Apollon Andreyevich Karelin (January 23, 1863, Saint Petersburg — March 20, 1926, Moscow) was a Russian public figure, ideologist of anarchism, publicist, and legal scholar. He studied at the Nizhny Novgorod Boys' Gymnasium. One of the foremost theorists of anarcho-communism in Russia, he was an organizer of the anarchist movement in emigration and after the Revolution of 1917, and the founder of the mystical-anarchist circles of the 1920s.[1][2]
Early Years and Education
In 1881, Karelin was arrested for distributing a revolutionary proclamation, but was released because of his youth. On entering Kazan University, he staged "disorders" and left for Switzerland, where he joined the People's Will (Narodnaya Volya). After returning to Russia, he spent the years 1883 to 1886 in exile, in Ust-Kamenogorsk and Semipalatinsk. In 1888, Karelin completed his studies at Kazan University as an external student, and in 1889 he defended the dissertation "Communal Landholding in European and Asiatic Russia" and received the degree of candidate of law, after which he worked as an assistant to a sworn attorney.[2]
Having continued his illegal oppositional activity, he was exiled to Vologda in 1892. In 1893–1894 he published the works "Communal Landholding in Russia," "Factory Laws," and "A Brief Outline of Political Economy." From 1898 he lived in turn in Yukhnov, Yelets, and Irkutsk.[2]
Nizhny Novgorod
According to Wikidata, Karelin studied at the Nizhny Novgorod Boys' Gymnasium — this establishes his connection with the city during his formative period.
Political Activity and Emigration
A participant in the Revolution of 1905–1907, Karelin joined the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. In 1906 he emigrated and taught at the Russian School of Advanced Social Studies in Paris. In 1909–1911 he turned to anarchist views and broke with the SR Party. In 1912–1914 he was the de facto editor of the anarchist newspaper "Golos Truda" ("Voice of Labor") and became one of the organizers (together with V. Volin and others) of the group of "Free Socialists," which was transformed in 1913 into the "Brotherhood of Free Communards" (the Federation of Anarchist-Communists). In 1914 he took part in publishing the newspaper "Khleb i Volya" ("Bread and Freedom") in Paris.[2]
After the February Revolution of 1917, he returned to Russia. He joined the Petrograd Federation of Anarchist Groups, edited the newspaper "Trud i Volya" ("Labor and Freedom"), and contributed to the newspaper "Burevestnik." In 1918 he became one of the organizers of the "All-Russian Federation of Anarchists and Anarcho-Communists" and edited the journal "Volnaya Zhizn" ("Free Life"). He was elected a candidate member of the VTsIK (All-Russian Central Executive Committee), was a delegate to the Fifth Congress of Soviets, and served as the anarchists' member of the VTsIK in 1918–1919, while advocating cooperation with the Bolsheviks in the struggle against counterrevolution. In December 1918 he took part in organizing the First All-Russian Congress of Anarchist-Communists in Moscow.[2]
Mystical Anarchism and the Final Years
As the Soviet regime consolidated its power, Karelin created an anarchist subculture of the Masonic type — the "Order of the Spirit" and similar circles. His esoteric-Christian anarchism attracted figures of culture: the film director Sergei Eisenstein, the actors Mikhail Chekhov and Yuri Zavadsky, and the sinologist Yulian Shchutsky. In the 1920s the Moscow center of this movement was the Kropotkin Museum, where Karelin took part in the committee for commemorating Kropotkin from February 1921, and from 1923 in the museum's anarchist section.[1][2]
Karelin's ideas had a significant influence on the philosopher Vasily Nalimov (1910–1997), who wrote about the peacemaking function of the anarcho-mystical movement of the 1920s in his autobiographical book "The Tightrope Walker."[1]
Major Works
Karelin's principal publications include "Communal Ownership in Russia" (1893), "The Land Program of the Anarcho-Communists" (London, 1912), "The State and the Anarchists" (Moscow, 1918) — a pamphlet in which he, drawing in part on the ideas of Leo Tolstoy, criticized the state as a product of violence and warned that socialism, with its strengthening of the state, would inevitably give rise to a new despotism — "Russia in 1930" (1918), biographical works on Mikhail Bakunin (1917, 1919), and a number of agitational pamphlets.[1][3][2]
Sources
- pustoshkin.com — On "The State and the Anarchists" by the anarcho-mystic Apollon Karelin
- history.ru — KARELIN APOLLON ANDREYEVICH — Read articles on Russian history for schoolchildren and students
- ru.wikisource.org — Author: Apollon Andreyevich Karelin — Wikisource