Pitirim Sorokin
Pitirim Sorokin | |
|---|---|
Питирим Сорокин | |
Sorokin in 1917 | |
| Member of the Russian Constituent Assembly | |
| In office 25 November 1917 – 20 January 1918 | |
| Preceded by | Constituency established |
| Succeeded by | Constituency abolished |
| Constituency | Vologda |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 4 February [O.S. 23 January] 1889 Turya, Yarensky Uyezd, Vologda Governorate, Russian Empire (now Komi Republic, Russia) |
| Died | 10 February 1968 (aged 79) Winchester, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Citizenship |
|
| Political party | Socialist Revolutionary Party |
| Spouse | Elena Petrovna Sorokina (née Baratynskaya) (1894–1975) |
| Children | Peter Sorokin, Sergei Sorokin |
| Alma mater | Saint Petersburg Imperial University |
| Awards | 55th President of American Sociological Association |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Sociology |
| Institutions |
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| Doctoral students | Robert K. Merton |
Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin (/səˈroʊkɪn, sɔː-/; Russian: Питирим Александрович Сорокин; 4 February [O.S. 23 January] 1889 – 10 February 1968) was a Russian American sociologist and political activist, who contributed to the social cycle theory.
Sorokin was a professor at Saint Petersburg Imperial University, three times imprisoned by the Czarist regime for "revolutionary activity." His active opposition to the Bolsheviks led, after they were in power, to his arrest and sentence to death. Only with the help and intervention of friends, including Thomas Masaryk and Edouard Benes, was his sentence commuted to permanent exile, which led Sorokin to flee to Czechoslovakia.
Moving to the United States, he became a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota in 1924, and, in 1930, he was hired as head of the newly formed department of sociology at Harvard University.