more recently acquired enthusiasm for radical politics. In 1871, he led exploratory expeditions for the society in Finland and Sweden. Petersburg by working as a salaried employee of the Russian Geographical Society. Nothing daunted, Kropotkin began putting himself through the University of St. In 1867, at the age of 24, he resigned his commission in the army, whereupon his father disinherited him, leaving him a "prince" with no visible means of support. He became a military attaché on several geographical expeditions over the next few years, working alongside the geographers and zoologists and winning their respect for his conscientiousness and accuracy. Military service was just something he was doing to please his father.Īnd Kropotkin succeeded with his underhanded and self-serving plans. Geography and zoology, you see, were his true passions. But, to his father's disgust, he requested an assignment in Siberia, where he knew there was little or nothing military for the army to do, so that he stood a pretty fair chance of being attached to one of the various geographical expeditions that were busily mapping the region and documenting its flora and fauna. The young Peter Kropotkin dutifully went to military school and, on graduation at the age of 19, accepted a commission in the Czar's army. Kropotkin was of noble birth - Prince Kropotkin was the title he was born into - and, like his father and his father before him, he was expected to become an officer in the Czar's army and pursue a military career. He had been born in Moscow itself almost exactly 78 years before, on December 9, 1842, but he had spent at least half of the 78 intervening years living abroad - a few years in Switzerland, a few more in France (though most of his time in France was spent behind bars), and, for more than 30 years, in England. A little more than 90 years ago, on February 8, 1921, Peter Kropotkin died in Dmitrov, then a small town in Russia, about 40 miles north of Moscow.
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