Marx-Engels Correspondence 1856
Source: MECW Volume 40, p. 26;
First Published: First published abridged in Der Briefwecksel zwischen F. Engels and K. Marx, Bd. 2, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXII, Moscow, 1929.
Translated By: Peter and Betty Ross
Dear Marx,
Much obliged to you for your exhaustive letter ad Slavica. [on things Slavonic] Eichhoff is already known to me as a philological quack who has actually out-quacked Klaproth (who did know something). I shall look into the business of the Goths in Igor[22] as soon as I have got the book. However, it has been established that a number of Goths remained in the Crimea until the 10th, and possibly the 11th, century; at least they figure as Goths in Byzantine [sources]. Could you let me know the title and price of Hanka and Swoboda’s Bohemian anthology?[28] It is sure to be highly uncritical, for they are both complete asses. — Polish folk songs were published somewhere or other during the 40s. — I have found quotations from Gotze, Wladimir, [See this volume, p. 20.] etc., in Grimm’s translation of Wuk’s Serbische Grammatik with the comment ‘unfortunately without the Russian text’. Kapper is a Prague Jew who published his Südslavische Wanderungen in the Bohemian constitutionalist paper [probably the Constitutionelles Blatt auts Böhmen] in 1848/49. He’s a writer of belles lettres, but whether his translations are any good I couldn’t say — j’en doute cependant [I doubt it, however.] All the Serbian wedding songs have been translated by the Jakob woman. [Therese Albertine Luise von Jakob-Robinson (pen-name: Talvj), who published the collection Volkslieder der Serben.] The political works you mention on the Hungarian and Turkish Serbs might be worth looking at if they are in the Museum. [the British Museum Library]
The Neue Preussische Zeitung isn’t available in Manchester, but I followed the Pfeil business in the Kölner and the Augsburger [The Kolnische Zeitung and the Allgemeine Zeitung] and derived much joy from it. However the penitent leader in the N. Pr. [‘Den Streitenden’, Neue Preufiische Zeitung, No. 54, 4 March 1856.] was, of course, new to me; really too delightful, the sudden discovery that despite all the feudal gewgaws, nobility and bourgeoisie are today au fond [basically] one.
What you say about Austria in regard to the Slavs and Protestantism is perfectly right. Fortunately a very strong form of Protestantism has survived in Slovakia, and has greatly contributed to the inaction of the Slovaks against the Hungarians, [i.e. against the Hungarian Revolution of 1848-49] while in Bohemia every serious national movement other than the proletarian will in addition receive a strong admixture of Hussite historical memories which in turn will weaken the specifically national element. Pity about the Slovenian peasants who fought so splendidly in the 15th century.
I shall read about the Kars affair. What is Swan’s piece called? [A reference to A Narrative of the Siege of Kars... by H. Sandwith.]
The course taken by the Seileriad will assuredly please everyone except Liebknecht and the greengrocer. An unpleasant whiff of the cesspit.
Lassalle. It would be a pity about the fellow because of his great ability, but these goings-on are really too bad. He was always a man one had to keep a devilish sharp eye on and as a real Jew from the Slav border was always to exploit anyone for his own private ends on party pretexts. And then his urge to push his way into polite society, de parvenir, [come up in the world] if only for appearance’s sake, to disguise the greasy Breslau Jew with all kinds of pomade and paint was always repulsive. However all these were simply things which made it necessary to keep a sharp eye on him. But if he gets up to the kind of tricks that will actually result in his changing parties, I can’t blame the Düsseldorf workers for the hatred they have conceived against him. I shall go and see Lupus this evening and put the matter to him. None of us ever trusted Lassalle but we did, of course, protect him against stupidities emanating from H. Burgers. To my mind, everything should be allowed to proceed in the manner you prescribed for the Düsseldorfers. If he can be induced to commit a direct and overt act against the party, then we shall have him. But as yet there would seem to be none of that and in any case a row would be quite out of place.
The business of the Hatzfeldt woman and the 300,000 talers[35] was quite new to me. I imagined she was simply receiving something monthly or yearly. He can never be forgiven for having saved Hatzfeldt from the black and yellow jacket. [See this volume, p. 23.] I shall come back to the other matters.
Your
F. E.