Pitirim A Sorokin: The interconnection between his life and scientific work

Abstract

This article discusses the relationship between two periods of Pitirim A Sorokin’s life, career and scientific work: the Russian period (till 1922) and the American (1923–68). The main sociological problems of both periods are considered in the article, including: social behaviour, the positivistic system of sociology and famine (as the key problems of his Russian period) and revolution, social stratification, social mobility, social and cultural dynamics and altruistic love (as the key problems of his American period). The important point in the discussion is that the Russian period is a prototype of the American one rather than its polar opposite; and therefore that the concepts that characterize Sorokin’s American period are the development of his ideas that had emerged while he was still in Russia.