Letter to Wilhelm Bracke, May 26, 1877

Author(s)	Karl Marx
Written	26 May 1877

First published, in Russian, in Marx-Engels Archives, Vol. I (VI), Moscow, 1934
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 45

MARX TO WILHELM BRACKE

IN BRUNSWICK

[London,] 26 May 1877

Dear Bracke,

What Miss Kurz has been awaiting has today gone off from London. In the course of next week she will (save, I think, for the appendix) be getting everything in the way of alterations which Lissagaray still has to send her.^[1]

For the rest I should like to point out that:

1. La Kurz should have sent you, as a matter of course, anything in manuscript form she had received from Lissagaray, along with her own manuscript. Considering the masterly way she translates (see just a few recent examples overleaf), how can I keep a check on her without Lissagaray's ms.? I am convinced that, because of this, all manner of infelicities have already crept in.

2. She might very well have told herself that Lissagaray requires this ms. for his own second French edition.

All in all, the translation, when not actually wrong, is often unhelpful, philistine and wooden. But this may, perhaps, to some extent correspond to German taste. With kind regards,

Yours,

K. M.

I should be grateful if you would insist that the said Kurz should, firstly, send you (for return to Lissagaray) that part of Lissagaray's ms. she has already translated (you can pass it on to me together with the proofs) and, secondly, always enclose with her own manuscript the manuscript she has just translated so that I may compare translation and original. All in all this additional manuscript does not amount to very much.

The passage heavily scored by me on p. 73 should read thus:

'It [the people] looked for this emancipation to the autonomous Commune which,etc., etc., would conduct its administration independently, within the limits required to maintain national unity. Rather than the representative who may,etc., should, etc., it opposed to that monarchical excrescence of society, the "State", which, etc., undermines, etc., represents particular class interests which, etc., the delegation of communes endowed with a life of their own which, etc., was to administer the general national interests.'

Examples p. 49 'A l'appel de son nom il a voulu répondre' Miss Kurz translates as: 'He wanted to respond to the summons issued to him.' Sheer rubbish! It means: 'He wished to answer when his name was called, etc'

{ditto 'les yeux... brillants de foi républicaine'; foi does not here mean 'troth'—nor does it ever mean that, save in the sense of 'upon my troth!' (ma foi)—but faith, conviction, etc. I have left it as it stands since I am generally averse to all such commonplaces in German; so what matter if she puts an X for a U.}

p. 51 'des intrigants bourgeois qui couraient après la deputation'. Kurz translates 'who ran after the deputation'. A primary school child could hardly translate worse.

p. 51 'pour statuer en cas de doubles nominations' Kurz translates outrageously 'so as, if need be,' (what's that supposed to mean?) 'to decree double nominations'!!! Should read: 'so as to decide in the case of double nominations'.

p. 54 'une permanence' is translated as 'permanent session' (what the devil is that?). Means 'standing committee'.

p. 59 instead of 'expired bills of exchange' she puts 'expired merchandise (III). p. 70 'l'intelligence etc. de la bourgeoisie de cette époque she translates as 'the big bourgeois of this point of time' (!). An epoch is no more a point of time than a line is a point in space.

p. 75 'C'est que la première note est juste' she translates as: 'The reason was that the first account (!) was correct', should read, that from the start they had struck or hit the right note.

p. 90 'plumitifs'—'quill-pushers' she translates as legal recordslll

↑ Considering it very important to familiarise workers with the true history of the Paris Commune, Marx became actively involved in the commissioning of a German translation of a book written by one of its members, Prosper Olivier Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune de 1871. He requested Wilhelm Bracke, and Engels asked Wilhelm Bios to find somebody to do the job. The sample translation done by Julius Grunzig failed to satisfy Marx, as did that by Isolde Kurz. Although Marx was already overburdened with work, he had to spend a great deal of time and effort editing the translation. In the autumn of 1877, on Marx's and Engels' proposal, Wilhelm Bios was recruited as another editor. Lissagaray's book appeared in German in Brunswick late in 1877.— 155, 172, 189, "l 96,' 222, 230, 262, 266, 285 19.) The general socialist congress held in Gotha from 19 to 23 August 1876 decided, at its meeting of 23 August, to publish a single organ of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany, Vorwärts, that was lo replace Der Volksstaat and Der Neue Social-Demokrat. The congress elected Wilhelm Liebknecht and Wilhelm Hasenclever editors of the new paper, which was to appear from 1 October.

[1] Considering it very important to familiarise workers with the true history of the Paris Commune, Marx became actively involved in the commissioning of a German translation of a book written by one of its members, Prosper Olivier Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune de 1871. He requested Wilhelm Bracke, and Engels asked Wilhelm Bios to find somebody to do the job. The sample translation done by Julius Grunzig failed to satisfy Marx, as did that by Isolde Kurz. Although Marx was already overburdened with work, he had to spend a great deal of time and effort editing the translation. In the autumn of 1877, on Marx's and Engels' proposal, Wilhelm Bios was recruited as another editor. Lissagaray's book appeared in German in Brunswick late in 1877.— 155, 172, 189, "l 96,' 222, 230, 262, 266, 285 19.) The general socialist congress held in Gotha from 19 to 23 August 1876 decided, at its meeting of 23 August, to publish a single organ of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany, Vorwärts, that was lo replace Der Volksstaat and Der Neue Social-Demokrat. The congress elected Wilhelm Liebknecht and Wilhelm Hasenclever editors of the new paper, which was to appear from 1 October.

[1]