Lev Mechnikov

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Lev Mechnikov
Лев Мечников
sociologist
RelativesÉlie Metchnikoff (brother)

Lev Ilyich Mechnikov (Russian: Лев Ильи́ч Ме́чников; French: Léon Metchnikoff; 30 May 1838 – 30 June 1888) was a Russian geographer, sociologist and anarchist theorist.

Biography

Lev Ilyich Mechnikov was born on 30 May [O.S. 18 May] 1838 in Saint Petersburg, the capital of the Russian Empire.[1]

He enrolled at a number of different universities in Russia,[2] where he studied various subjects including languages, medicine, physics and the arts.[3] Due to his involvement in revolutionary activism, he was eventually suspended from attending lectures.[1] In 1860,[3] he moved to Italy,[4] where he fought under Giuseppe Garibaldi during the Risorgimento. In 1864, while living in Florence, he met the Russian revolutionaries Alexander Herzen and Mikhail Bakunin.[5] That same year, he moved to Switzerland, where he lived and worked for 10 years.[1]

In January 1874, he moved to Japan, where he worked as a teacher for two years, before returning to Switzerland.

Elisée Reclus on his Nouvelle Géographie universelle,[1] providing geographical information about Japan and Russia.[5] In 1883, he began teaching statistics and comparative geography at the University of Neuchâtel, where he also founded Neuchâtel's local geographic society in 1885.[1]

During this period, he wrote numerous works on sociology, geography and anarchist political theory. In his 1886 article Revolution and Evolution, he argued that

Mechnikov fell ill in 1887, which forced him to retire from teaching.[5] He died on 30 June [O.S. 18 June] 1888 in Clarens, in the Swiss canton of Vaud.[1]

Selected works

Books
Articles

References

Bibliography

  • Enckell, Marianne (22 March 2014). "METCHNIKOFF Léon". Dictionnaire des anarchistes (in French). Paris: Le Maitron. Retrieved 27 February 2024.
  • Jud, Peter (11 May 2009). "Léon Metchnikoff". Historical Dictionary of Switzerland (in German). Retrieved 25 November 2020.
  • Zhereb, Alexandra (2019). "Mechnikov, Lev (1838–1888)". In Ritzer, G. (ed.). The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. pp. 1–2. .

Further reading

External links

Media related to Leon Metchnikoff at Wikimedia Commons