Paul Avrich
Avrich,c. 1980
Born	(1931-08-04)August 4, 1931 New York City, U.S.
Died	February 16, 2006(2006-02-16) (aged 74) New York City, U.S.
Occupation	Historian
Years active	1961–1999
Notable work	The Haymarket Tragedy,Anarchist Voices

Paul Avrich (August 4, 1931 – February 16, 2006) was an Americanhistorian specializing in the19th and early 20th-century anarchist movement in Russia and the United States. He taught atQueens College,City University of New York, for his entire career, from 1961 to his retirement as distinguished professor of history in 1999. He wrote ten books, mostly about anarchism, including topics such as the 1886Haymarket Riot, the 1921Sacco and Vanzetti case, the 1921Kronstadt naval base rebellion, and anoral history of the movement in the United States.

As an ally of the movement's major figures, he sought to challenge the portrayal of anarchists asamoral and violent, and collected papers from these figures that he donated as a 20,000-item collection to theLibrary of Congress.

Paul Avrich was born August 4, 1931, inBrooklyn, New York City, to parents ofJewish and Ukrainian heritage fromOdessa.^[1] His parents – Rose (née Zapol) Avrich and Murray Avrich – were aYiddish theater actress and a dress manufacturer, respectively.^[2] In the early 1950s, he served in theKorean War with theU.S. Air Force.^[3] Avrich completed his undergraduate studies atCornell University in 1952, and his graduate studies atColumbia University in 1961.^[1] His doctoral dissertation addressed thelabor movement in theRussian Revolution.^[2] Avrich was among the first Americanexchange students to study in theSoviet Union^[3] when it opened during theKhrushchev Thaw. Anarchists he met through his research into the anarchistYiddish newspaperFreie Arbeiter Stimme sparked his interest in the movement. He later named his cats afterMikhail Bakunin andPiotr Kropotkin. Avrich was married and had two daughters and a sister.^[2]

As a teacher and historian of the anarchist movement, Avrich had sympathy and affection for the cause and became a trusted colleague of its major figures.^[2] Accordingly, he sought to communicate to his students an affection andsolidarity for anarchists "as people, rather than as militants" and challenged the perception of anarchists as amoral and violent. He wanted his work to resurrect the thought of marginalized anarchists, whom he saw as "pioneers of social justice" worth revisiting in the revival oflibertarianism following theVietnam War andsecond-wave feminism.^[1]

Avrich joinedQueens College as a Russian history instructor in 1961, where he remained for the duration of his career, though he also was a member of theCity University of New York Graduate Center faculty.^[2] He received aGuggenheim Fellowship for Russian history in 1967 and aNational Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in 1972.^[3][4] When named a distinguished professor of history in 1982, his announcement quoted him: "Every good person deep down is an anarchist." He retired in 1999. Avrich collected books, photos, and papers from key anarchists and donated a 20,000-item collection to theLibrary of Congress.^[2] He died on February 16, 2006, inManhattan's Mount Sinai Hospital from complications due toAlzheimer's disease.^[2]

His Soviet research and documents on the suppressed Kronstadt insurrection led to several books on anarchists in the Russian revolution, includingKronstadt, 1921. He interviewed Soviet exiles in New York, where he first met members of theFreie Arbeiter Stimme. Avrich then moved to major figures in American anarchism and published a book in 1980 on theFerrer Schools inspired byFrancisco Ferrer. His 1984book on the Haymarket Riot won thePhilip Taft Labor History Book Award, and his 1991book on Sacco and Vanzetti presented the pair asrevolutionaries rather than philosophical anarchists. Avrich'slast book, in 1995, compiled 30 years of interviews across the anarchist movement. Several of his works were nominated forPulitzer Prizes.^[1]

• The Russian Anarchists (1967)^[1]
• Kronstadt, 1921 (1970)^[1]
• Russian Rebels, 1600–1800 (1972)^[1]
• The Anarchists in the Russian Revolution (1973)
• An American Anarchist: The Life of Voltairine de Cleyre (1978)
• The Modern School Movement: Anarchism and Education in the United States (1980)^[1]
• The Haymarket Tragedy (1984)^[1]
• Anarchist Portraits (1988)
• Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background (1991)^[1]
• Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America (1995)^[1]
• Sasha and Emma: The Anarchist Odyssey of Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman (2012) [co-authored with his daughter, Karen Avrich]

• Bibliography at R.A. Forum
• Collection at theLibrary of Congress
• Paul Avrich 1931–2006: a historian who listened to anarchist voices, in memoriam, by theKate Sharpley Library

• 1931 births
• 2006 deaths
• 20th-century American historians
• 20th-century American Jews
• 20th-century American male writers
• 20th-century American non-fiction writers
• 20th-century anarchists
• 21st-century American historians
• 21st-century American Jews
• 21st-century American male writers
• 21st-century American non-fiction writers
• 21st-century anarchists
• American anarchist writers
• American male non-fiction writers
• American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent
• Cornell University alumni
• CUNY Graduate Center faculty
• Deaths from Alzheimer's disease in New York (state)
• Historians of anarchism
• Historians of Russia
• Jewish American historians
• Jewish American non-fiction writers
• Jewish anarchists
• Queens College, City University of New York faculty
• Revolution theorists
• United States Air Force personnel of the Korean War

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use American English from June 2017
• All Wikipedia articles written in American English
• Use mdy dates from November 2023
• Articles with hCards