Pitirim Sorokin

Pitirim Aleksandrovich Sorokin ( born January 21, 1889 in Turja, Ujesd Jarensk, government Vologda, Russian Empire, † February 11, 1968 in Winchester (Massachusetts ), USA ) was a Russian / American sociologist, among other things, has emerged through his theoretical writings on the revolution. Sorokin explored social change and developed a theory of social cycles. He was 55th president of the American Sociological Association.

Life and action

Quick view 1917 Sorokin member of the Russian revolutionary government of Kerensky, was sentenced in 1922 to death, but reprieved to exile. In 1923 he emigrated to the United States. From 1924 to 1930 he was professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota. He then moved to Harvard, where he initially worked director of the Center for Altruismusforschung where he established the Institute of Sociology at. Under his active force, Talcott Parsons and Robert K. Merton developed ( Merton received his doctorate from Sorokin, Parsons and George Sarton ) the most influential figures of structural functionalism.

Growing up as a child in childhood is Sorokin village Tur'ja today to Knjaschpogostski the Komi Republic rajon north of Syktyvkar belonging; after 1892, and the mother's death he lived with his brother Vasily with the Father, who performed as a craftsman odd jobs. From his father Sorokin was seriously injured in the state of intoxication with a hammer, which Pitirims upper lip was disfigured for years. 1899, the brothers left their father.

Political Activities With the aid of a scholarship he attended a teacher's college (east of Vologda ) in Chrenovo, which was run by the Russian Orthodox Church between 1903 to 1906. During this time, a first approach to the 1901 resulting anti- Tsarist Social Revolutionary Party, which he eventually joined developed. However, as a follower of the Populists movement he rejected Marxism. In December 1906 Sorokin was arrested at a meeting of the SRs by the police and detained for four months. More clashes with the police followed, so that it does at the urging of his friends to an aunt in Rym'ja ( Respublika Komi ) withdrew, where he helped in agriculture.

Studied sociology and first teaching activities between 1907 and 1918 lived Sorokin in Saint Petersburg ( 1914-1924: Petrograd ), where he was initially employed as a teacher and tutor. In addition, Sorokin had intensive contacts with philosophers, writers and artists and began studying psychology at the newly opened Psichonevrologičeskij Institute ( Psycho Logical Euro Institute ) on. Between 1910-1914 Sorokin studied at the University of Saint Petersburg, where he, however, primarily sociology, economics and criminology heard. Sorokin started since 1911 to actively publish, so he was arrested again in 1913 as the author of a revolutionary writing and imprisoned for a time. After diploma in 1914 he became a teacher at the Psichonevrologičeskij Institute, received in 1916 the title Mag jur. ( Criminal Law ) at the University of Petrograd [ St. Petersburg ], and was from 1916 to 1917 Associate Professor of Sociology. For March 1917 was the defense of his dissertation, " Crime and Punishment, prowess and reward. A sociological study of the fundamental social behavior and moral forms "for the Dr. jur. Provided from criminal law, but by the revolutionary events it no longer happened.

From 1918 he lived again in Petrograd [ St. Petersburg ] and adopted in 1919 to teach at the University of Petrograd as a professor of sociology again. Shortly after the publication of his two volumes of " Sistema sotsiologii " (system of sociology), he was in 1920 appointed head of the newly founded Institute of Sociology. In April 1922 Dr. phil. ( Sociology ); Dissertation: sociologii Sistema ( The System of Sociology ). After another wave of arrests of the Russian intelligentsia Sorokin fled back to Moscow, where he volunteered and was imprisoned. Vladimir Lenin Il'ic (1870-1924) had given the order to be shot, but Sorokin was to leave after intervention and on the condition Russia, released.

Emigration over Berlin and Prague to Cambridge (USA ) On September 23, 1922 began his emigration first with a stay in Berlin, lived from 1922 to 1923 at the invitation of the Czechoslovak president Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk ( 1850-1937 ) in Prague and lectured at the Charles University in Prague. In October 1923 Sorokin emigrated to the USA at the invitation of the sociologist Edward C ( ary ) Hayes ( 1868-1928 ) and Edward A ( lsworth ) Ross ( 1866-1951 ) and took 1930 U.S. citizens to sheep. After Russia, he should not return early 1924 Sorokin held his first lecture at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, lived from 1924 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he worked as a lecturer at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Even in 1924 Visiting Professor with the salary of a full professor was Sorokin in 1925 Full Professor of Sociology.

From 1930 he was Professor of Sociology at Harvard University in Cambridge, first at the Department of Economics, since 1931 at the newly created Department of Sociology, the Sorokin served as Chairman until voluntary retirement in 1942. Among the teachers who have been appointed to the new Department, included, among other things, Talcott Parsons (1902-1979) and William I. Thomas (1863-1947), Robert K. Merton on graduates (1910-2003) and Kingsley Davis ( 1908 - 1997). 1964 emeritus Sorokin and died on 10 February 1968 in Winchester, Massachusetts.

Source: http://agso.uni-graz.at/lexikon/index.htm

Anti-Semitism

In politically controversial book " The modern state of Russia " (1922 ) defended Sorokin widespread in the environment emigrants thesis about "the Jewish nature " of the Bolshevik Revolution, which can be considered as a justification of anti-Semitism in Russia:

" This phenomenon is due to the extraordinarily outstanding role played by the vast number of Jews in deepening our revolution and the growth of our communism. Silence of the leaders, most of the Jews were such as Zinoviev, Trotsky, Kamenev, Steklov, Sverdlov, Radek, Krasin, Uritzky, Wolodarski, Litvinov, Ioffe, etc., the senior positions in all police stations were mostly clothed by them, and so remains it until today. Furthermore, it must be said, because they were less affected than in the economic sense, as they were much more eloquent. The major part of all the wealth has passed into their hands. Thanks to the same practical skill and the help from her relatives were starving less. A number of the most notorious features has also been met to a significant extent by them. The beginning of the new economic policy has almost all of them to " capitalists " and " rich" made ​​fall as well as all state and cooperative, and private industry and trade in their hands. In addition, one must mention that the population of Petrograd, Moscow and other cities is now coined due to the flood of Judaism from village to urban centers heavily on Jews that Judaism better fed, better clothed, and better lives, that Russians just Jews all senior positions, sees in all police stations, except the GPU, in which it currently few Jews is that even the college students stock is preferably Jewish: in medical schools is about 60, 70%, in other slightly less: in the vernacular it is called " the Prozentnorn vice versa; if you pull it all in consideration, you will probably understand the growth of anti-Semitism. I am not anti-Semitic, but I think such a situation for not normal. I never never defended the restrictions on Jewish rights, but I can not justify today's privileged situation of the Jews and today's exploitation of the Russian people by the Jews. I was never for the percent standard, but I do not find it normal that while special Jewish universities are state funded, 60, 70 % of students of normal universities also are Jews. I must also point out that the behavior of several Jews, including those who were not communists, but pure Wheeler, simply just was predatory, exploitative and ugly. "

These views Sorokin be lifted in modern Russia by representatives of the extremely nationalist movements on the shield; in these circles a cult Sorokin is celebrated.

Works

• Sociology of revolution, dt The sociology of revolution, Lehmann, Munich 1928.
• Society, Culture, and Personality. Their Structure and Dynamics. A System of General Sociology. New York 1947.
• Amitology as to applied science of amity and unselfish love, in: Karl Gustav Specht (ed.), Sociological Research in our time. A collective work. Leopold von Wiese on his 75th birthday, West German publishing house, Cologne / Opladen 1951, pp. 277-279.
• Cultural crisis and social philosophy. Modern theories of growth and decline of cultures and the nature of their crises. Stuttgart -Wien, 1953 ( The University 42). Dt. Translation of: Social philosophies of an age of crisis. Boston 1950. 2nd edition 1951.
• The restoration of human dignity, J. Henrich, Frankfurt am Main, 1952.
• ( with W. A. Lunden ): Power and morality. Who shall guard the guardians? , Porter Sargent Publishers, Boston, MA 1959.
• Social and cultural dynamics. A study of change in major systemsof art, truth, ethics, law and social relationships, Porter Sargent Publishers. Boston, MA, 1970.
• The crisis of our age, Oneworld Publications, Chatham, NY 1992.