Elisée Reclus

Élisée Reclus (March 15, 1830–July 4, 1905), also known as Jean Jacques Élisée Reclus, was a French geographer and anarchist.

Biography
He was born at Sainte-Foy-la-Grande (Gironde). He was the second son of a Protestant priest, who had a family of fourteen children. His education, begun in Rhenish Prussia, was continued in the Protestant college of Montauban, and completed at the university of Berlin, where he followed a long course of geography under Karl Ritter.

After 1851, he spent the next six years (1852–1857) visiting the British Isles, the United States, Central America, and Colombia. On his return to Paris he contributed to the Revue des deux mondes, the Tour du monde and other papers, with a large number of articles about geography.

In 1867–1868 he published La Terre; description des phénomènes de la vie du globe, in two volumes.During the 1870 siege of Paris, he was in the National Guard, while as a member of the Association Nationale des Travailleurs he published in the Cri du Peuple an article against the government of Versailles in support of the Paris Commune of 1871.Continuing to serve in the National Guard, now in open revolt, he was taken prisoner on April 5. On November 16, he was sentenced to transportation for life; but, after changed to a ban as an exile.

Reclus also visited Italy, and Switzerland, where he wrote many articles about geography.

In 1882 Reclus initiated the Anti-Marriage Movement. After this was followed by government prosecutions, instituted in the High Court of Lyon, against the anarchists, members of the International Association, of which Reclus and the other anarchist Kropotkin were designated as the two "leaders" of organization. Piotr Kropotkin was arrested and condemned to five years’ imprisonment, but Reclus, being resident in Switzerland, escaped.

After 1892 he taught in university of Brussels, and contributed in many journals about science and geography.

Some articles wrote by Reclus:
 Nouvelle Géographie Universelle - Nuova Geografia Universale (1875- 1894 ).
 La Terre, description des phénomènes de la vie du globe (1867-1868).
 Histoire d'une montagne (1872).
 Histoire d'une ruisseau (1876).
 L'Homme et la Terre - (postum) in (1905).

Reclus died at Torhout, near Bruges.

Related pages
 Anarchism in France
 Onésime Reclus, his brother

Other websites
 Élisée Reclus, le site 
 Reclus at the Anarchy Archive

Category:1830 births
Category:1925 deaths
Category:French anarchists
Category:French scientists
Category:Anarchist communists