Anatoly Lunacharsky
| Anatoly Lunacharsky Анато́лий Лунача́рский |
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|---|---|
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| People's Commissars for Education | |
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In office 26 October 1917 – September 1929 |
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| Prime Minister |
Vladimir Lenin Aleksei Rykov |
| Preceded by | Sergei Salazkin |
| Succeeded by | Andrei Bubnov |
| Soviet Ambassador to Spain | |
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In office 1933–1933 |
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| President | Mikhail Kalinin |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky 23 November [O.S. 11 November] 1875 Poltava, Russian Empire |
| Died | 26 December 1933 (aged 58) Menton, Alpes-Maritimes, France |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Political party |
Bolshevik (1903-1933) Mezhraiontsy (1917) |
| Alma mater | University of Zurich |
| Occupation | Journalist |
Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky (Russian: Анато́лий Васи́льевич Лунача́рский, Ukrainian: Анатолій Васильович Луначарський, 23 November [O.S. 11 November] 1875 – 26 December 1933) was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and the first Soviet People's Commissar of Education responsible for culture and education. He was active as an art critic and journalist throughout his career.
Lunacharsky was born in Poltava, Ukraine, Russian Empire. He was an illegitimate child of Alexander Antonov and Alexandra Lunacharskaya, née Rostovtseva. His mother was then married to statesman Vasily Lunacharsky, which gave Anatoly's surname and patronym. Alexandra later divorced Lunacharsky and married Antonov, but Anatoly kept his old name.
Lunacharsky became a Marxist at 15. He studied at the University of Zurich, under Avenarius, for two years without taking a degree. In Zürich, he met European socialists including Rosa Luxemburg and Leo Jogiches and joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In February 1902, Lunacharsky moved in with Alexander Bogdanov who was working in a mental hospital in Vologda. By September, he married Anna Alexandrovna Malinovkaya, Bogdanov's sister.
In 1903, the party split into Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin and Mensheviks led by Julius Martov; Lunacharsky sided with the former. In 1907, he attended the International Socialist Congress, held in Stuttgart. When the Bolsheviks, in turn, split into Lenin's supporters and Alexander Bogdanov's followers in 1908, Lunacharsky supported his brother-in-law, Bogdanov, in setting up Vpered. Like many contemporary socialists (including Bogdanov), Lunacharsky was influenced by the empirio-criticist philosophy of Ernst Mach and Avenarius. Lenin opposed Machism as a form of subjective idealism and strongly criticised its proponents in his book Materialism and Empirio-criticism (1908). In 1909, Lunacharsky joined Bogdanov and Gorky at the latter's villa on the island of Capri, where they started a school for Russian socialist workers. In 1910, Bogdanov, Lunacharsky, Mikhail Pokrovsky and their supporters moved the school to Bologna, where they continued teaching classes through 1911. In 1913, Lunacharsky moved to Paris, where he started his own "Circle of Proletarian Culture".
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