Letter to Friedrich Engels, February 29, 1856

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 29 February 1856


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 2, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXII, Moscow, 1929. Printed according to the original. Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 29 February 1856

28 Dean Street, Soho

Dear Engels,

For the whole of this week I've had a visitor in the person of G. Levy from Düsseldorf, sent over as their delegate by the workers there. He only left yesterday and took up all my spare time, so that despite the best of intentions I did not succeed in writing to you. Further on I shall give you an account of the news, some of it important, of which he was the CARRIER.[1]

Not one of the 3 books you asked for was available at Norgate and Williams. I have ordered the Lay of Igor[2] but wanted to let you know about the other two first.

Dobrowsky's 'Slavin', Hanka edition, is very far from fulfilling the expectations aroused by its title. The book falls into 2 parts as regards the contents, if not the arrangement, viz.:

1. Short ESSAYS on Slavonic linguistic studies which, in view of more recent studies, could at most be of antiquarian interest (e.g. sample from the Wendish New Testament, Slavonic declension, on the Slavonic translation of the Old Testament, etc.).

2. An attempt, wholly devoid of polemic bite, to reconstitute the character of the Slav peoples in integrum.[3] This is done by taking excerpts from sundry works, mostly German writings. Here is a list of these essays, which make up the bulk of the book[4] :

'Slawische Völker'. (From Herder's Ideen[5] etc.) 'Sitten der Croaten'. (From von Engels' Geschichte von Dalma- tien, Croatien, Slavonien. Halle 1798.)

'Sitten und Gebräuche der Illyrier, der Morlaken etc' (From ditto.)

'Charakter der Illyrier'. (From Taube's Beschreibung des König- reichs Slavonien. Leipzig 1777.)

'Die Tracht der Illyrier'. (From Hacquet's Beobachtungen auf einer Reise nach Semlin.[6] )

'Prokops Schilderung der Slawen und Anten'. (From Stritter's 'Geschichte der Slawen nach den Byzantinern' in Schlözer's Allgemeine Nordische Geschichte.)

'Auszüge aus des Herrn Professor B. Hacquet's Abbildung und Beschreibung der Südwest- und östlichen Slawen'.

'Volkstümliches der Russen'. (From Dupré de St. Maure, Observations sur les moeurs et les usages russes. Paris 1829. 3 vols.)

'Charakter und Kultur der Slawen im Allgemeinen'. (From Schaffarik, Geschichte der slawischen Sprache, etc. Ofen[7] 1826.)

That's about all. Appended is 'Der böhmische Cato' in Czech, 'from an old manuscript described by the late Voigt in Acta litter aria.[8]

Dobrowsky writes in a bumbling, good-natured, naive style, with the greatest cordiality towards his German colleagues, whether 'late' or still living. All that seemed of interest to me in the Slavin were a few passages in which he directly recognises the Germans as the fathers of Slavonic historical and linguistic studies.

As regards linguistic studies, he cites among others 'Schlözer, Vorschlag zu einer allgemeinen vergleichenden slawischen Sprachlehre und Wörterbuch.[9] Further, 'Schlözer, Vorschlag, das Russische vollkommen richtig und genau mit lateinischer Schrift auszudrücken'. In general 'Herr Hofrat Schlözer' would appear to be the patriarch of whom the others profess to be the disciples.

'Schlözer's Nestor: A work indispensable to anyone wishing to acquaint himself with the critical approach to Slavonic history in general and the Russian annals in particular.'

Of Voigt's Geschichte Preussens:

'Was the first to acquaint the Bohemians with the monuments of Antiquity.'[10]

Also cited: 'Johann Leonhard Frischen's Programmen von der slawischen Literatur', 1727-1736,

'which has elucidated the history of several Slavonic dialects'.

'Slawischer Bücherdruck in Würtenberg im löten Jahrhundert. Ein literarischer Bericht von Chr. Friedr. Schnurrer, Prof. in Tübingen, 1799'—

'a very valuable book which contains the finest and most important contribu- tions to the history of Wendish and Croat bibliography'.

Others cited are: Schlözer, Allgemeine Nordische Geschichte. Joli. Christoph de Jordan, De originibus Slavicis opus etc., Vienna 1745,

fol. 2. Father Gelasius Dobner, ad Hajek, Annales Bohemorum, Prague 1761 and '63. (Of this Schlözer remarks: primus delirare desiit[11] ) Stritter, Memoriae poptdorum ad Danubium e Script. Byzan- tinis, Petersburg 1774. Gercken, Versuch in der ältesten Geschichte der Slaven, Leipzig 1771. Gatterer's Einleitung in die synchronistische Universalhistorie, Göttingen 1771, and Gebhardi, Allgemeine Welt- historie, 1789.

Of all these works only the titles are given, with the exception of the opinions extracted above. Voilà le 'Slavin'![12]

As regards the 3rd work, the tide is: Dr. M. W. Heffter, Der Weltkampf der Deutschen und Slaven seit dem Ende des 5ten Jahrhunderts, 1847 (costs 7/-). Even in his preface the author admits that he only has a detailed and first-hand knowledge of Slavonic history in so far as it refers to the Prussian 'Fatherland'. More than 3/4 of his book of 481 pages is devoted to the period between the end of the 5di century and 1147. Only here and there does the remainder go beyond the 13th, or at latest the 14th, century, and then quite cursorily.

Having given you an opinion on these two works, I await your instructions whether or not to order them. Another book by Heffter has been published: Das Slawentum, Leipzig 1852 (45 pages or so). Constitutes the 10th booklet in the Brockhaus series

Unterhaltungen, Belehrungen etc[13] A popular compendium of Slavonic history. It was from this little book I learned that in 1849 Nicholas issued a ukase by which

'all his subjects were strictly forbidden to take part in Pan-Slavism'.

At the Museum I discovered, and made extracts from, 5 manuscript folio volumes on Russia (18th century only). They are part of the literary legacy of ARCHDEACON Coxe, known for his zeal as a collector.[14] They contain many original (hitherto unpublished) letters from English ambassadors in Petersburg to the Cabinet here, some of them VERY COMPROMISING INDEED. Amongst the papers dated 1768 there is a manuscript by one of the Embassy attachés on 'the character of the Russian nation'.[15] I shall send you some extracts from it. There is also interesting information on the Russian 'artels' by the Embassy chaplain, a cousin of Pitt's.[16]

Although anti-Russian, recent French writings are, with few exceptions, almost all tinged with Pan-Slavism. Thus Desprez,[17] but more particularly Cyprien Robert who, in Paris in 1848, published the journal, La Pologne. Annales contemporaines des peuples de l'Europe orientale, etc. The same man has published, among other things, Les Slaves de la Turquie, édition de 1844, précédée d'une introduction, etc., 8°, Paris 1852. Further, Le Monde slave, son passé, son état présent et son avenir, Paris 1852. A Parisian author,[18] whose

nom de guerre is Edmond, but who is said to be a Pole, is exceptional in having published an exceedingly venomous attack on Russian pretensions to socialism, and comments on their communes, etc. I haven't yet been able to trace this, but shall have a look at the Revue des deux Mondes which apparently contains extracts from it.

I began this letter today with the intention of sending you masses of gossip. But, having strayed off in another direction and time being short, I shall leave that till tomorrow and confine myself for today to telling you that Heise, under the influence of strong liquor (so Imandt writes), is rapidly approaching his end[19] ; that Oswald—of tobacco and refugee fame—who doesn't speak a word of French, has been appointed Professor of the French Language at UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, London; that Ruge's friends are putting it around that he's suffering from 'dropsy' though it's probably nothing but water on the brain; that a number of German worthies (Faucher, Meyen, Franck, Tausenau, etc.) will be meeting tomorrow chez mine host Kerb, in order to achieve an entente cordiale as to the Fatherland's requirements, and that 'Meyen' has expressed the 'hope' that he can persuade Bûcher to 'take part' in this confabulation; finally, that Proudhon has become a director of the royal imperial French railways.

Salut.

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ See this volume, pp. 23 25.
  2. ↑ Marx means The Lay of Igor's Host, a monument of old Russian literature describing the ill-starred campaign undertaken by Igor, Prince of Novgorod Severski, against the nomadic Polovtsians in 1185. The work was published in German several times. One edition appeared in Berlin in 1854 under the title Lied vom Heerzuge Igors. As follows from Marx's later letters to Engels, he found the Lay, in the language of the original and in French translation, in F. G. Eichhoff's book Histoire de la langue et de la littérature des slaves..., and later also a bilingual German edition, which he sent to Engels in Manchester.—15, 19, 26, 31, 37
  3. ↑ as a whole
  4. ↑ Here Marx gives the titles of a number of chapters from Dobrowsky's book and some excerpts from it.
  5. ↑ J. G. Herder, Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, Theil 4.
  6. ↑ Serbian name: Zemun.
  7. ↑ Hungarian name: Buda.
  8. ↑ Acta litteraria Bohemiae et Moraviae, Pragae, 1774-1783, were literary and historical collections published by the Czech Enlightenment historian Mikulâs (Adauctus) Voigt.—16
  9. ↑ Marx means Schlözer's recommendations, quoted on p. 261 of Dobrovsky's book, for the study of the Slavonic languages and the compilation of Slavonic dictionaries. The recommendations are contained in Schlözer's book Allgemeine Nordische Geschichte, p. 330.—16
  10. ↑ Dobrovsky's words, taken from his book Slavin (p. 419), actually refer to Acta litteraria Bohemiae et Moraviae published by Mikulâs (Adauctus) Voigt, not to Johannes Voigt's Geschichte Preußens.—16
  11. ↑ the first to have ceased to rave
  12. ↑ There you have the Slavin.
  13. ↑ Unterhaltende Belehrungen zur Förderung allgemeiner Bildung. 1 27 Bändchen, Leipzig 1851 1856.
  14. ↑ Archdeacon William Coxe, traveller, historian and writer, left his vast collection of manuscripts and books to the British Museum. Marx made excerpts from the following manuscript letters and reports of British diplomats in Russia: Various Papers on the Genius and Character of the Russians, Rondeau to Walpole, Dispatch from Mr. Fuch (Finch) to Lord Harrington, Sir George Macartney to the Earl of Sandwich, and Sir James Harris to Lord Grantham. He made ample use of them in his Revelations of the Diplomatic History of the 18th Century (see present edition, Vol. 15).—17
  15. ↑ Various Papers on the Genius and Character of the Russians, 1768 (MS).
  16. ↑ L. K. Pitt, Ueber den russischen Handel (MS).
  17. ↑ H. Desprez, Les peuples de l'Autriche et de la Turquie.
  18. ↑ Charles Edmond Chojecki
  19. ↑ See this volume, p. 12.