Emma Goldman on Peter A. Kropotkin

Russia’s Presidential Library had included a scan of Emma Goldman’s obituary for Petr Kropotkin https://www.prlib.ru/en/item/696160 in its collection of materials on Kropotkin https://www.prlib.ru/collections/697132 . The original typescript is kept by the Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA) in the papers of Pavel Shchegolev, editor of the Byloe (The Past) magazine, which covered the history of the Russian liberation movement. Its issue no. 17 was dedicated to the memory of Petr Kropotkin, and was published on the occasion of the anniversary of his death. Contents of the journal were also published separately as a collection of articles Pamyati Petra Alekseevicha Kropotkina (In Memory of Petr Alekseyevich Kropotkin; Petrograd and Moscow, 1922). It is available online at: https://kropotkin.site/pamyati-petra-alekseevicha-kropotkina-1922

The differences between translation and the original are not significant. The editors added the note: “This article belongs to comrade E. A. Goldman, an eminent figure and a like-minded person of P. A. Kropotkin. Translated from the English manuscript by E. A. Serebrekova.” Goldman titled her text “Peter A. Kropotkin”, according to the American convention; in Russian, it was amended to “P. A. Kropotkin” - the two initials, for first name and patronymic, are the Russian convention. Thus the author herself was made E. A., short for Emma Abramovna.

There are some discrepancies in how paragraphs are organised.

“Spontaneous” procession for Kropotkin’s funeral in Goldman’s original was translated as “voluntary”, which is quite accurate though not literal. Name of the author of the Requiem performed as Kropotkin’s body was carried out on the way to the cemetery, Aleksandr Yurasovsky ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Yurasovsky ), was omitted. Where Goldman wrote about Kropotkin’s royal lineage, the word “Rurikid” was added in the translation.

The sentences “The meager royalties received by Peter Kropotkin from the publication of his ‘Memoirs of a Revolutionist’, ‘Mutual Aid’, ‘The Conquest of Bread’, and ‘The Great French Revolution’ were also devoted by him to the needs of the Anarchist and revolutionary movements. The sole support of Peter Kropotkin came from his numerous contributions to scientific publications and the Encyclopedia Britannica.” which were crossed out in the typescript were not translated. Neither is “Anarchism is the teaching, par excellence, of independent thinking. Peter Kropotkin, as the true Anarchist did not fail to understand”…

The following excerpt, which is present in the typescript, did not make it to the translation: “Early in 1918, he gathered a group of most able men, devoted to the welfare of Russia, and together they founded the Federalist League. The aim of the League was a freely federated Russia, with the utmost autonomy for each constituent part. The League set to work at once, assigning to its members various departments of the careful study of the economic resources and possibilities of Russia. The findings of the League, with Peter Kropotkin as editor-in-chief, were to serve for the guidance of the people. Unfortunately, only the first volume was published. With the constantly growing centralization of the Soviet government, the work of the League could not continue.”

At the very end of the article, the date (“Moscow, February 16, 1921”) is omitted from the translation, as are the following sentences: “It prepares them for the time when the great ideal of Peter Kropotkin shall become real - the human race federated in one family, the Anarchist Commune.” (which is not crossed out in the typescript) and “An appropriate memorial to Peter Kropotkin is to be erected in the form of a Kropotkin museum. The house in which Kropotkin was born, has already been secured for the purpose.” (which was crossed out).

The original archival designation of the file: RGIA. Fond 1093, opis’ 1, delo 56.

[Update: I think that the translator can be identified as:
Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Serebryakova (née Rina Solomonovna Tetelman, 1862-1942), teacher of English, translator. Higher education. Between 1879 and 1883 operated as a propagandist for the People’s Will party amongst workers and young people abroad and in Russia. In 1882-1883 a member of the party’s central group in Odessa. From 1883 collected donations from concerts, dances and such for the publication of Vestnik Narodnoi Voli (People’s Will Herald). Between 1908 and 1917 a member of the support group for Shlissel’burg prisoners. After her husband, fellow People’s Will member Esper Serebryakov died in 1921, she asked a housemate, avantgarde painter Pavel Filonov (1883-1941), to paint her late husband’s portrait. Ekaterina Serebryakova went on to marry Filonov. Both Serebryakova and Filonov died during the siege of Leningrad. 
Information from her autobiography in: Ekaterina Serebriakova. “Dom pechati - delo nashe” (iz dnevnikov, 1926-1927) [‘House of Press Is Our Business’ (from diaries, 1926-1927)]. Published by Irina Karasik // Eksperiment. No. 11 (2005), p. 134; notice in the Siege of Leningrad victims’ database: http://visz.nlr.ru/blockade/show/1002363]