Kropotkin, Peter (1842–1921)

Peter (Pyotr) Alexeyevich Kropotkin was a leading Russian anarchist, social philosopher, explorer, and geographer. He was born and died in the Moscow region, but he traveled very widely and spent half his life in exile. As a prince in a noble family, Kropotkin was selected by Tsar Nicholas I to study in the elite Corps of Pages, a military academy for courtiers. On graduation from the Corps, bored with military science and increasingly disillusioned with the extravagance and pettiness of the Court, he volunteered to serve as an army officer in Siberia and spent 9 years exploring the region, initially as a soldier and later as a civil servant working with the Russian Geographical Society. Subsequently, he wrote extensively about the physiography of Asia, the ...