Pitirim Sorokin: Biography, Achievements & Lasting Legacy

Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin (; Russian: Питирим Александрович Сорокин; 4 February [O.S. 23 January] 1889 – 10 February 1968) was a Russian American sociologist and political activist, who contributed to the social cycle theory.

Sorokin was a professor at Saint Petersburg Imperial University, three times imprisoned by the Czarist regime for "revolutionary activity." His active opposition to the Bolsheviks led, after they were in power, to his arrest and sentence to death. Only with the help and intervention of friends, including Thomas Masaryk and Edouard Beneš, was his sentence commuted to permanent exile, which led Sorokin to flee to Czechoslovakia.

Moving to the United States, he became a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota in 1924, and, in 1930, he was hired as head of the newly formed department of sociology at Harvard University.