Przeglad Socjaldemokratyczny. (13 issues)
TWELVE ISSUES OF THE SDKPIL’S JOURNAL
[Luxemburg, Rosa, editor and contributor]. Przeglad Socjaldemokratyczny. Organ Socjaldemokracji Królestwa Polskiego i Litwy. No place or printer: [1903-04] and [Krakow: Alexander Ripper], November/December 1903-June 1910.
Together 12 issues, small 8vo (1903/04, four issues) and large 8vo, well preserved (five issues still uncut and unopened) in the original printed wrappers; two early issues with minor marginal tears to wrappers.
A fine collection of very rare issues of the main theoretical periodical of Rosa Luxemburg’s SDKPiL. The first four issues of 1903/04 are in smaller format and with the beautiful art-nouveau wrappers designed by Adolf Warski (born Jerzy Adolf Warszawski in 1868, executed by the Stalinists in 1937). Warski, Rosa Luxemburg’s co-activist for three decades, opened almost every issue of the Social-Democratic Review with an article signed War.
From 1908 onwards Rosa Luxemburg debated nationalism with Lenin, mainly in the Social-Democratic Review. ‘That her articles on the national question rather aggressively defied Lenin did not cloud Luxemburg’s personal relations with him … Lenin’s respectful attitude toward Luxemburg was not motivated by self-interest alone – he recognized her fine mind’ (Elzbieta Ettinger, Rosa Luxemburg, pp. 167-8).
Rosa Luxemburg’s six articles are: Kwestja narodowosciowa i autonomja (continuation; issue No. 11, December 1908, pp. 795-818), Rewolucyjny katzenjammer (issue No. 10, May 1909, pp. 14-24), Kwestja narodowosciowa i autonomja (continuation; issue No. 12, June 1909, pp. 136-163), Pomnik hanby (issue No. 13, July 1909, pp. 228-252), Kwestja narodowosciowa i autonomja (continuation; issue No. 14/15, August/September 1909, pp. 351-376), and August Bebel (issue No. 19, June 1910, pp. 23-29).
Among the Russian contributors to the Przeglad were Lenin and Trotsky, and the list of the Austro-German contributors reads like a Who’s Who of the Socialist movement.
The truly internationalist aspect of the Polish Social-Democracy is documented by the prices of this periodical, which are given in Russian Roubles, Austrian Crowns, French Francs, British Shillings, US Dollars, and German Marks. The December, 1908 issue contains at the end the title and list of contents for that year’s volume.
Rosa Luxemburg material printed during her lifetime is extremely hard to find. – Not in BUCOP; we were able to locate incomplete runs of this periodical in the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, Harvard, and in the Hoover Institution, only. – See Józef Kozlowski, Proletariacka Mloda Polska, p. 82 for an illustration of Warski’s cover design.
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