Sylvia Pankhurst

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Sylvia Pankhurst

Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst (born May 5, 1882 in Manchester , † September 27, 1960 in Addis Ababa ) was a women's rights activist and suffragette activist .

Life

Pankhurst is the daughter of Richard Marsden Pankhurst and his wife Emmeline Goulden Pankhurst , members of the Independent Labor Party who were very committed to women's rights; her sister Christabel also became an activist. From 1906 they, together with their sister and mother, devoted all their time to the Women's Social and Political Union . But unlike them, she continued to be interested in the labor movement.

In 1912 she broke up with the WSPU in a dispute over the group's approval of arson. Sylvia Pankhurst founded the East London Federation of Suffragettes (ELFS), which over the years developed its political approach and changed its name accordingly, first to the Women's Suffrage Federation and then to the Workers' Socialist Federation . She founded the WSF 's newspaper, Women's Dreadnought , which later became the Workers Dreadnought .

The group continued to move to the left, taking the name " Communist Party , British Section of the Third International, " when in fact it never was. The CP (BSTI), in contrast to the newly founded Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), was against parliamentarism. However, being in the same movement as the Bolsheviks was seen as important, so the CP (BSTI) disbanded to be absorbed into the larger, official Communist Party. But this unity should not last long; when the leadership of the CPGB asked Sylvia Pankhurst to subordinate the Workers Dreadnought to the party instead of running it as their personal organ, they revolted. She was expelled from the CPGB and founded the Communist Workers Party, which was also short-lived.

Pankhurst joined the left communist movement and was expelled from their organization. She was an important figure in the communist movement of her time and participated in meetings of the International in Russia and Amsterdam as well as in meetings of the Italian Socialist Party . She quarreled with Lenin and supported communists like Amadeo Bordiga and Anton Pannekoek .

Pankhurst's tomb in Addis Ababa

In the mid-1920s, Pankhurst moved away from communism towards anti-fascism and anti-colonialism . They responded to the Italian occupation of Ethiopia by the Workers Dreadnought 1936 in The New Times and Ethiopia News renamed and follower of Haile Selassie was. She raised money for Ethiopia's first teaching hospital and wrote extensively on Ethiopian art and culture; her research has been published as Ethiopia, a Cultural History (London: Lalibela House, 1955). In 1956 she moved to Addis Ababa with her son Richard and founded the monthly magazine Ethiopia Observer, which thematized life and social development in Ethiopia.

Pankhurst died in 1960 and was buried outside the Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa .

Works (selection)

  • Ethiopia. A cultural history. Lalibela House, Woodford Green, Essex 1955.
  • The life of Emmeline Pankhurst. The suffragette struggle for womens' citizenship . Laurie Books, London 1935
  • Soviet Russia as I saw it. The Working Dreadnought, London 1921
  • The Suffragette Movement. An intimate account of persons and ideals. Virago Press, London 1988, ISBN 0-86068-026-6 (repr. Of the London 1911 edition).
  • Kathryn Dodd (Ed.): A Sylvia Pankhurst Reader . University Press, Manchester 1993, ISBN 0-7190-2888-4 .

literature

  • Ian Bullock (Ed.): Sylvia Pankhurst. From artist to anti-fascist. Macmillan, Basingstoke 1992, ISBN 0-333-54618-0 .
  • Barbara Castle: Sylvia and Christabel Pankhurst. Penguin Books, Harmondsworth 1987.
  • Mary Davis: Sylvia Pankhurst. A life in radical politics. Pluoto Books, London 1999, ISBN 0-7453-1523-2 .
  • Jane Marcus (Ed.): Suffrage and the Pankhursts. Routledge, London 2001, ISBN 0-415-25693-3 .
  • David Mitchell: The fighting Pankhurst. A study in teancity. Macmillan, New York 1967.
  • Richard Pankhurst: Sylvia Pankhurst, counsel for Ethiopia. A biographical essay on Ethopia, anti-fascist and anti-colonialist history 1934-1960. Tsehai Publications, Hollywood, Calif. 2003, ISBN 0-9723172-3-6 .
  • Martin Pugh : The Pankhursts. Penguin Books, London 2002, ISBN 0-14-029038-9 .
  • Patricia W. Romero: E. Sylvia Pankhurst. Portrait of a radical. Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn. 1987, ISBN 0-300-03691-4 .
  • Barbara Winslow: Sylvia Pankhurst. Sexual politics and political activism. UCL Press, London 1992, ISBN 1-85728-344-9 .

See also

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Pankhurst, Sylvia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pankhurst, Estelle Sylvia (full name)
SHORT DESCRIPTION British activist in the suffragette movement
DATE OF BIRTH May 5, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Manchester
DATE OF DEATH September 27, 1960
Place of death Addis Ababa