View source for Paul Avrich

{{Short description|American historian of anarchism (1931–2006)}}
{{use American English|date=June 2017}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2023}}
{{Infobox person
| name          = Paul Avrich
| image         = Paul_avrich_ca1980.png
| alt           = Head shout of Avrich
| caption       = Avrich, {{circa|1980}}
| birth_date    = {{Birth date|1931|8|4}}
| birth_place   = New York City, U.S.
| death_date    = {{Death date and age|2006|2|16|1931|8|4}}
| death_place   = New York City, U.S.
| occupation    = Historian
| years_active  = 1961–1999
| notable_works = ''[[The Haymarket Tragedy]]'', ''[[Anarchist Voices]]''
}}

'''Paul Avrich''' (August 4, 1931 – February 16, 2006) was an American [[historian]] specializing in the [[History of anarchism|19th and early 20th-century anarchist movement]] in Russia and the United States. He taught at [[Queens College]], [[City University of New York]], for his entire career, from 1961 to his retirement as distinguished professor of history in 1999. He wrote ten books, mostly about anarchism, including topics such as the 1886 [[Haymarket Riot]], the 1921 [[Sacco and Vanzetti]] case, the 1921 [[Kronstadt naval base rebellion]], and an [[oral history]] of the movement in the United States.

As an ally of the movement's major figures, he sought to challenge the portrayal of anarchists as [[Moral nihilism|amoral]] and violent, and collected papers from these figures that he donated as a 20,000-item collection to the [[Library of Congress]].

== Early and personal life ==
Paul Avrich was born August 4, 1931, in [[Brooklyn]], New York City, to parents of [[Jewish]] and Ukrainian heritage from [[Odessa]].{{r|Guardian obit}} His parents – Rose (née Zapol) Avrich and Murray Avrich – were a [[Yiddish theater]] actress and a dress manufacturer, respectively.{{r|NYT obit}} In the early 1950s, he served in the [[Korean War]] with the [[U.S. Air Force]].{{r|AmJ}} Avrich completed his undergraduate studies at [[Cornell University]] in 1952, and his graduate studies at [[Columbia University]] in 1961.{{r|Guardian obit}} His doctoral dissertation addressed the [[Labour movement|labor movement]] in the [[Russian Revolution]].{{r|NYT obit}} Avrich was among the first American [[exchange student]]s to study in the [[Soviet Union]]{{r|AmJ}} when it opened during the [[Khrushchev Thaw]]. Anarchists he met through his research into the anarchist [[Yiddish]] newspaper ''[[Freie Arbeiter Stimme]]'' sparked his interest in the movement. He later named his cats after [[Mikhail Bakunin]] and [[Piotr Kropotkin]]. Avrich was married and had two daughters and a sister.{{r|NYT obit}}

== Career ==
As a teacher and historian of the anarchist movement, Avrich had sympathy and affection for the cause and became a trusted colleague of its major figures.{{r|NYT obit}} Accordingly, he sought to communicate to his students an affection and [[solidarity]] for anarchists "as people, rather than as militants" and challenged the perception of anarchists as amoral and violent. He wanted his work to resurrect the thought of marginalized anarchists, whom he saw as "pioneers of social justice" worth revisiting in the revival of [[libertarianism]] following the [[Vietnam War]] and [[second-wave feminism]].{{r|Guardian obit}}

Avrich joined [[Queens College]] as a Russian history instructor in 1961, where he remained for the duration of his career, though he also was a member of the [[Graduate Center, CUNY|City University of New York Graduate Center]] faculty.{{r|NYT obit}} He received a [[Guggenheim Fellowship]] for Russian history in 1967 and a [[National Endowment for the Humanities]] Fellowship in 1972.{{r|AmJ}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=Paul H. Avrich |work=John Simon Guggenheim Foundation |url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/paul-h-avrich/ |access-date=June 14, 2017 |archive-date=August 22, 2019 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20190822164651/https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/paul-h-avrich/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> When named a distinguished professor of history in 1982, his announcement quoted him: "Every good person deep down is an anarchist." He retired in 1999. Avrich collected books, photos, and papers from key anarchists and donated a 20,000-item collection to the [[Library of Congress]].{{r|NYT obit}} He died on February 16, 2006, in [[Mount Sinai Hospital (Manhattan)|Manhattan's Mount Sinai Hospital]] from complications due to [[Alzheimer's disease]].{{r|NYT obit}}

His Soviet research and documents on the suppressed Kronstadt insurrection led to several books on anarchists in the Russian revolution, including ''[[Kronstadt, 1921]]''. He interviewed Soviet exiles in New York, where he first met members of the ''Freie Arbeiter Stimme''. Avrich then moved to major figures in American anarchism and published a book in 1980 on the [[Ferrer School]]s inspired by [[Francisco Ferrer]]. His 1984 [[The Haymarket Tragedy|book on the Haymarket Riot]] won the [[Philip Taft Labor History Book Award]], and his 1991 [[Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background|book on Sacco and Vanzetti]] presented the pair as [[Galleanisti|revolutionaries]] rather than philosophical anarchists. Avrich's [[Anarchist Voices|last book]], in 1995, compiled 30 years of interviews across the anarchist movement. Several of his works were nominated for [[Pulitzer Prize]]s.{{r|Guardian obit}}

== Works ==
* ''[[The Russian Anarchists]]'' (1967){{r|Guardian obit}}
* ''[[Kronstadt, 1921]]'' (1970){{r|Guardian obit}}
* ''[[Russian Rebels, 1600–1800]]'' (1972){{r|Guardian obit}}
* ''[[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){{r|Guardian obit}}
* ''[[The Haymarket Tragedy]]'' (1984){{r|Guardian obit}}
* ''[[Anarchist Portraits]]'' (1988)
* ''[[Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background]]'' (1991){{r|Guardian obit}}
* ''[[Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America]]'' (1995){{r|Guardian obit}}
* ''[[Sasha and Emma: The Anarchist Odyssey of Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman]]'' (2012) [co-authored with his daughter, Karen Avrich]

== References ==
<references>
<ref name=AmJ>{{Cite journal |title=Obituaries: United States |journal=The American Jewish Year Book |volume=107 |pages=696–706 |date=2007 |issn=0065-8987 |jstor=23605956  }}</ref>
<ref name="Guardian obit">{{Cite news |last1=Christie |first1=Stuart |title=Paul Avrich |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=April 9, 2006 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/apr/10/guardianobituaries.obituaries |issn=0261-3077  }}</ref>
<ref name="NYT obit">{{cite news |last1=Brozan |first1=Nadine |title=Paul Avrich, 74, a historian of anarchism, is dead |type=Obituary |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=February 24, 2006 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/24/nyregion/paul-avrich-74-a-historian-of-anarchism-is-dead.html |issn=0362-4331  }}</ref>
</references>

== Further reading ==
{{refbegin}}
* {{Cite journal |last1=Creagh |first1=Ronald |author-link=Ronald Creagh |title=Review of Anarchist Portraits by Paul Avrich |journal=[[Social Anarchism (journal)|Social Anarchism]] |issue=17 |pages=40–44 |date=1992 |issn=0196-4801 }}
* {{Cite news |last1=Falk |first1=Candace |title=Paul Avrich |work=OAH Newsletter |page=22 |date=May 2006 |url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=21148071&site=ehost-live |issn=1059-1125 |via=[[EBSCOhost]]  |url-access=subscription }}
* {{Cite conference |last1=Goyens |first1=Tom |title=Paul Avrich and the Historiography of American Anarchism since the 1960s |date=March 2016 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330325450 |language=en |conference=European Social Science History Conference |location=Valencia, Spain  }}
* {{Cite web |last1=Gruder |first1=Vivian |title=In Memoriam: Paul Avrich (1931–2006) |work=Perspectives on History |date=May 2006 |url=https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/may-2006/in-memoriam-paul-avrich |access-date=June 15, 2017  }}
* {{Cite journal |last1=עובד |first1=יעקב |last2=Oved |first2=Ya'acov |title=Paul Avrich: An Historian of Anarchism / פול אבריץ': היסטוריון האנרכיזם |journal=Zmanim: A Historical Quarterly / זמנים: רבעון להיסטוריה |issue=97 |pages=92–97 |date=2007 |issn=1565-5261 |jstor=23439219 }}
{{refend}}

== External links ==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110726101055/http://raforum.info/spip.php?article306&lang=en Bibliography] at R.A. Forum
* [https://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/coll/avrich.html Collection] at the [[Library of Congress]]
* [http://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/2z358c Paul Avrich 1931–2006: a historian who listened to anarchist voices], in memoriam, by the [[Kate Sharpley Library]]

{{Paul Avrich}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Avrich, Paul}}
[[Category:1931 births]]
[[Category:2006 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American historians]]
[[Category:20th-century American Jews]]
[[Category:20th-century American male writers]]
[[Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:20th-century anarchists]]
[[Category:21st-century American historians]]
[[Category:21st-century American Jews]]
[[Category:21st-century American male writers]]
[[Category:21st-century American non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:21st-century anarchists]]
[[Category:American anarchist writers]]
[[Category:American male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent]]
[[Category:Cornell University alumni]]
[[Category:CUNY Graduate Center faculty]]
[[Category:Deaths from Alzheimer's disease in New York (state)]]
[[Category:Historians of anarchism]]
[[Category:Historians of Russia]]
[[Category:Jewish American historians]]
[[Category:Jewish American non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:Jewish anarchists]]
[[Category:Queens College, City University of New York faculty]]
[[Category:Revolution theorists]]
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