Pitirim Sorokin

Sorokin got married to Elena Baratynskaya in 1917, and she spent a year in Prague with her, before moving to the US. The couple had two children–Peter, a physicist and laser pioneer (born in 1931) and Sergei (born in 1933).

He became a naturalized American citizen in 1930.

He died in Winchester, Massachusetts, on February 10, 1968 at the age of 79.

Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin was born to peasant parents in Turya (a village in Yarensk uyezd, Vologda Governate of the erstwhile Russian empire) on February 2, 1889. His father, Alexander, was a craftsman specializing in gold and silver work. He had two brothers– Vasily (older) and Prokopy (younger).

His mother died in 1894, leaving Alexander to travel from village to village looking for work as an artisan, with the infant Pitirim and his brother Vasily in tow. In the meantime, Prokopy lived with an aunt. Due to their father’s alcoholic tendencies and abusive behavior, the two brothers were forced to strike out on their own and fend for themselves when Pitirim was eleven.

He was able to support himself by working as a clerk and an artisan and eventually, a series of competitive scholarships allowed him to attend ‘Saint Petersburg Imperial University,’ where he earned a graduate degree in criminology and became a professor.

Sorokin was deeply influenced by Pavlov and his contemporaries during his time at the University of St. Petersburg and the Psycho-Neurological Institute. After exploring ethics, psychology, history, and law (among others), he eventually explored sociology through his work in criminology.

While rising through the ranks of Russian academia, Sorokin got deeply involved in non-communist circles. During the landmark ‘Russian Revolution’ of 1917, he was part of the ‘Socialist Revolutionary Party’ and later supported the ‘White Movement’ (which aggregated all non-communist forces in Russia and fought the ‘Bolsheviks’ or the ‘Reds’ in the ‘Russian Civil War’). He also became personal secretary to Prime Minister (and leader of the Russian Constituent Assembly) Alexander Kerensky. Sorokin was appointed editor-in-chief of the government daily ‘The Will of the People’ during this period.

He continued to be a vocal critic of the communist agenda in Russia, getting arrested at least six times. He was sentenced to death during one of his prison confinements, but was released after six weeks–only by the personal intervention of Lenin himself who had high hopes of converting him to the communist cause.

He returned to the University of St. Petersburg, where he became one of the founding members of the sociology department. However, he was arrested again in 1922 and exiled by the Lenin government.

In 1924, before he became well-known in American academic circles, he published ‘Leaves of a Russian Diary’ (1924), a memoir that provided in-depth insights into the unraveling of the Russian monarchy and the subsequent rise of the ‘Bolsheviks.’ Years later, in 1950, he added an addendum to the book named ‘The Thirty Years After.’

After spending a stateless year in Europe, he was able to migrate to the USA where he was offered a job at the F. Stuart Chapin’s sociology department at the University of Minnesota, where he taught until 1930. Sorokin focused primarily on rural sociology, training some of America’s foremost experts in the field (including Conrad Taeuber and C.A. Anderson).

Sorokin’s most notable works include his early work at the University of Minnesota, including but not limited to 'Social Mobility’ (1927), ‘Contemporary Sociological Theories’ (1928), and ‘Principles of Rural-Urban Sociology’ (1929).

His four-volume ‘Social and Cultural Dynamics’ (1937–1941) is often considered his magnum opus.

‘The Ways and Power of Love’ (1954) expounds on his theory about five-dimensional love.