Abstract
Prior to his 1922 emigration to Europe and thence to the United States, Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin had an exceptional intellectual and political career in Russia and the Soviet Union (Sorokin 1924, 1963a; Johnston 1995; Krotov 2005). Indeed, he was among the early founders of the science of sociology in his native land, where, according to a relatively recent bibliography (Sorokin 2000), he produced 162 Russian-language publications between the ages of 21 and 33. This listing includes not only book reviews and journal articles, but also substantial monographs and a two-volume theoretical treatise. While still a relatively young man, Sorokin had thus gained widespread recognition as a scholar of the first rank. He was also the initial chairperson (from 1919 to 1922) of a fledgling department of sociology at the University of Petrograd (St. Petersburg), an elected member of the national Constituent Assembly and an appointed staff member of the 1917 Provisional Government, the first democratic regime in Russia. This much would have sufficed for an entry in a sociological encyclopedia, and Sorokin’s political career has few parallels in the history of the field, other than the involvement of Emile Durkheim in French educational policy and the participation of Max Weber in creating the Weimar Republic in Germany. Nevertheless sociologists in the United States and most western historians of the field have not yet appreciated the full influence of the formative period, especially from 1905 to 1922. Lacking familiarity with Russian culture of that era and knowing little about the larger Russian socio-historical milieu, its intellectual discourse and collective memory, they have not been able to comprehend Sorokin’s outlook, behavior and professional output in the United States in relation to these earlier contextual factors. This is arguably a fundamental reason why many U.S. sociologists have tended to see Sorokin, especially since 1937, as a marginal figure and to regard his works largely as deviations from accepted social scientific practice. This paper will argue that a more adequate appreciation of Sorokin’s background and early adult life illumines both stylistic features of his works in America and also places into proper perspective several of his substantive foci that did not accord with contemporary “normal science” (Kuhn 1962). In short, despite his overall assimilation into American society and higher education, including his appointment at Harvard University and his election as president of the American Sociological Association, Sorokin should be understood in large measure as a life-long Russian intellectual. His was a Russian-born sensibility and consciousness—indeed a “Russian soul”—so deeply ingrained that it stamped his entire professional career in the United States, including his published researches, his popular sociology and his university teaching.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
A word of explanation is in order here regarding Russian names, especially those known as “patronymics”. These look like American “middle names” but are quite different because they serve to denote lineage through male progenitors and, as such, are required parts of official records. Patronymics are based on the first or “given” name (“imya”) of the father or another male ancestor. Here, the given name is “Pitirim,” the patronymic is “Alexandrovich” (“son of Alexander”) and the family name (“familiya”) is Sorokin (“blackbird” or “magpie”). In Russian usage, the first name and patronymic, spoken together, are used as a polite, formal style of address. Pitirim is a saint’s name in both the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, dating back to Pitirim of Kemet, a follower of St. Anthony of the Desert (Egypt) in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, C.E.
Interestingly, Martindale carried on a generally amicable correspondence with Sorokin for many years, including annual Christmas greetings. These materials are stored in the special collections department of the University of Minnesota Library.
Coser bases his analysis largely on the ideas of social position (as well as the “knowledge” that accompanies social position) and “marginality” (with particular emphasis on the experience of “the stranger” in Georg Simmel’s sense). His treatment rightly takes into account major thinkers and political movements in nineteenth-century Russia (e.g., Populism). Despite these strengths, Coser does not appreciate the full significance of Slavophile ideas on Sorokin’s career (especially the idea of “integral” knowledge) and the importance of such figures as Lev Tolstoy and Vladimir Solovyov (and his idea of “godmanhood”).
Carle Clark Zimmerman (1897–1983) probably knew Sorokin better than anyone, other than Sorokin’s wife of 50 years. The two men became acquainted during Sorokin’s years in the Department of Sociology at the University of Minnesota (1924–1930), where they coauthored and co-edited two influential works on rural-urban sociology and also enjoyed camping together, accompanied by their wives, Madeleine Zimmerman and Elena Sorokin. Very likely, Zimmerman was among those who helped Sorokin improve his knowledge of, and written expression in, English. In fall 1930, Sorokin moved to Harvard, where he became the university’s first “full” professor of sociology, and then, after teaching for a year in the Department of Economics (1930–1931), the first chair of the newly created Department of Sociology. In that capacity, Sorokin took the lead in gaining a Harvard appointment for Zimmerman in 1932 (his teaching areas were the family and rural sociology). Shortly thereafter, the Sorokins and the Zimmermans became next-door neighbors in the town of Winchester, Massachusetts, on Cliff Street, at the edge of a large public forest, and they lived there, side by side, for several decades. In the mid-1940s, when Talcott Parsons superseded Sorokin within the world of Harvard (see Johnston 1986), Zimmerman’s fortunes also declined, partly because Parsons felt strongly that Zimmerman should not have been given a permanent position at the university. Indeed, Parsons, as well as some other insiders, held Zimmerman’s appointment against Sorokin. Marginal figures in the newly established Department of Social Relations (1946–1970), Sorokin and Zimmerman became, as it were, “in-house emigres,” moving to the top floor of Emerson Hall (the building that had initially been the home of the Department of Social Ethics, the predecessor of sociology, from fall 1906 through spring 1931). Loyal to the end, Zimmerman (as noted above) eulogized his friend, colleague and co-author as “the world’s greatest sociologist,” and in a subsequent memoir (1973: 103–105), he wrote of the creation of “the Sorokin-Zimmerman school of sociology.” Regrettably, upon his retirement, Carle Zimmerman disposed of his faculty papers, thereby making it difficult for historians to trace his lengthy and highly productive career in the depth and detail it deserves.
As a doctoral student at Harvard, Merton did painstaking research on fluctuations of scientific discoveries that provided material for Volume 2 of Social and Cultural Dynamics. Merton was also Sorokin’s coauthor on journal articles about “social time” and Arabian intellectual development.
The Kravchenko-Pokrovksy volume, Return of Pitirim Sorokin, presented papers originally given at a 1999 conference on “Pitirim Sorokin and the Socio-Cultural Tendencies of Our Times,” which was simultaneously held in three cities: Moscow, St. Petersburg and Syktivkar (Komi Republic). Participants included more than 20 scholars from the Russian, Ukrainian and Komi Republics, as well as sociologists from France, Italy and the United States. The five Americans were Robert K. Merton, Edward Tiryakian, Barry Johnston, Dr. Sergei Sorokin, and myself. Ten years later, a second conference on Sorokin was held in St. Petersburg and its papers were again published. Also recently, the Pitirim A. Sorokin Foundation was established as a not-for-profit corporation in the State of Massachusetts, with Dr. Pavel P. Krotov as its executive director. See the Foundation’s website at <http://sorokinfoundation.org> for additional details on Sorokin’s life and work, as well as current Sorokin scholarship.
Since Burawoy’s 2004 presidential address to the American Sociological Association, there has been much debate over the relative merits of what he called “traditional” and “organic” public sociology. In my view, there is little, if any, value in pitting these types against each other, because both make important contributions. See Nichols (2012), “Renewing Sociology: Integral Science, Solidarity and Loving Kindness.”
The Decembrist Uprising of 1825 is widely considered a landmark event in pre-revolutionary Russia. The word “tsar” is derived from “Caesar,” and thus tsarism denotes absolutist rule by decree.
One significant by-product of this development has been a long succession of “citation studies” that seek to estimate the stature and influence of individual sociologists and/or academic departments in terms of the number of peer-reviewed journal articles they produce, especially in “top tier” outlets. Unfortunately the omission of influential books is a very serious weakness of this methodology.
In the records of the Department of Sociology, Harvard University Archives, Pusey Library, Cambridge, MA.
Horton’s review, in a sense, is one minor skirmish in what was a lengthy exchange of criticisms between Sorokin and representatives of sociology at the University of Chicago. It seems to me that the tension between “Chicago-style” and “Harvard-style” sociology in the period under discussion involves more than individual personalities and petty motives. We must, I think, consider how the case of these two schools points to such larger factors as social science in organizational culture contexts and what I have elsewhere called “local understandings of science.” There is, in my view, much scope for historical work on these issues.
The Duma was a legislative body created, with the reluctant approval of Tsar Nicholas II, in response to demands for reform in the 1905 Revolution. However, when the Duma continued to press for change, the Tsar dissolved it–an action that generated a widespread desire for more fundamental political change, and thus prepared the way for the final upheaval of 1917.
The term “intelligentsia,” which reportedly entered popular discourse in Russia during the 1860s, can be understood in either a broader or a narrower sense. Broadly construed, it refers to the educated segment of Russian society generally, as well as leading intellectuals (e.g., writers) irrespective of political orientation. In a narrower sense, the term should be restricted to a group of secular political radicals who were seen by some as a type of cult. Thus, according to Gary Saul Morson (2000: viii), a “classic Russian intelligent” was “committed to a rather narrow range of beliefs: atheism, materialism, revolution, and some form of socialism.” Such activists envisioned a nobler world to come, and they adopted a counter-cultural lifestyle that conferred what Morson calls “an aura of martyrdom and of the sacred.” In the analysis presented here, the broader meaning will be adopted, so that the term “intelligentsia” encompasses figures ranging from Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, on the traditional and religious side, to “westernizer” social critics such as Vissarion Belinsky, as well as far-left revolutionaries such as Lenin. Sorokin himself applied the broader meaning of the term (e.g., in his essay on Tolstoy).
As a more recent illustration of the tendency among Russian intellectuals to “court martyrdom,” consider this passage from a 1967 letter from Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn to the Congress of the Writers Union: “I shall fulfill my duty as a writer in all circumstances—from the grave even more successfully and incontrovertibly than in my lifetime. No one can bar the road to truth, and to advance its cause I am prepared to accept even death.” Quoted in D. M. Thomas, Alexander Solzhenitsyn: A Century in His Life (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), p. 321.
Among the Russian peasantry there was reportedly a saying, “There isn’t a prison big enough to hold Tolstoy.”
Narodniki were participants of a social movement called “narodnichestvo” that is usually translated as Populism. Members of the educated middle and upper strata, these activists developed the tactic of “going to the people” in the immediate aftermath of the abolition of serfdom (by decree of Tsar Alexander II) in 1861. Their dream was to create a socialist society rooted in traditional peasant shared ownership of land. Despite their idealism, the Narodniki were not well received in the countryside, and they quickly became a target of governmental repression and prosecution. According to some sources, the Social Revolutionary Party to which Sorokin belonged can be considered a later outgrowth of the Narodnik movement.
Sorokin’s “Notes” were published as a book in 2000, by Aleteya Publishers (St. Petersburg), under the editorship of A. O. Boronoyev, I. A. Golosenko and V. V. Kozlovsky—another indication of his growing stature in his former homeland.
Built during the reign of Peter the Great (1696–1725), and christened St. Petersburg, this northern city served as the capital of imperial Russia from 1712 to 1918. In 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, it became Petrograd (“city of Peter”), thereby shedding its initial Germanic association. Following the death of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in 1924, the city was renamed Leningrad. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the city’s original name was restored.
The translation here is my own. I am grateful to Dr. Sergey Sorokin for providing me with a copy of this remarkable speech.
In his autobiography, Conant (1970) revealed that, during his years as Harvard president, he often wondered whether the social sciences were any more reliable than astrology. Critics of scientism in U.S. sociology sometimes speak as though earlier colleagues in the field were free to develop any type of sociology they wished, and administrators, as non-experts, would have had to accept the result. But a great deal of historical evidence indicates, to the contrary, that sociologists in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s especially were asked to “measure up” against the standard of other fields, especially the natural sciences.
Like MacIver, Bain had been on friendly terms with Sorokin, particularly during the year he served as a visiting professor at Harvard under Sorokin’s chairmanship. In 1952, Bain sought to reconcile, telling Sorokin in a letter (December 6th) that professional conferences were much less interesting since Sorokin’s withdrawal from them, and that Sorokin ought to have been president of the American Sociological Society “long ago.” (The letter is among papers still held by the Sorokin family, in Winchester, MA.)
As early as 1939, the year in which he received a permanent appointment at Harvard, Parsons had condemned Sorokin as unscientific. For example, in a letter to Harvard historian Crane Brinton (1939) in which Parsons rebutted Brinton’s Saturday Review essay, “What’s The Matter with Sociology,” he complained: “my most serious criticism is that … you very definitely give the impression that the field [of sociology] as a whole is completely dominated by people of the [Robert] Lynd type or of a different category but perhaps an equally objectionable one, the Sorokin type. I am willing to grant that the people who have done and are doing a really high level of scientific work are a minority. But they are an extremely significant minority who are coming to set the tone more and more” (Parsons 1939). For Parsons, building science involved a centrist strategy with collaboration around a core paradigm, while Sorokin seems to have believed that the greatest creativity was to be found on the margins—an interesting difference of philosophy.
Willam Buxton (1996) has argued that key administrators at Harvard during the James B. Conant era chose to support Parsons, rather than Sorokin, because Parsons’s approach better served their own economic and political interests. In this connection it is highly suggestive that Harvard’s 1937 Report of the President and Treasurer endorsed Parsons’s Structure of Social Action as an important contribution to sociological theory, while referring to the first three volumes of Sorokin’s Dynamics merely as “thought provoking.”
Sorokin, characteristically, assumed a long-term perspective and asserted that his Integralism was simply a variant on an approach known from ancient times. See Nichols (2006).
Interestingly, the ideas of “ultimate values” and “ultimate ends” were central in the early writings of Talcott Parsons in the 1930s, and were in fact the keys to his definition of the role of sociology, which was to study the “ultimate ends of action” in social institutions (see Parsons 1935; Camic 1991).
The Bolshevik-Menshevik split occurred during the second congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, held in London in 1903. After gaining a temporary majority on a particular vote, Lenin named his faction the “Bolsheviki” (i.e., “those in the majority”), and this resulted in the other, more moderate and factually larger faction becoming known as “Mensheviki” (i.e., “those in the minority”).
Joseph B. Ford, who studied at Harvard in the 1950s and knew Sorokin personally, repeated to me an interesting quote from Sorokin that is relevant here. While in California in the early 1960s as a visiting lecturer, Sorokin remarked to Ford: “Oh you can talk about your Sorokins, and you can talk about your Toynbees. But the greatest of them all was Oswald Spengler.” This of course suggests that Sorokin was influenced by Spengler’s classic work, The Decline of the West (1918), which he may have read toward the end of his formative period in Russia. Decline may have played an important role in turning Sorokin away from the heavily behavioristic perspective of such early works as Hunger (1922b) and Revolution (1925), and toward the cultural approach that characterized his works beginning with Dynamics (1937). This shift also paved the way for his involvement with the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations in the 1950s.
Elena (pronounced “Yelena”) Petrovna Baratinskaya met Pitirim A. Sorokin when both were university students in Petrograd (St. Petersburg). Her field of study was biology, and her area of specialization was cytology. The couple married in 1917. Following their emigration to the U.S., Yelena taught for a while at the University of Minnesota, and also at Hamline University in St. Paul, where her training in cytology was highly valued. After Pitirim’s appointment at Harvard, she assumed the role of homemaker and mother, but continued her biological research on an occasional, part-time basis.
The Sermon on the Mount is reported in The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, chapters 5, 6 and 7. In this connection it seems to me fair to characterize Sorokin as one of the strongest advocates of non-violence that sociology has known.
In this connection, I would like to share a personal anecdote. My sociological mentor at St. Louis University, the late Dr. Clement S. Mihanovich, was a devout traditional Catholic. As he recounted to me, he once read a paper at a sociological conference in which he defended the Catholic doctrine of the Natural Law, arguing that, if such a law existed, it must be a sociological law. Not surprisingly, this elicited a critical response during the ensuing discussion period. Mihanovich also recalled—and this meant a great deal to him—that, “Sorokin got up and defended me.” This incident very likely happened in the late 1930s, around the time of the creation of the Catholic Sociological Society and its journal, The American Catholic Sociological Review.
References
Addams, J. 2008 [1910]. Twenty Years at Hull House. Mineola, NY: Dover.
Allen, P. (Ed.). (1963). Pitirim A. Sorokin in review. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Bain, R. (1942). Review of the crisis of our age. American Sociological Review, 7, 907–909.
Bakhtin, M. (1992). The dialogic imagination. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Barnes, H. E., & Becker, H. P. (Eds.). (1938). Social thought from lore to science. Boston: Heath.
Barnes, H. E. (1948). Review of the reconstruction of humanity. American Sociological Review, 13, 492–494.
Bartlett, R. (2011). Tolstoy: a Russian life. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Bierstedt, R. (1937). The logico-meaningful method of P. A. Sorokin. American Sociological Review, 2, 818–823.
Boskoff, A. (1969). Theory in American sociology. New York: Crowell.
Brinton, C. (1937). Socio-astrology. Southern Review, 3, 243–266.
Brinton, C. (1939). “What’s the Matter with Sociology?” Saturday Review of Literature (May 6): 3–4, 14.
Burawoy, M. (2004). For public sociology. American Sociological Review, 70(February), 4–28.
Buxton, W. (1985). Talcott Parsons and the capitalist nation state. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Buxton, W. (1996). Sociological snakes and ladders: Parsons and Sorokin at Harvard. In J. B. Ford, M. Richard, & P. C. Talbutt (Eds.), Sorokin and civilization: a centennial assessment (pp. 31–43). New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
Camic, C. (1991). Talcott Parsons: the early essays. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Copleston, F. C. (1988). Philosophy in Russia. Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press.
Coser, L. A. (1977). Masters of sociological thought. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Cowell, F. R. (1970). Values in human society: the contributions of Pitirim A. Sorokin to sociology. Boston: Porter Sargent.
Daniels, R. V. (1985). Russia: the roots of confrontation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Davis, A. K. (1963). Lessons from Sorokin. In E. A. Tiryakian (Ed.), Sociocultural theory, values and sociocultural change: essays in honor of Pitirim A. Sorokin (pp. 1–7). New York: Free Press.
Davis, K. (1936). Jealousy and sexual property. Social Forces, 14(March), 395–405.
Davis, K. (1939). “Illegitimacy and the Social Structure,” American Journal of Sociology 45, 2 (September): 215–233.
Davis, K. (1949) Human Society. New York: MacMillan.
Doykov, Y. V. (2005). “Modern thought” of P. A. Sorokin. Archangelsk: Emigration History Research Center.
Doykov, Y. V. (2008). “Pitirim Sorokin: A Man of All Seasons,” Biography, Vol. 1.
Echanove, C. A. (1972). The Sorokin that I admire. In G. C. Hallen & P. Rajeshwar (Eds.), Sorokin and sociology (pp. 293–306). Agra, India: Satish.
Edie, J. M., Scanlan, J. P., & Zeldin, M.-B. (Eds.). (1965). Russian philosophy, volume III: pre-revolutionary philosophy and theology. New York: Quadrangle Books.
Farnsworth, B. (1980). Alexandra Kollontai: socialism, feminism, and the Bolshevik revolution. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Francis, A. K. (1948). Review of the reconstruction of humanity. The American Journal of Sociology, 54(November), 271.
Frank, S. L. (2001). A solovyov anthology. Trans. Natalie Duddington. London: Saint Austin Press.
Frank, J. (2003). Dostoyevsky: the mantle of the Prophet, 1871–1881. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Gerhardt, U. (Ed.). (1993). Talcott Parsons on national socialism. New York: Aldine.
Gerhardt, U. (2002). Talcott Parsons: An Intellectual Biography. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Haller, G. C., & Prasad, R. (Eds.). (1972). Sorokin and sociology. Agra, India: Satish.
Harvard University. (1948). Course catalogue. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Hershberg, J. (1993). James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the making of the nuclear age. New York: Knopf.
Hingley, R. (1977). The Russian mind. New York: Scribners.
Horton, D. (1956). Review of Fads and Foibles in Modern Sociology. The American Journal of Sociology, 62, 338–339.
Jakim, B., & Bird, R. (Eds.). (1998). On spiritual unity: a slavophile reader. Hudson: Lindisfarne Books.
Jeffries, V. (1999). “The Integral Paradigm: The Truth of Faith and the Social Sciences,” The American Sociologist 30, 4 (Winter): 36–55.
Jeffries, V. (2002). Integralism: the promising legacy of Pitirim A. Sorokin. In M. A. Robinson (Ed.), Lost sociologists rediscovered (pp. 99–135). New York: Mellon Press.
Jeffries, V. (2003). The nature of integralism as a scientific system of thought. Catholic Social Science Review, 8, 9–25.
Jeffries, V., Johnston, B. V., Nichols, L. T., Oliner, S. P., Tiryakian, E., Weinstein, J. (2006). “Altruism and Social Solidarity: Envisioning a Field of Specialization,” The American Sociologist 37, 3 (Fall): 67–83.
Johnston, B. V. (1986). Sorokin and Parsons at Harvard: institutional conflict and the origin of a hegemonic tradition. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 22(April), 107–127.
Johnston, B. V. (1991). Integralism and the reconstruction of society: the idea of ultimate reality and meaning in the work of Pitirim A. Sorokin. Ultimate Reality and Meaning, 13, 96–108.
Johnston, B. V. (1995). Pitirim A. Sorokin: an intellectual biography. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Johnston, B. V. (Ed.). (1998). Pitirim A. Sorokin: on the practice of sociology and social reconstruction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Johnston, B. V. (2001). Integralism, altruism, and social emancipation: a Sorokinian model of prosocial behavior and social organization. Catholic Social Science Review, 6, 41–55.
Kireevsky, I. V. (2006). Polnoe sobranie sochinenii I. V. Kireevskii. (The complete works of I. V. Kireyevsky). Kaluga: Grif.
Kon, I. S. (1995). The sexual revolution in Russia. New York: Free Press.
Kon, I. S., & Riordan, J. (Eds.). (1993). Sex and Russian society. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Kravchenko, S. A., & Pokrovsky, N. E. (Eds.). (2001). Return of Pitirim Sorokin. Moscow: International Kondratieff Foundation.
Krotov, P. (2005). “Pitirim Sorokin’s Autobiography as a Reflection of His Altruistic Transformation,” Sociology 1.
Krotov, P. (Ed.). (2009). Pitirim Sorokin: Izbrannaya Perepiska (Pitirim Sorokin: selected correspondence). Vologda-Siktyvkar: Drevnosti Severa.
Lengermann, P. M., & Niebrugge-Brantley, J. (2002). “Back to the Future: Settlement Sociology, 1885–1930,” The American Sociologist 33, 3 (September):5–20.
Lenin, V. I. 1971 [1918}. “The Valuable Admissions of Pitirim Sorokin.” In V. I. Lenin, Selected Works in Three Volumes, Vol 3 (pp. 57–64). Moscow: Progress Publishers.
Levine, D. (1995). Visions of the sociological tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
MacIver, R. M. (1941). Review of social and cultural dynamics, volume 4. American Sociological Review, 6, 904–905.
MacLean, V. M., & Williams, J. E. (2012). ‘Ghosts of sociologies past’: settlement sociology in the progressive Era at the Chicago school of civics and philanthropy. The American Sociologist, 43, 235–263.
Martindale, D. (1975). Prominent sociologists since world War II. Columbus: Bobbs-Merrill.
Matter, J. A. (1975). Love, altruism and world crisis: the challenge of Pitirim Sorokin. Totowa: Littlefield, Adams.
Merton, R. K. (1996). The Sorokin-Merton correspondence on ‘Puritanism, pietism, and science. In J. B. Ford, M. P. Richard, & P. C. Talbutt (Eds.), Sorokin and civilization: A centennial assessment (pp. 21–28). New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
Mills, C. W. (1958). The causes of world war three. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Mills, C. W. (1960). Listen, Yankee: the revolution in Cuba. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Minnesota Daily (1924a). “Noted Sociologist Will Join Faculty,” (April 22): 2.
Minnesota Daily (1924b). “P. Sorokine, Former Soviet Editor, Now ‘U’ Professor,” (October 1): 1.
Minnesota Daily (1925a). “Sorokin Honored by French Club,” (January 31): 1.
Minnesota Daily (1925b). “‘Sociology of Revolution,’ Title of Book by Sorokin,” (February 6): 3.
Minnesota Daily (1925c). “Sorokin Protests Lurid Account of Career in Russia,” (February 10): 1.
Minnesota Daily (1925d). “Talented Russians Lacking Tuition Fees, Says Sorokin,” (February 28): 2.
Minnesota Daily (1925e). “Sorokin Lectures on ‘Bolshevism,’” (March 7): 1.
Minnesota Daily (1927). “Prof. Sorokin Attempting to Solve Relative Values of Individual and Group Remunerations to Laborers,” (May 3): 3.
Minnesota Daily (1929). “Sorokin Resigns, Accepts Sociology Chair at Harvard,” (October 31): 1.
Moore, H. E. (1948). Review of the reconstruction of humanity. Social Forces, 27, 92–94.
Morson, G. S. (2000). “Foreword.” Pp. vii–xvi in V. S. Solovyiev: Politics, Law and Morality, ed. and trans. by Vladimir Wozniuk. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Motwani, K. (1972). Pitirim A. Sorokin: his personality and power. In G. C. Hallen & P. Rajeshwar (Eds.), Sorokin and sociology (pp. 284–292). Agra, India: Satish.
Nichols, L. T. (1989). “Deviance and Social Science: The Instructive Case of Pitirim Sorokin,” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 25, 4 (October): 335–355.
Nichols, L. T. (1992). The establishment of sociology at Harvard: a case of organizational ambivalence and scientific vulnerability. In C. A. Elliott & M. Rossiter (Eds.), Science at Harvard university: historical perspectives (pp. 191–222). Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press.
Nichols, L. T. (1998). Sorokin, Tolstoy and civilizational change. In P. C. Talbutt (Ed.), Rough dialectics: Sorokin’s theory of value (pp. 33–38). Netherlands: Rodopi Press.
Nichols, L. T. (1999). “Science, Politics and Moral Activism: Sorokin’s Integralism Reconsidered,” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 35, 2(Spring):139–155.
Nichols, L. T. (2001). Sorokin’s integralism and catholic social science: concordance and ambivalence. Catholic Social Science Review, 6, 11–24.
Nichols, L. T. (2005). Integralism and positive psychology: a comparison of Sorokin and Seligman. Catholic Social Science Review, 10, 21–40.
Nichols, L. T. (2006). The diversity of Sorokin’s integralism: Eastern, Western, Christian and non-Christian variants. In E. Del Pozo (Ed.), Integralism, altruism and reconstruction: essays in honor of Pitirim A. Sorokin,”. Valencia, Spain: Universitat de Valencia Press.
Nichols, L. T. (2009a). “Burawoy’s Holistic Sociology and Sorokin’s Integralism: A Conversation of Ideas.” In V. Jeffries (ed) Handbook of Public Sociology (pp 27–46). Rowman Littlefield Publishers.
Nichols, L. T. (2009b). The Russian roots of Pitirim A. Sorokin’s sociological work in the United States. In A. F. Smetanin, E. N. Rozhkin, U. P. Shabaev, V. E. Sharapov, I. L. Zherbtsov, P. P. Krotov, I. A. Goncharov, & N. F. Zyuzev (Eds.), Pitirim Sorokin in the history, science and culture of the 20th century, materials of the international conference celebrating the 120th birthday of P. A. Sorokin (pp. 149–160). Syktivkar, Komi Republic: Institute of Language, Literature and History, Komi Scientific Center.
Nichols, L. T. (2012). Renewing sociology: integral science, solidarity and loving kindness. Sociological Focus, 45(November), 261–273.
Park, R. E. (1938). Review of social and cultural dynamics. The American Journal of Sociology, 44, 824–832.
Parsons, T. (1935). The place of ultimate values in sociological theory. International Journal of Ethics, 45, 282–316.
Parsons, T. (1937). The structure of social action. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Parsons, T. (1939). Letter to Crane Brinton, July 11. A copy may be found in the Lawrence J. Henderson Papers, Baker Library, Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, Cambridge, MA., in the file labeled, “Talcott Parsons.”
Pipes, R. (1961). The historical evolution of the Russian intelligentsia. In R. Pipes (Ed.), The Russian intelligentsia (pp. 47–62). New York: Columbia University Press.
Raeff, M. (1966). Origins of the Russian intelligentsia. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.
Reuter, E. B. (1928). Review of contemporary sociological theories. The American Journal of Sociology, 34, 382–384.
Sapov, V. V. (1996). “Pitirim Sorokin: A Snapshot of the Background of the U.S. and Russia,” Sociological Research, 2.
Smetanin, A. F., Rozhkin, E. N., Shabaev, U. P., Sharapov, V. E., Zherbtsov, I. L., Krotov, P. P., Goncharov, I. A., Zyuzev N. F. (eds). (2009). Pitirim A. Sorokin in the History and Culture of the 20th Century, Materials of the International Conference Celebrating the 120th Birthday of P. A. Sorokin (in Russian). Syktivkar, Komi Republic: Institute of Language, Literature and History, Komi Scientific Center.
Smith, M. C. (1994). Social science in the crucible: the American debate over objectivity and purpose, 1918–1941. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Smith, O. (2011). Vladimir Soloviev and the spiritualization of matter. Boston: Academic Studies Press.
Solovyov, V. S. (2000). Politics, law and morality. Edited and translated by V. Wozniuk. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Solovyov, V. S. (2008). The Philosophical Principles of Integral Knowledge. Trans. Valeria Z. Nollan. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
Sorokin, P.A. 1914 [1912]. Leo Tolstoy as a Philosopher. English translation by L. T. Nichols. In B. V. Johnston (ed), Pitirim A. Sorokin: On the Practice of Sociology (pp 133–150). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Sorokin, P. A. (1918). “Open Letter.” Pravda (November 20).
Sorokin, P. A. (1920). Sistema Sotsiologii (A System of Sociology), 2 vols. Petrograd: Kolos.
Sorokin, P. A. (1921a). Dostoyevsky’s legacies. Artistic Affairs, 17–20, 4–7.
Sorokin, P. A. (1921b). Dostoyevsky as a sociologist. Annals of the Palace of Literature, 1, 7.
Sorokin, P. A. (1922a). “Setting off on the journey.” Speech delivered at the university of St. Petersburg, February 21st. Utrenniki, 1, 10–13.
Sorokin, P. A. (1922b). Hunger as a Factor in Human Affairs. Translation by E. P. Sorokin. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 1975.
Sorokin, P. A. (1924). Leaves from a Russian diary. New York: Dutton.
Sorokin, P. A. (1925). The sociology of revolution. Philadelphia: Lippincott.
Sorokin, P. A. (1928). Contemporary sociological theories. New York: Harper.
Sorokin, P. A. (1937). Social and cultural dynamics (Vols. 1–3). New York: American Book Co.
Sorokin, P. A. (1941a). The crisis of our age. New York: Dutton.
Sorokin, P. A. (1941b). Social and cultural dynamics (Vol. 4). New York: American Book Co.
Sorokin, P. A. (1944). Russia and the United States. New York: Dutton.
Sorokin, P. A. (1947). Society, culture and personality. New York: Harper.
Sorokin, P. A. (1948). The reconstruction of humanity. Boston: Beacon.
Sorokin, P. A. (1950a). Altruistic love. Boston: Beacon.
Sorokin, P. A. (Ed.). (1950b). Explorations in altruistic love and behavior: a symposium. Boston: Beacon.
Sorokin, P. A. (1950c). Leaves from a Russian diary—and thirty years after. Boston: Beacon.
Sorokin, P. A. (1951). S.O.S.: the meaning of our crisis. Boston: Beacon.
Sorokin, P. A. (Ed.). (1954a). Forms and techniques of altruistic and spiritual growth. Boston: Beacon.
Sorokin, P. A. (1954b). The ways and power of love. Boston: Beacon.
Sorokin, P. A. (1956a). The American sex revolution. Boston: Porter Sargent.
Sorokin, P. A. (1956b). Fads and foibles in sociology. Chicago: Regnery.
Sorokin, P. A. (1957). Social and cultural dynamics, one-volume edition. Boston: Porter Sargent.
Sorokin, P. A. (1963a). A long journey: the autobiography of Pitirim A. Sorokin. New Haven: College and University Press.
Sorokin, P. A. (1963b). Sociology of my mental life. In P. Allen (Ed.), Pitirim A. Sorokin in review. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Sorokin, P. A. (1964). Basic trends of our times. New Haven: College and University Press.
Sorokin, P. A. (1966). Sociological theories of today. New York: Harper and Row.
Sorokin, P.A. (1975). Hunger as a Factor in Human Affairs. Translated by E. P. Sorokin. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press.
Sorokin, P. A. (2000). The Notes of a Sociologist: Sociological Publicism. Edited by A. O. Boronoyev. Saint Petersburg: Aleteya. (In Russian).
Sorokin, P. A., & Lunden, W. (1959). Power and morality: who shall guard the guardians? Boston: Beacon.
Sorokin, P. A., Zimmerman, C. C., Galpin, C. J. (eds). (1930–1932). A Systematic Source Book in Rural Sociology, 3 volumes. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Talbutt, P. (1998). Rough dialectics: Sorokin’s theory of value. Netherlands: Rodopi.
Thomas, W. I., & Znaniecki, F. (1918). The polish peasant in Europe and America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Tiryakian, E. A. (Ed.). (1963). Sociological theory, values and sociocultural change: essays in honor of Pitirim A. Sorokin. New York: Free Press.
Tiryakian, E. A. (1988). “Sociology’s Dostoyevski: Pitirim A. Sorokin,”. The World and I, 3(September), 569–581.
Tiryakian, E. A. (2001). Pitirim A. Sorokin, my teacher: prophet of advanced modernity. In S. A. Kravchenko & N. E. Pokrovsky (Eds.), Return of Pitirim Sorokin (pp. 47–63). Moscow: Kondratieff International Institute.
Tolstoy, L. N. 1961 [1905]. The Kingdom of God Is Within You. New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy.
Toynbee, A. (1963). Sorokin’s philosophy of history. In P. J. Allen (Ed.), Pitirim A. Sorokin in review (pp. 70–71). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Walicki, A. (1964). The Slavophile Controversy: History of a Conservative Utopia in Nineteenth-Century Russian Thought. Translation by Hilda Andrews-Rusiecka. Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1989.
Wescott, R. W. (1996). Preface. In J. B. Ford, M. P. Richard, & P. C. Talbutt (Eds.), Sorokin and civilization: a centennial assessment (pp. vii–ix). New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
Young, K. (1995). In F. B. Lindstrom, R. A. Hardert, & L. Johnson (Eds.), Sociology in transition, 1912–1968. Lanham: University Press of America.
Zenkovsky, V. V. (1953). A history of Russian philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press.
Zimmerman, C. C. (1970). Sorokin: the World’s greatest sociologist. Saskatoon: University of Saskatchewan Press.
Zimmerman, C. C (1973). “My Sociological Career,” Revue Internationale de Sociologie 9, 1–2 (April–August): 89–117.
Zuzev, N. F. (2010). Pitirim Sorokin’s philosophy of love. Syktivkar: ESKOM.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
An earlier version of this paper was presented (in absentia) at a 2009 conference in the Russian Republic commemorating the 120th birthday of Sorokin, and it appeared in the published materials of that conference (Nichols 2009b). I am grateful to the conference organizers for the honor of being invited to participate.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Nichols, L.T. Sorokin as Lifelong Russian Intellectual: The Enactment of an Historically Rooted Sensibility. Am Soc 43, 374–405 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-012-9167-0
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-012-9167-0