Maria Isidorovna Goldsmith (Russian: Мария Исидоровна Гольдсмит; 19 July [O.S. 7 July] 1871 – 11 January 1933) was a Russian-French biologist and anarchist political theorist. Born in the Russian Empire, she was forced into exile at an early age due to her parents' radical politics. In Paris, her mother influenced her interest in the natural sciences and the political philosophy of anarchism. In the 1890s, she enrolled to study biology at the University of Paris and joined the exiled Russian and diasporic Jewish anarchist movements. While studying for her PhD, she came under the tutelage of the evolutionary theorists Yves Delage and Peter Kropotkin, who influenced her understanding of Darwinian evolution, Lamarckian inheritance and mutual aid. At the outbreak of the Russian Revolution of 1905, she and Georgy Gogelia established the Bread and Freedom group, within which they became two of the first Russian proponents of anarcho-syndicalism. During the 1910s, Goldsmith published a series of books on evolutionary biology, co-authored with Delage. Together they explored the various different theories of evolution and made a case for cooperation as a more influential factor than competition, in opposition to social Darwinism and the theory of "survival of the fittest". They also defended the theory of symbiogenesis and investigated several cases of symbiosis in nature. By 1915, Goldsmith had completed her PhD and branched out into researching parthenogenesis, tropism, comparative psychology and evolutionary psychology. Her focus was largely on marine biology and the behaviour of fish. After the outbreak of World War I, she took the side of the Manifesto of the Sixteen in the internationalist–defencist schism, and she expressed support for the Russian Revolution of 1917 until the suppression of the Kronstadt Rebellion. Following the death of Delage and Kropotkin in the early 1920s, Goldsmith became isolated from the scientific community and struggled to find stable employment. Her difficulties were exacerbated by her status as an immigrant, a woman and a prominent radical activist. During the late 1920s, she became involved in the anarchist movement's debates surrounding the Platform, which she criticised for authoritarian tendencies. After her mother's death in January 1933, she committed suicide. Her work remained influential within her scientific field, as well as the anarchist movement, into the 21st century.
Early life and activism Maria Isidorovna Goldsmith was born on 19 July [O.S. 7 July] 1871, in the Russian capital of Saint Petersburg. Her father was Isidor Albertovich, a lawyer and publisher of a positivist journal; he came from a family of Jewish converts to Lutheranism. Her mother was Sofia Ivanovna, a physician and botanist; she came from a Russian noble family. Goldsmith's parents saw that she received an education from an early age. Both of Goldsmith's parents were involved in radical politics, as followers of the socialist Pyotr Lavrov and friends of the Bakunin family. They were forced into internal exile in the Russian North for their political activism, and had to flee the Russian Empire entirely in June 1884. Still a child, Goldsmith's parents took her into exile in France and settled in Paris. There, Isidor was arrested, imprisoned and soon died from a chronic illness. As her mother was also chronically ill, Goldsmith was forced to enter the workforce at a young age in order to support herself and her mother. She would continue living with and caring for her mother, even into adulthood. Through her mother's influence, Goldsmith became interested in the natural sciences and radical politics. Her experiences had made her distrustful of the state, and during the 1890s, she gravitated towards anarchism after attending lectures by Saul Yanovsky and Peter Kropotkin. She turned her home on Rue Marie-Rose into a meeting place for exiled Russian anarchists, ensuring a strong anarchist presence within the Russian emigré movement in Paris. Goldsmith also began a life-long correspondence with the anarchist activist Emma Goldman. She also made contact with anarchist members of the Jewish diaspora in Paris; although she was not herself a follower of Judaism and had not ever studied Yiddish, she still identified with her father's Jewish roots. She rarely missed the Jewish anarchist movement's events, and it was within this milieu that she began her career of anarchist activism and developed her own anarchist political theory.
Career
Education and early scientific career
After coming of age, Goldsmith enrolled in the University of Paris to study biology. In 1892, she joined the Internationalist Revolutionary Socialist Students (ESRI), within which she authored pamphlets on anarchist feminism and anti-Zionism. She also joined a Bourse du Travail in Issy-les-Moulineaux, which she represented at the International Socialist Workers and Trade Union Congress in London; there she was part of the anti-parliamentary faction. After graduating with her Licentiate in 1894, she began working as a member of staff at the University's physiology laboratory, while studying for a PhD under the evolutionary biologist Yves Delage. Goldsmith and Delage became close collaborators and research partners. Delage appointed Goldsmith as general secretary of the scientific journal L'année biologique, which she ran from 1902 to 1924.
Goldsmith also became a close friend of the biologist Peter Kropotkin, constantly corresponding with him on scientific and political matters from 1897 to 1917. As Kropotkin was prohibited from entering France, they were unable to meet face-to-face. Like Delage and Kropotkin, Goldsmith became a staunch proponent of the Darwinian theory on evolution and the Lamarckian theory on heredity. Kropotkin entrusted Goldsmith with the completion and translation of his book Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, in the event that he died, as he believed Goldsmith was the only person who shared both his scientific knowledge and worldview.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
