Kostja Zetkin

Konstantin "Kostja" Zetkin (14 April 1885 - September 1980) was a German physician, social economist and political activist.

He was the son of Clara Zetkin, one iconic pioneer of the political left in Germany and, for a time, the lover of another one, Rosa Luxemburg.

Life

Konstantin Zetkin, always identified as "Kostja" in family correspondence and in almost all other sources, was born in Paris. Kostja's father, Ossip Zetkin (1850-1889), was a Russian revolutionary and socialist who had suffered persecution on account of his involvement in the Narodniks movement and fled to Leipzig where, as a young man, he had supported himself as a carpenter and become active in student politics. That was how he met the traineee teacher, Clara Eißner (1857-1933). In the context of the recently enacted Anti-Socialist Laws Ossip Zetkin was identified as a "burdensome foreigner" ("lästiger Ausländer") and deprived of his Leipzig residence permit in 1880. He moved to Paris where, two years later, he was joined by Clara Eißner. The two had probably become lovers in Leipzig, and now they resumed their partnership. Clara adopted his family name, but the two of them never formally married. Their two sons, Maxim and Kostja, were born in 1883 and 1885.