Английская Википедия:Alexander Atabekian

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Alexander Movsesi Atabekian (Шаблон:Lang-hy; 1868 – Шаблон:Circa 1940) was an Armenian physician, publisher and anarchist communist.

Born in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, he moved abroad to study medicine, enrolling in the University of Geneva in Switzerland. There he began working as a typesetter and became experienced in publishing while working on the journal Hunchak, the organ of the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party (SDHP). In 1890, he became a disciple of the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin and joined the anarchist movement. In Geneva, Atabekian established the Anarchist Library, which published several seminal anarchist texts in the Armenian and Russian languages, with the intention of smuggling them into the Russian Empire. He also made links with the nascent Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), helping to set up publication of its newspaper Droshak in Geneva.

He pursued his medical studies to Paris, where he began publishing the journal Hamaink, the first anarchist periodical in the Armenian language. He wrote extensively about the oppression of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire and European countries, and elaborated his vision for a social revolution in Armenia. He ceased publication after hearing news of the Hamidian massacres, after which he re-established connections with other anarchists within the ARF. Together they issued a declaration to the Second International, denouncing both the actions of the Ottoman Empire and the complicity of its European allies.

After graduating as a Doctor of Medicine, Atabekian moved to Rasht, in Iran, where he worked as a physician and published a Persian edition of Hamaink. During the Russian Revolution of 1917, he moved to Moscow and began writing works of anarchist theory and critique. He was critical of the rise of the Bolsheviks, who he saw as working in opposition to the will of the people. He instead advocated for the strenghtening of the co-operative movement, seeing particular promise in Moscow's house committees as a means to establish socialist anarchism. He also acted as Kropotkin's personal doctor and confidant, staying by his side until his death. He then participated in the management of a museum of Kropotkin, which he maintained throughout the period of the New Economic Policy (NEP).

In the wake of Joseph Stalin's rise to power, the Russian anarchist movement was severely repressed and Atabekian was arrested, disappearing into the Gulag. He has since been held as a key example of an anarchist from outside the Western tradition, and his work on anti-authoritarianism, co-operative economics and tenants rights has been studied in Russia and Ukraine.

Biography

Early life and activism

Alexander Movsesi Atabekian was born in 1868,Шаблон:Sfnm into an Armenian family in Shushi, a city in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. He graduated from secondary school in his hometown, and in 1888,Шаблон:Sfn he left the Caucasus and went abroad to study medicine at the University of Geneva.Шаблон:Sfnm During his undergraduate education, Atabekian worked as a typesetter for Avetis Nazarbekian's newspaper Hunchak – the official organ of the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party (SDHP) – which publicised reports about rising anti-Armenian sentiment in the Russian and Ottoman Empires.Шаблон:Sfn

He left the SDHP and became an anarchist communist in 1890, after reading Words of a Rebel, a collection of writings by Peter Kropotkin dating back to 1879 and published in 1885 by Élisée Reclus. Atabekian then began working at a Ukrainian publishing house, which he used to print translations of anarchist works in the Armenian and Russian languages. He also published a number of open letters, on behalf of the international anarchist movement, to Armenian peasants and revolutionaries.Шаблон:Sfn

Before long, Atabekian had met numerous prominent members of the anarchist movement, becoming close friends with Kropotkin, Reclus and Jean Grave.Шаблон:Sfnm He also met Max Nettlau, Paraskev Stoyanov,Шаблон:Sfnm Luigi Galleani and Jacques Gross; with whom he printed a poster in memory of the Haymarket martyrs, which they plastered throughout Geneva.Шаблон:Sfn

Anarchist publishing work

After the outbreak of the Russian famine of 1891–1892, Atabekian initiated an effort to begin smuggling anarchist propaganda into the Russian Empire,Шаблон:Sfnm intending to print texts in both the Russian and Armenian languages.Шаблон:Sfnm Atabekian and Stoyanov travelled to London,Шаблон:Sfn where they visited Kropotkin.Шаблон:Sfnm They informed him of their intentions to start delivering pamphlets to Ukraine and the Caucasus,Шаблон:Sfn where they had established connections with some individual anarchists.Шаблон:Sfn Atabekian then returned to Geneva and established a printing press in his own bedroom;Шаблон:Sfn he called it the Anarchist Library (Шаблон:Lang-ru),Шаблон:Sfnm and it would become the first Russian anarchist propaganda circle since Zamfir Arbore's own in the 1870s.Шаблон:Sfnm

Atabekian initially lacked the resources to publish a periodical, so decided to start out publishing individual pamphlets.Шаблон:Sfn His first publication was a Russian language edition of Mikhail Bakunin's The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State,Шаблон:Sfnm which was followed in 1892 by Kropotkin's The Destruction of the State. In 1893, he published Kropotkin's Political Rights, Anarchism and Spirit of Revolt, as well as Reclus' To My Brother the Peasant,Шаблон:Sfnm and Errico Malatesta's Between Peasants, the latter of which Atabekian wrote a preface directing it towards Armenians.Шаблон:Sfn In 1894, he published Kropotkin's Revolutionary Minorities and Grave's Why We Are Revolutionaries. The first pages of the pamphlets included the words "Authorised by the Ministry of Education", printed in the Turkish language.Шаблон:Sfnm They were circulated widely among Armenian immigrant circles and later in Armenia itself, following Stoyanov's own distribution efforts.Шаблон:Sfn Despite their efforts, Atabekian was largely unsuccessful in smuggling the pamphlets into the Russian Empire, but their work was taken up only a few years later by another Russian anarchist group in Geneva.Шаблон:Sfnm During this period, he also formed links with the nascent Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) and helped to publish its newspaper Droshak, together with Stepan Zorian.Шаблон:Sfn

Atabekian subsequently moved to France in order to continue his medical studies in Paris.Шаблон:Sfnm There he also began publication of Hamaink (Шаблон:Lang-hy),Шаблон:Sfnm the first anarchist periodical in the Armenian language.Шаблон:Sfn It ran for five issues, each made up of eight pages, which contained articles about anarchism and the Armenian national movement.Шаблон:Sfnm Atabekian thought that Armenia was ripe for revolution, due to the conditions created by the Ottoman Empire's despotism and the exploitation of Armenian labour in Europe and America. He called for the collectivisation of land and the establishment of self-governance in Armenia.Шаблон:Sfn Although he was staunchly opposed to Ottoman rule in Armenia, he also cautioned against an intervention in the region by the Entente powers.Шаблон:Sfnm Atabekian also published articles by the ARF,Шаблон:Sfn but supplemented them with his own criticisms of the authoritarianism and centralisation he'd experienced within the structures of Armenian political parties.Шаблон:Sfnm While it focused largely on Armenia, the journal also gave attention to the revolutionary anarchist movements in France, Italy, Poland, Russia and Spain.Шаблон:Sfn Atabekian himself didn't sign any of the articles he wrote, in order to protect himself from prosecution for his anarchist activities. Hamaink quickly gained popularity among the Armenian diaspora throughout Europe, with Stoyanov helping to distribute it in the Balkans, Caucasus and Turkey.Шаблон:Sfn

Move east

Atabekian ceased all of his publication activities after receiving news of the Hamidian massacres, which emotionally devastated him.Шаблон:Sfn As Armenian resistance to the anti-Armenian massacres in the Ottoman Empire manifested, he established connections with anarchist and libertarian socialist activists within the ARF.Шаблон:Sfnm The anarchists of the ARF blended socialist anarchism with a form of Armenian nationalism,Шаблон:Sfnm influenced in part by the Russian nihilist movement.Шаблон:Sfn Together with other Armenian libertarians, Atabekian wrote a declaration to the London Congress of the Second International; he argued that European powers were complicit in the Hamidian massacres and declared the beginning of a social revolution in West Asia.Шаблон:Sfnm

In 1896, Atabekian graduated as a Doctor of Medicine. Prohibited from returning to the Russian Empire due to a sentence of exile for his anarchist activities, he moved first to Bulgaria and then to Iran.Шаблон:Sfn His correspondence from this time indicates that he travelled through Istanbul and İzmir, where he attempted to promote anarchism among the local Armenian communities.Шаблон:Sfnm He settled in Rasht, in the Gilan province, where he worked as a physician and published an Iranian edition of Hamaink,Шаблон:Sfnm which received a Persian language translation.Шаблон:Sfn There he also trained the young Ardeshir Ovanessian as a pharmacist, after which Ovanessian went on to become a leader of the Iranian Communist Party.Шаблон:Sfn

Revolution writings in Russia

In the wake of the February Revolution of 1917, Atabekian moved to Moscow. After the subsequent October Revolution, he wrote a series of 30 articles for Anarkhiia, calling for anarchists to lead a third revolution and criticising the Bolsheviks' seizure of power.Шаблон:Sfn During this time, Atabekian began referring to himself as a "political atheist", as he believed any form of power was inevitably opposed to the will of the people.Шаблон:Sfn In his account of the events, Bloody Week in Moscow, Atabekian depicted the October Revolution as a utopian "revolution from above", one which was carried out against the will of the people, who were largely indifferent to the revolution, and which he predicted would inevitably fail as a result. He compared the Bolsheviks' actions with the Marxist conception of historical materialism, the latter of which argued that revolution could only occur when the material conditions were correct, and concluded that such conditions were missing from the October Revolution, as it was imposed from above rather than coming from the people themselves. He then called for anarchists to begin agitating for the construction of a new society through workers' self-management.Шаблон:Sfn

Atabekian placed his hopes in Moscow's "house committees",Шаблон:Sfnm which had been established in order to protect the common interests of tenants and regulate landlords to ensure regular repairs and central heating.Шаблон:Sfn Atabekian believed that these committees could be the means by which to fulfill people's needs and build a new social order, without political parties.Шаблон:Sfn By the outbreak of the Russian Civil War, Atabekian began advocating for the creation of an independent anarchist army, established along decentralised and anti-authoritarian lines, which could defend people against the rising White movement. This call was notably taken up by Nestor Makhno, who formed a number of partisan detachments in villages throughout Ukraine.Шаблон:Sfn

In 1918, Atabekian and Шаблон:Ill established a printing cooperative, from which they published their new periodical Pochin. Edited by Atabekian, who also carried out the typesetting himself, Pochin ran for 11 issues, publishing letters from Peter Kropotkin and Atabekian's own accounts from West Asia.Шаблон:Sfn In the journal, Atabekian developed on Kropotkin's theories of mutual aid and co-operative economics. Atabekian considered cooperation to be a "law of life", stemming from the evolution of eusociality and human society, and saw it as essential to establishing socialist anarchism. From an analysis of history, he concluded that the co-operative movement distinguished itself from capitalism and other economic forms like state socialism, not only because it was unmotivated by profit and sought to abolish wage labour, but also because it upheld a morality based in "freedom, equality and justice". He also defined the co-operative movement in opposition to the state, and believed that the abolition of the state would give way to a co-operative society based on mutual aid and voluntary labour. He thus declared co-operative movement to be in opposition to state socialism, which he decried as imperialistic and limited by its own borders, whereas co-operative movement was internationalist in its methods.Шаблон:Sfn

Treatment and death of Kropotkin

By 1920, Kropotkin had retired to Dmitrov, a small town outside the Russian capital, where Atabekian visited him regularly.Шаблон:Sfn During this period, Atabekian had returned to his practice as a physician, while Kropotkin kept him updated on what would be his final work, Ethics: Origin and Development.Шаблон:Sfn After a meeting with the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, Kropotkin informed Atabekian that he had requested an amnesty for one of his friends that had been taken hostage by the Cheka.Шаблон:Sfnm Kropotkin expressed regret over making his visit,Шаблон:Sfnm but when he asked Atabekian if he disapproved, his friend responded that he would "approve of pleading even to the Tsar to save those who were condemned to death."Шаблон:Sfn Kropotkin went on to say that he had asked Lenin to put a stop to the Red Terror, fearing a repeat of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution,Шаблон:Sfnm which he thought had frightened Lenin enough to reign in the executions.Шаблон:Sfn Kropotkin also told Atabekian that he worried the Bolsheviks might "bury the revolution".Шаблон:Sfnm

Файл:Kropotkin funeral.jpg
Peter Kropotkin's funeral in Moscow

In January 1921, Kropotkin fell ill with pneumonia and Atabekian travelled to Dmitrov to provide him with medical care.Шаблон:Sfnm Atabekian was joined by five other physicians, including Dmitry Pletnyov, who had been dispatched to treat Kropotkin by Lenin himself.Шаблон:Sfn Despite the severe case, his doctors concluded that he could still recover from his ailments; Kropotkin himself expressed that he didn't want to die, as he still had work to do.Шаблон:Sfn As his condition got worse, and Kropotkin began to accept that he was dying, he expressed regret that he had "give[n] trouble to so many good people." He continued to talk with his friends until his last moments, once remarking to them, "what a hard business—dying".Шаблон:Sfn

Kropotkin died on 8 February 1921,Шаблон:Sfnm with his family and Atabekian by his side.Шаблон:Sfnm Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman arrived the following day, to belatedly pay their respects.Шаблон:Sfn The Bolshevik government offered to give Kropotkin a state funeral, but his family decline, instead forming a committee to arrange his funeral.Шаблон:Sfnm Atabekian was among the co-organisers of the funeral.Шаблон:Sfnm

Later work and disappearance

Kropotkin's family and friends were given permission to use his ancestral home in Moscow, which they turned into a museum for his life and work. Atabekian served on the Шаблон:Ill, together with Шаблон:Ill and Шаблон:Ill.Шаблон:Sfn Atabekian was permitted by the Soviet authorities to continue his work with the Kropotkin Museum Committee throughout most of the period of the New Economic Policy (NEP).Шаблон:Sfn He also published a letter from Kropotkin, dated to late 1918, in the final volume of Pochin.Шаблон:Sfn In 1927, Atabekian and other anarchists organised a demonstration against the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, with the permission of the Moscow Soviet.Шаблон:Sfn But by this time, the Kropotkin Museum Committee had collapsed into factional infighting, which was beginning to affect the entire Russian anarchist movement.Шаблон:Sfn

Following Joseph Stalin's rise to power and the beginning of totalitarianism in the Soviet Union, the anarchist movement was severely repressed. By the early 1930s, Atabekian had been arrested and imprisoned in the Gulag, where he disappeared from the historical record.Шаблон:Sfnm Sources differ as to the exact details of his death, with some claiming he died in Moscow or disappeared into exile, while the International Institute of Social History says that he died in a concentration camp in 1940.Шаблон:Sfn By this time, all the last members of the Kropotkin Museum Committee had been arrested, deported or killed; and the museum itself was closed by the Soviet authorities.Шаблон:Sfn

Legacy

Although Marxism-Leninism came to supplant Atabekian's anarchism in Armenia, anarchist ideas gained traction within the Armenian diaspora, inspiring the publication of Armenian-language anarchist journals in the United States.Шаблон:Sfn Today Atabekian is considered one of the foremost thinkers of post-classical anarchism in the former Russian Empire.Шаблон:Sfn His analysis of the October Revolution was taken up by later generations of anarchists in the 20th and 21st centuries.Шаблон:Sfn In an April 1924 issue of the Argentine anarchist newspaper Шаблон:Ill, Atabekian's writings were quoted by Ukrainian Jewish anarchist Anatolii Horelik, who warned against the disregarding of ethical considerations in revolutionary methods.Шаблон:Sfn

In the 21st century, he has been cited as a seminal example of a first-wave anarchist thinker from outside the Western tradition.Шаблон:Sfnm Atabekian's advocacy of house committees has also been taken up by the Ukrainian urbanists Olena Zaika and Oleh Masiuk, who cited his work as foundational to research on the reorganisation of urban space.Шаблон:Sfn Atabekian's papers have been preserved and archived by the International Institute of Social History,Шаблон:Sfnm which collected his letters from Peter Kropotkin into the world's largest archive of Kropotkin's works.Шаблон:Sfn

Selected works

Thesis
Letters
Pamphlets
Articles
Collections

References

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Bibliography

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External links

Шаблон:Authority control

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