Dmitrov. Kropotkin returns

An event important for every anarchist happened on Saturday, September, 6 in Dmitrov, north of Moscow. Museum dedicated to Peter Kropotkin was finally opened. 

It is located in the house where the prominent Russian anarchist spent the last years of his life. Dramatic history of the house was once described in the article named “Dmitrov: the Long Returnof Kropotkin” by Piotr Ryabov. The latter came to the opening ceremony demonstrating a badge with the house likely associated with the foundation of the museum in the early 1990s.

Peter Kropotkin moved to Dmitrov in 1918 after the quarters assigned to him in Moscow were requisitioned by the Bolsheviks. As Jane Burbank wrote in her “Intelligentsia and Revolution”:

In Dmitrov, forty miles north of Moscow, Kropotkin and his wife subsited on the produce of their garden and the aid offered by Kropotkin’s many admirers. He was helped in his old age by anarchist friends from Russia and abroad and by the local peasants, who revered their new neighbor. Isolated from Russian politics and contacts with the West, Kropotkin devoted his time to writing and to activity in his new community. Life in Dmitrov offered him a chance to take part in the local communal organizations. He became a member of the Dmitrov Union of Cooperatives, the town’s self-organized government, and defended it against the encroachments of Soviet authorities until the destruction of the union and arrest of all its leaders in November 1920. 

Priamukhino. Academic conference

This year the Priamukhino Readings devoted to Bakunin’s bicentennial invited participants from across the globe. People from Belgium, Brazil, Japan, Italy, France, the USA, “from the four winds” came to Mikhail Bakunin’s birthplace.

 The participants in sweet Priamukhino harmony

The conference started on July 12^th and took place in the building of Priamukhino municipal school. To my mind it is quite honest to show the foreign guests not well-equipped campuses of some university but an ordinary Russian village school. So the listeners and the presenters made themselves snug on the long benches in the interior decorated with Russian motifs. The presenters gave their speeches in front of the audience with birch trees in the background. I hope the iconic wallpaper didn’t draw the attention away from the reports because the latter were really interesting.

Convention hall. 

Tatiana Bakounine's speech

The tone of the conference was set by Tatiana Bakunina, a granddaughter of the last owner of the Priamukhino estate, who left Russia forever in 1917. In her speech named “What does Mikhail Bakunin represent for me?” Tatiana said: “Anarchism to me is not a doctrine, it is a utopia: a goal or ideal to strive for. It is a way of life, a philosophical attitude that everyone lives and practices in their own way.” What a pleasure was to hear the words like those from the Bakunins’ descendant!

Priamukhino. Shaken harmony

The Priamukhino Readings, an annual conference held in the birth place of Russsian anarchist thinker Mikhail Bakunin, is a fine example of horizontal networking. The village of Priamukhino (Tver’ region) has hosted the Readings since the early 2000s. 

Priamukhino welcomes!

The conference is unique in that it exists apart from institutions like state universities and is held only by efforts of a small organizing committee. The latter manages to involve a wide range of scholars as participants and publish papers and speeches in annual collection of studies. 

A core group of the organizing committee

No doubt that the prospect of giving a speech or having a paper published is enough for a true scholar to get off the ground and take part in the conference but is it worth going so far? Priamukhino is 5-6 hours away from Moscow without direct transport connections. There are no comfortable hotels or even hostels there. The guests usually stay in a local boarding school or in izbas belonged to the organizers. However all these drawbacks can be recognized as benefits. Spending the weekend in Priamukhino is a good opportunity to face Russian rural life with its nature, sense of seclusion, remoteness from big cities and pastoral activities like sleeping in hay. But for those who usually come there the delights of country life are of minor importance than the village’s background.