Timasheff on Sorokin

Timasheff, ‘Pitirim A. Sorokin (1889-1968)’ – The Russian Review

Posted here (above) as a downloadable PDF document is an obituary of Pitirim A. Sorokin by his friend and fellow sociologist N. S. Timasheff:

“Pitirim A. Sorokin (1889-1968),” The Russian Review, vol. 27, no. 3 (July 1968), pp. 379-381.

A Wikipedia entry about Timasheff follows; it is posted here for informational purposes.

— Roger W. Smith

   December 2017

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Nicholas Sergeyevitch Timasheff (Russian: Николай Сергеевич Тимашев; 1886-1970) was a Russian sociologist, professor of jurisprudence and writer.

Timasheff “came from an old family of Russian nobility”; his father was Minister of Trade and Industry under Nicholas II. In St. Petersburg, where he was born, he attended a classical high school; he went on to attend the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, the University of Strasbourg, and the Saint Petersburg State University (MA 1910, LLD 1914). At the latter university, he met the Polish-Russian jurist Leon Petrazycki, who was a significant influence on him throughout his life. Two years later he began teaching sociological jurisprudence at the University of Petrograd. He emigrated to the United States following an alleged involvement with the Tagantsev Conspiracy in 1920. He took up a similar position at Fordham University, and was one of the original developers of the discipline of sociology of law. [Note: the sociology of law and criminology was an early area of academic specialization for Sorokin.]

Timasheff was the author of various works, including The Great Retreat: The Growth and Decline of Communism in Russia (1946), in which he argued that the Bolsheviks made a conscious retreat from socialist values during the 1930’s, instead returning to traditional ones like patriotism and the family. Historian Terry Martin considers this a misnomer, because “in the political and economic spheres, the period after 1933 marked a consolidation, rather than a repudiation, of the most important goals of Stalin’s socialist offensive: forced industrialization, collectivization, nationalization, abolition of the market, political dictatorship.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Timasheff

Author: Roger W. Smith

Roger W. Smith is a writer and independent scholar based in New York City. His experience includes freelance writing and editing, business writing, book reviewing, and the teaching of writing and literature as an adjunct professor at St. John’s University. Mr. Smith's interests include personal essays and opinion pieces; American and world literature; culture, especially books and reading; classical music; current issues that involve social, moral, and philosophical views; and experiences of daily living from a ground level perspective. Sites on WordPress hosted by Mr. Smith include: (1) rogersgleanings.com (a personal site comprised of essays on a wide range of topics) ; (2) rogers-rhetoric.com (covering principles and practices of writing); (3) roger-w-smiths-dreiser.site (devoted to the author Theodore Dreiser); and (4) pitirimsorokin.com (devoted to sociologist and social philosopher Pitirim A. Sorokin). View all posts by Roger W. Smith