Drawing by Natalia Mikhaylenko

Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin was born in 1842 and breathed his last in 1921. Kropotkin was a Russian noble. He was educated for army and at the age of twenty he became a military officer in Siberia.

Kropotkin’s great interest in science developed from his military training which he received to get a job. This moulded his life in future. He had a scientific mind and devoted his time and energy to the study of books on science.

As a military officer in Siberia Kropotkin got ample opportunity for geographical survey and expedition. Thus his shift from military service to geo­graphical survey and expeditions enriched the subject profoundly. He contributed many articles to different journals.

Peter Kropotkin was a man of different mentality and attitude. His stay in military service could not satisfy his academic and intellectual requirements and desires and after serving several years he relinquished the job, and entered the University of St. Petersburg in 1867. His vast knowledge in geography brought for him the post of secretary of Geographical Society.

Even this vital administrative post could not detain him for long time. He moved to radical political movements. In 1872, Peter Kropotkin joined the International Workingmen’s Association. Later on he was deeply involved in subversive and anarchical activities. This led him to imprisonment in 1874.

He escaped from prison in 1876 and went to England. The England of the second half of eighteenth century was the centre of revolutionary activities, although she never experienced any revolution.

He also travelled to Switzerland and Paris. While in Paris he was again arrested by the French government in 1883. Released from prison in 1886 he went to England and settled there. While in exile, Kropotkin gave lectures and published widely on anarchism and geography. He returned to Russia after the Russian Revolution in 1917 but was disappointed by the Bolshevik state. The rest of his life was spent without political activity.

Peter Kropotkin was an evolutionist anarchist. But his evolutionism was more scien­tific than that of his predecessors. He wrote several books on anarchism such as ‘The Place of Anarchy in Socialist Evolution (1886), The Conquest of Bread (1888), Its Philosophy and Ideal (1896)’, ‘The State – Its Part in History (1898)’ and ‘Modern Science and Anarchism (1903)’. His deep interest in science, particularly biology and anthro­pology, opened before him new and enchanting vistas of knowledge and all these inspired him to study biological science with added interest.

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