Sylvia Pankhurst

Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst ( born May 5, 1882 in Manchester, † 27 September 1960 in Addis Ababa ) was an activist in the suffrage movement.

Life

She was born in Manchester, England, the daughter of Dr. Richard Marsden Pankhurst Emmeline Goulden Pankhurst and his wife, members of the Independent Labour Party, the very actively campaigning for women's rights. Her sister Christabel was also an activist. In 1906, she began to devote along with her sister Christabel and her mother Emmeline all their time the Women's Social and Political Union. Unlike them, she maintained her interest in the labor movement.

In 1912, she broke with the WSPU in the dispute over the advocacy of arson by the grouping. Sylvia Pankhurst founded the East London Federation of Suffragettes ( ELFS ), which evolved over the years its political approach and accordingly changed its name, first in Women's Suffrage Federation and then in Workers ' Socialist Federation. She founded the newspaper of the WSF Women's Dreadnought, which later became the Workers Dreadnought was.

Pankhurst joined the left communist movement and was excluded from their organization. She was an important figure in the communist movement of their time and participated in meetings of the International in Russia and Amsterdam, in part and in meetings of the Italian Socialist Party. They argued with Lenin and supported left communists like Anton Pannekoek and Bordiga.

The mid- 1920s, Pankhurst moved away from the Communist policy towards anti-fascism and anti-colonialism. She responded to the Italian occupation of Ethiopia by the Workers Dreadnought in 1936, renamed The New Times and Ethiopia News and became a follower of Haile Selassie. She collected money for Ethiopia's first teaching hospital and wrote extensively on Ethiopian art and culture; their research results were as Ethiopia, a Cultural History ( London: Lalibela House, 1955) published. In 1956 she moved with her son Richard Pankhurst Addis Ababa and founded the monthly magazine Ethiopia Observer, which reported on many aspects of life and social development in Ethiopia.

She died 1960 and was buried in front of the Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa.

Works (selection)

• Ethiopia. A cultural history. Lalibela House, Woodford Green, Essex 1955
• The life of Emmeline Pankhurst. The suffragette struggle for womens ' citizenship. Laurie Books, London 1935
• Soviet Russia as I saw it. The Working Dreadnought, London 1921
• The Suffragette Movement. An intimate account of persons and ideals. Virago Press, London, 1988, ISBN 0-86068-026-6 ( Repr d ed London 1911)
• Kathryn Dodd (ed.): A Sylvia Pankhurst Reader. University Press, Manchester, 1993, ISBN 0-7190-2888-4.