by Anatoly Vasilievich Lunacharsky
The Silhouettes:
Written in 1918, these brief biographical sketches by Anatoly Lunacharsky give a wonderful, personal look at some of the key figures of the October Revolution. Lunacharsky was the USSR's first Commissar of Education. He was born in 1875 in Poltava (Ukraine) to minor nobility with an educated radical consciousness. It was an environment not unlike Lenin's, though less provincial. "I became a revolutionary so early in life that I don't remember when I was not one."
In 1894, he left Russia for Switzerland and was a pupil of Avenarius. In 1896, he returned to Russia -- and was arrested for party building activities. He was exiled to Kaluga. In 1901 or 1902, he returned to Kiev.
Isaac Deutscher wrote in a 1967 intro to this book:
"His role in the events of 1917 was quite outstanding, as all eye-witnesses testify. The 'soft' 'God-seeker' with the air of the absent-minded professor, surprised and astonished all who saw him by his indominable militancy and energy. He was the great orator of Red Petrograd, second only to Trotsky, addressing every day, or even several times a day, huge, hungry and angry crowds or workers, soldiers and saliors...."
He was jailed by Kerensky in July 1917. Made Commissar of Education in Lenin's first government. Died in 1933, just before taking the station of Ambassador to Spain.
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