Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz

Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz
Born	Kazimierz Radosław Elehard (1872-03-27)March 27, 1872 Szczebrzeszyn, Russian Empire
Died	June 24, 1905(1905-06-24) (aged 33) Pernitz, Austria-Hungary
Other names	Radosław Michał Luśnia
Education	University of Warsaw University of Paris
Alma mater	Sciences Po New University of Brussels
Spouse	Maria Katarzyna née Goldsteyn
Children	Janina
Relatives	Piotr Wysocki
Family	Kelles-Krauz szlachta
Awards
Era	Belle Époque
Region	Central Europe
School	Marxism
Institutions	International Institute of Sociology
Notable ideas	Law of retrospective revolution

Kazimierz Radosław Elehard baron Kelles-Krauz (22 March 1872 – 24 June 1905) was a Polish philosopher and sociologist, member of the Polish Socialist Party. He was one of the most significant Marxist thinkers at the end of the 19th century.

Kelles-Krauz was born in Szczebrzeszyn, Russian Empire and died in Pernitz, Austria-Hungary.

His greatest contribution to sociology is the "law of retrospective revolution" according to which "the ideals with which each reform movement tries to replace existing social norms are always similar to the norms of a more or less distant past".

Yale's Timothy Snyder argues that Kelles-Krauz, writing two decades before Hans Kohn and Carlton Hayes, ought to be among the small cluster of turn-of-the-century thinkers regarded as the pioneers of the modern study of nationalism.

Family

He was the son of nobleman and landowner Michał Wilhelm Elehard Kelles-Krauz and Matylda Daniewska. He had three younger brothers, Jan Jakub, Bohdan, Stanisław Maciej and sister Matylda. His youngest brother Stanisław Maciej was also a PPS activist, senator of the Second Polish Republic (1928-30) and Polish ambassador to Denmark after the Second World War, married to PPS activist Maria Helena Nynkowska.

Kazimierz married PPS activist Maria Katarzyna Goldsteyn, with whom he had a daughter, Janina, a workers' activist and employee of the Ossolineum.

Further reading

• Marxism and Sociology: A Selection of Writings by Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz, edited by Helena Chmielewska-Szlajfer, Leiden: Brill (2018). First published in Polish as Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz: Marksizm a socjologia. Wybór pism by Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego (2014)
• Snyder, Timothy (1997). "Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz (1872–1905): A pioneering scholar of modern nationalism" (PDF). Nations and Nationalism. 3 (2): 231–250. doi:10.1111/j.1354-5078.1997.00231.x. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 23, 2009.
• Snyder, Timothy (1998). Nationalism, Marxism, and Modern Central Europe: A Biography of Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Snyder, Timothy (1999). "A Polish Socialist For Jewish Nationality: Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz (1872-1905)" (PDF). Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry. 12: 257–271. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-08-15.

External links

• Polish Philosophy Page: Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz at the Wayback Machine (archived January 9, 2008)