Sasha and Emma: the anarchist odyssey of Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman

Abstract

In 1889 two Russian immigrants, Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, met in a coffee shop on Lower East Side. Over next fifty years Emma and Sasha would be fast friends, fleeting lovers, and loyal comrades. This dual biography offers an unprecedented glimpse into their intertwined lives, lasting influence of anarchist movement they shaped, and their unyielding commitment to equality and justice. Berkman shocked country in 1892 with the first terrorist act in failed assassination of industrialist Henry Clay Frick for his crimes against workers. Passionate and pitiless, gloomy yet gentle, Berkman remained Goldman's closest confidant though two were often separated--by his fourteen-year imprisonment and by Emma's growing fame as champion of a multitude of causes, from sexual liberation to freedom of speech. The blazing sun to Sasha's morose moon, Emma became known as the most dangerous woman in America. Through an attempted prison breakout, multiple bombing plots, and a dramatic deportation from America, these two unrelenting activists insisted on improbable ideal of a socially just, self-governing utopia, a vision that has shaped movements across past century, most recently Occupy Wall Street. Sasha and Emma is culminating work of acclaimed historian of anarchism Paul Avrich. Before his death, Avrich asked his daughter to complete his magnum opus. The resulting collaboration, epic in scope, intimate in detail, examines possibilities and perils of political faith and protest, through a pair who both terrified and dazzled world.