INTRODUCTION

Biographical sketch

Alexander Berkman(true name: Ovsej Berkman) was born in Kovno, Lithuania in 1870 and grew up in Petersburg and Kovno. He became a militant anarchist and writer. In 1888 he emigrated to the USA and lived in New York where he met Emma Goldman in 1889. In 1892, after the shooting of strikers at the Carnegie steel mills in Homestead, Pennsylvania, he shot and wounded the manager Henry C. Frick. Berkman was imprisoned in the Western Penitentiary of Pennsylvania until 1905. After his release from the workhouse on 18 May 1906, he became coeditor of Mother Earth, issued by the Mother Earth Publishing Association in New York founded by Emma Goldman. He was involved in all kinds of political agitation, including a lecture tour 1914-1915, organizing the defense of Tom Mooney and antiwar propaganda. In 1916-1917 he edited and published The Blast (San Francisco), a labour weekly, assisted by M. Eleanor Fitzgerald. Convicted for propaganda against conscription he was imprisoned again in 1917 in Atlanta, Georgia until 1 October 1919 and deported to Russia on 21 December 1919 together with Emma Goldman. He left behind his companion M. Eleanor Fitzgerald whom he had met in 1914.

In Russia he lived in Petrograd and Moscow and travelled south as far as Odessa and north to Archangel collecting historical material for the Museum of the Revolution. After the violent suppression of the 'rebellion' of the 'Kronstadt' sailors in the spring of 1921 and with a growing number of anarchists imprisoned, Berkman had no more illusions. He decided to leave Russia and was allowed to do so in December 1921 together with Emma Goldman. Shortly after arriving in Stockholm they were asked to leave Sweden. Berkman entered Germany illegally and lived in Berlin until 1926 where he was the main founder, secretary and treasurer of the Joint Committee for the Defense of Revolutionists Imprisoned in Russia(1923-1926) and of the Relief Fund of the International Working Men's association (IWMA) for Anarchists and Anarcho- Syndicalists Imprisoned or Exiled in Russia(in Paris and Berlin). He went to live in France in December 1925, at first in Paris, from October 1926 in St. Cloud, Seine et Oise, from February 1931 in Nice and often stayed in Emma Goldman's little villa in St. Tropez in the summer.

Since leaving Russia he worked as a writer and translator, but the book market seriously declined after the crash. His funds were supplemented by friends like Michael Cohn and by collections among anarchists in the USA.

In 1930 he was expelled from France, but managed to return from Brussels. From then on his residence permit was up for renewal every three months. These problems forced him to resign from the Relief Fund; Rudolf Rocker took over as a secretary and treasurer (inv. no. 129). Berkman much regretted not being active in the movement any longer. In 1936 suffering from illness he had to undergo surgery. Poor and in great pain he shot himself and died one day later on 28 June 1936 in Nice, France.

He left behind his companion g1043 Emmy Eckstein(1900-1939) many years his junior, whom he had met in Berlin and who had joined him in St. Cloud.

Berkman preferred the written word as a means of political agitation. His first publication, written several years after his release to exorcise the ghosts, was Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist(New York 1912). Voltairine de Cleyre advised him on the editing of the book (inv. no. 156), which includes a chapter on the digging of an escape tunnel and one on homosexuality in prison. It was considered a classic in its genre and was republished in 1926 by the C.W. Daniel Company in London. By that time it had already appeared in a Yiddish translation: Gefengenen erinerungen fun än anarchist, edited by M. Katz and R. Frumkin, 2 volumes. (New York 1920-1921). It was also translated in Danish and Norwegian by Karin Michaelis in 1926, and in German by f2Gerda Weyl, with some editing by Rudolf Rocker under the title Die Tat(Berlin 1927). Much later, in 1947 it was even been published in Chinese, in a translation of Li Pei-Kan. Berkman was the editor of Selected Works of Voltairine de Cleyre(New York 1914), published by Mother Earth Publishing Association. He also did the editing (and influenced the contents) of nearly all of Emma Goldman's books and articles, probably beginning with Social Significance of the Modern Drama(New York 1914) which he proofread, up to and including Living My Life(New York 1931). Emma Goldman in return read and commented on most of his manuscripts.

In Berlin he tried writing stories and scenario's as a way of living, which proved very difficult however. He also wrote three pamphlets The Russian Tragedy, The Russian Revolution and the Communist Party and The Kronstad Rebellion which he published in 1922 at his own expense. The Bolshevik Myth(New York 1925) based on his Russian diary did not generate much income, partly because Emma Goldman's My Disillusionment in Russia(London, 1925) was based on the same data. The last chapter, refused by the publisher, appeared separately as The Anti-Climax(Berlin 1925). Also in 1925 Berkman helped compiling data and documents relating to political persecution in Soviet Russia, which together with similar material collected by s24 Henry G. Alsberg and Isaac Don Levine was published by the International Committee for Political Prisoners, chaired by Robert N. Baldwin, in Letters from Russian Prisons(London 1925). He published one more book: Now and After. The ABC of Anarchism(New York 1929) written at request of the Jewish Anarchist Federation of New York. He did continue writing articles. To support himself he translated and adapted stories and plays mainly from the Russian and German. Performed were 'The Prisoner' by Emil Bernard by the Province town Playhouse in New York in 1928 and on the Russian stage a play by Eugene O'Neill'Lazarus Laughed' in 1927. It seems that he did not manage to sell other translations of plays. In the thirties he more often translated manuscripts, including Rudolf Rocker's Nationalismus und Kultur. Rocker was not satisfied with the level of adaptation and the work was transferred to another translator. It is illustrative of both Rocker's and Berkman's dispositions that they stayed friends in spite of it.

More (auto)biographical details can be found in: inv. no. 8 (Associated Press, letter of 12 June 1932), inv. no. 39 ( J. Grave, letter of 4 September 1927), inv. no. 55 ( Millie Rocker, letter of 22 March 1929), inv. no. 65 ( Yiddish Scientific Institute, February 1931) and inv. no. 132, 149 and 218.

Contents

Berkman's papers contain letters by many interesting persons including Voltairine de Cleyre, Isadora Duncan, Nestor Makhno, Tom Mooney, Max Nettlau, Rudolf Rocker and Emma Goldman. The letters and documents are written in several languages e.g. English, German, French, Yiddish, Russian and some others. Many of the clippings seem to have been sent over by Emma Goldman.

The papers are not complete. When Berkman moved to France in 1926, his papers from Berlin where held up at the border. Sensing trouble Berkman destroyed his letters of 1926 prior to a visit of a police inspector (inv. no. 53, letter to Pierre Ramus, 8 January 1927). The documents from Berlin may have turned up - the period 1922-1925 is represented - but there is only a little correspondence from his American period. In all though, Berkman took very good care of his papers considering his eventful life. Most of the documents relating to the Relief Fund of the International Working Men's Association for Anarchists and Anarcho-Syndicalists Imprisoned or Exiled in Russia(Berlin and Paris, 1926-1932) he handed over to the other members when he resigned in 1930 (because of his expulsion). Further documents relating to the Relief Fund can be found in the papers of Senya Flechine and Mollie Steimer.

Added to the papers are correspondence by Emma Goldman with publishers, largely on Berkman's behalf. Also included is Goldman's correspondence with Berkman's partner Emmy Eckstein, and some correspondence by Emmy Eckstein. A few photocopies of documents received from Danièle Stewart in 1994 (inv. no. 92) and from Gary L. Doebler in 1993 (inv. no. 104) have also been incorporated. One portfolio of documents and letters which clearly belonged to Emma Goldman has been added to her papers. Some pamphlets and copies of periodicals have been transferred to the library. The photographs have been included in the audiovisual collection and can be found with the collection code.

The size of the papers is 4 m.

Selected literature

Drinnon, Richard and Anna Maria, Nowhere at home. Letters from Exile of Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman(New York 1975).

Falk, Candace et al. (ed.), Emma Goldman. A Guide to her Life and Documentary Sources(Alexandrialevel= 1995). NB. Includes a selected bibliography of Alexander Berkman, p. 25-26.

Fellner, Gene(ed.), Life of an Anarchist. The Alexander Berkman Reader(New York 1992).

Goldman, Emma, Living my Life, 2 vol. (New York 1931).

Concordans microfilms-Metamorfoze