biology

Memoirs of a Revolutionist

Memoirs of a Revolutionist is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Memoirs of a Revolutionist rather than just read about it. In short: Memoirs of a Revolutionist is an autobiography written by Russian anarchist philosopher Peter Kropotkin. Summary Kropotkin's Memoirs address the arc of his life, the development of his anarchist philosophy, and his activism for socialist causes.

Key takeaways

Memoirs of a Revolutionist belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Memoirs of a Revolutionist to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Memoirs of a Revolutionist from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Memoirs of a Revolutionist is an autobiography written by Russian anarchist philosopher Peter Kropotkin.

Summary

Kropotkin's Memoirs address the arc of his life, the development of his anarchist philosophy, and his activism for socialist causes. It covers his childhood, cadet corps schooling, geographical work, political awakening, international travel, and Chaykovsky Circle work. He discusses his exile and activism in Western Europe after escaping from a Russian jail.

Publication history Elements of what would become Kropotkin's Memoirs of a Revolutionist were first published in The Atlantic Monthly between 1898 and 1899 in English, the same year it received its first publication from Houghton Mifflin with an introduction by Georg Brandes. Later editions of this original 1899 release include those edited and introduced by James Allen Rodgers (Doubleday, 1962) and Nicolas Walter (Dover Publications, 1971). Both use endnotes to address Kropotkin's subsequent Russian-language additions in the translation of his Memoirs. After its initial release, Kropotkin continued to revise his Memoirs with Russian-language additions in a translation of the 1902 English release. These were published in multiple editions between 1906 and 1929. The canonical 1933 Soviet Academia edition derived from Kropotkin's Russian manuscript and became the basis for Soviet reprints. A reviewer of the English editions in The Slavonic and East European Review remarked that the memoirs remained readable and interesting in the present day. While he praised the editors' extensive notes and sufficient indices, he felt that ready footnotes (on page bottom) would have been more appropriate than endnotes for putting Kropotkin's additions in context, and that the 1933 Russian edition's illustrations would have been worthwhile imports.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Memoirs of a Revolutionist

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Memoirs of a Revolutionist claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Memoirs of a Revolutionist before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Memoirs of a Revolutionist ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Memoirs of a Revolutionist

In research: Memoirs of a Revolutionist appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Memoirs of a Revolutionist in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Memoirs of a Revolutionist is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1890s English-language non-fiction books, 1899 non-fiction books, Autobiographies, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Memoirs of a Revolutionist outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Memoirs of a Revolutionist in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Memoirs of a Revolutionist means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Memoirs of a Revolutionist out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Memoirs of a Revolutionist in simple terms?

Memoirs of a Revolutionist is an autobiography written by Russian anarchist philosopher Peter Kropotkin. Summary Kropotkin's Memoirs address the arc of his life, the development of his anarchist philosophy, and his activism for socialist causes.

Why does Memoirs of a Revolutionist matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Memoirs of a Revolutionist?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Memoirs of a Revolutionist.