PRINCE KROPOTKIN

Hokitika Guardian, 7 February 1921, Page 4

PRINCE KROPOTKIN

MOSCOW, Jan. 29. The death is announced of Prince Kropotkin. (The late Prince Peter Alexeivich Kropotkin was horn in .Moscow in 1842. His father, Prince Alexei Petrovitch Kropotkin belonged to the old Russian nobility ; his mother, the daughter of a general in the Russian army, had remarkable literary and liberal tastes. At the age of fifteen, Prince Peter Kropotkin, who had been intended by his father for the army, entered the Corps of Pages at St Petersburg (QB.>7). Here he remained till 18(32, reading widely on his own account, and giving special attention to the work of the French encyclopaedists and to modern French history. Before he left Moscow Prince Kropotkin had developed an interest in the condition of the Russian peasantry, and this interest increased as lie grew older. He had never wished for a military career, and in 18(34 he accepted charge of a geographical survey expedition, crossing North Manchuria from Transbaikalia to the Amur, and shortly afterwards was attached to another expedition which proceeded up the Sungari River into the heart of Manchuria. Both these expeditions yielded most valuable geographical results. The impossibility of obtaining any real administrative reforms in Siberia now induced Kro.potkin to devote himself almost entirely to scientific exploration. In 1873 he published an important contribution to science, a map and paper in which he proved that the existing maps of Asia entirely misrepresented the physical formation of the country. In 1871 Kropotkin joined the tevolutionaiy party in St Petersburg. In 1872 he visited Switzerland, and became a member of the International Workingmen’s Association at Geneva. The Socialism of this body was not, however, advanced enough for his views, and he adopted the creed of anarchism, and on returning to Russia took an active part in spreading Nihilist propaganda. In 1874 lie was arrested and imprisoned, but escaped in 187 G and went to England, removing after a short stay to Switzerland, where he joined the Jura Federation. In 1877 be went to Paris, where lie helped to start the Socialist movement. After the assination of Czar Alexander II (1881), Kropotkin was expelled from Switzerland by the Swiss Government, and after a short stay in Savoy, went to London, returning to Savoy towards the end of 1882. Shortly afterwards he was arrested by the French Government and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, on the ground that be belonged to the International Workingmen’s Association. In 188(3, as the result of repeated agitation on his behalf in the French Chamber, lie was released, and settled near London. Prince Kropotkin’s authority as a writer on Russia is universally acknowledged. He was the author of numerous works, geographical and social, and contributed largely to the Encyclopaedia Britannica).