Alexander Parvus
| Alexander Parvus | |
|---|---|
| Born |
September 8, 1867 Berazino, Russian Empire |
| Died | December 12, 1924 (aged 57) Berlin, Weimar Republic |
| Nationality | Germany |
Alexander Lvovich Parvus (Russian: Алекса́ндр Льво́вич Па́рвус), born Israel Lazarevich Gelfand (Russian: Изра́иль Ла́заревич Ге́льфанд) (1867-1924), was a Marxist theoretician, revolutionary, and a controversial activist in the Social Democratic Party of Germany.
Israel Lazarevich Gelfand was born to an ethnic Jewish family on September 8 [O.S. August 27] 1867 in the shtetl of Berazino, now part of Belarus. Although little is known of Israel's early childhood, the Gelfand family was of the lower middle class with his father working as an artisan of some sort — perhaps as a locksmith or a blacksmith. When Israel was a small boy the family's home in Berazino was destroyed by a fire, prompting a move to the city of Odessa in Ukraine, the hometown of Israel's paternal grandfather.
Gelfand attended gymnasium in Odessa and received private tutoring in the humanities. He also read widely on his own, including material by the iconic Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko, the journalist Nikolai Mikhailovsky, and political satirist Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin which led the young Gelfand to begin to question the legitimacy of the tsarist regime.
In 1886 the 19-year-old Gelfand first traveled from Russia to Basel, Switzerland. It was there that Gelfand was first exposed to the writings of Alexander Herzen as well as the revolutionary literature of the day. He returned to Russia briefly the following year but he became the subject of official scrutiny by the tsarist secret police and was forced to leave the country again for his safety. He would remain abroad for more than a decade.
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