Anares Federation of Anarchist Sales

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The Anares Federation of Anarchist Distributions (hereinafter referred to as Anares) was a voluntary, grassroots association of independent projects in German-speaking countries (in Germany, Austria and Switzerland) founded in 1985 and active until the end of the 1990s with the aim of promoting anarchist literature to print and distribute.

history

Anares goes back to the "Freedom Book Distribution" founded around 1975 in Gummersbach. In 1978 the however publishing house was founded in Grafenau, in 1981 the dermassen book distribution (forerunner of Anares Switzerland) in Bern (later Hilterfingen ), in 1982 the publishing house Monte Verita in Vienna . Together with the Dachkammer Buchvertrieb in Mannheim and the later dissolved Black Sea Distribution in Stuttgart, these projects formed the founding members of the Anares Federation.

In 1990 the former “AG Self-Organization” joined the federation as “Anares Nord” (based in Sehnde near Hanover, 1998 move to Uetze, 2000 to Bremen). The cooperation in the federation was never fixed by a written contract or the like. The individual groups of the federation worked as independent projects. The framework for the cooperation was set through circulars and joint meetings. The individual projects also pursued independent content and journalistic projects. For example, Anares Nord ran a bookstore under the name “Other Pages” until 2006 - after the dissolution of the federation, the addition “North” was dropped in 2000 - after moving to Bremen until 2006.

The anyway publishing house published the anarchist magazine " Schwarzer Faden " and the Swiss Anares offshoot was temporarily involved in the publication of the magazine "Banal". However, there was intensive cooperation over a period of around 10 years (until around 1995).

The “Anares Bibliography of Deliverable Anarchist Books” (3 editions, 1988/1989, 1991/1992 and 1995/1996) as well as the free of charge “Anares Info” (1985–1999 in 53 editions, initially DIN format) were published from all individual projects A 5, from number 45 onwards due to the cheaper postage DIN long, print run initially 1000, later up to 3000 copies, number 53 was printed once in 5500 copies). There was also economic cooperation with one another (exchange economy, i.e. book deliveries within the federation were offset against each other).

The " Libertarian Book Fair " as part of the "Libertarian Days" in 1993 in Frankfurt was organized by Anares. A common goal for many years was to reactivate the “Guild of Freedom Book Friends” of the anarcho-syndicalist Free Workers' Union of Germany (FAUD), which existed from 1929 to 1933, but in the end the personal strengths were insufficient to implement this ambitious project.

In addition to the projects carried out jointly by everyone, there were also individual activities that were carried out jointly by 2 or 3 projects of the Federation, e.g. B. some books published in cooperation, such as the bibliographies on Peter Kropotkin and Gustav Landauer and the new editions - some with new prefaces - The Right to Laziness by Paul Lafargue and God and the State by Michail Bakunin . In addition, a number of antiquarian catalogs were published as collaborations between various Anares projects.

Just as the federation does not have an official founding document, there has never been a public dissolution. The erosion of the federation was a gradual process: individual groups ended their work, from the end of the 1990s there were no more meetings and joint publications. After the dissolution of Anares in Bremen at the end of 2013, only the Comenius antiquarian bookshop in Hilterfingen / Switzerland exists as the last remnant of the former Anares Federation. The founder of Anares in Bremen, Gerald Grüneklee , has been selling the remaining sales under the name Der Ziegelbrenner since 2014 after it was dissolved.

structure

On the website of the Federation under "Anares Publishers" you can find:

  • Edition Anares
  • Edition Wahler
  • Espero
  • Oppo Publishing House
  • Black thread
  • Nevertheless publisher
  • Publishing house of the heretical papers

Self-image

The cooperation took place on the basis of a libertarian federalism, which differs from state-political federalism and the like. a. distinguishes itself through its strictly grassroots character. The decentralized character was emphasized: for example, the individual projects were the contact persons as resellers for certain publishers and as suppliers to end customers for certain postcode areas (an exception were antiquarian books, which were only available for a single project). The decentralized organization hoped for better, more direct contact with suppliers and customers. In addition, this should ensure a stronger regional connection in political work as well as at events and book tables .

Another feature of the federation was the strongly pluralistic approach within the framework of the anarchist spectrum : although the individual priorities of the individuals organized in the federation were quite different, Anares was understood as a service institution for “ pacifist , communist , individualist , religious , syndicalist , feminist , Sandinista, and so on anarchists ”.

Trivia

The name Anares is derived from the book The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin , in which there is a libertarian organized planet called "Anarres".

literature

  • Anares Federation of Anarchist Sales (Ed.): Anares Bibliography 1988/89. Available anarchist books . 1st edition. Edition Anares, Bern 1988, ISBN 3-905052-00-8 .
  • Anares Federation of Anarchist Sales (Ed.): Anares Bibliography 1991/92. Available anarchist books . 1st edition. Edition Anares, anyway publishing house, Bern, Grafenau 1991, ISBN 3-905052-52-0 .
  • Anares Federation of Anarchist Sales (Ed.): Anares Bibliography 1995/96. Available anarchist books . 1st edition. Edition Anares, however publishing house, Bern, Grafenau 1995, ISBN 3-905052-54-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerald Grüneklee (Ed.): Anares Anarchismus Katalog 2013 , Bremen 2013, p. 6ff.
  2. ↑ Anares Info . Database of German-speaking Anarchism, Document No .: DA-P0000780. Online at ur.dadaweb.de, accessed on September 13, 2013.
  3. ^ Anarchist Forum (Ed.): Libertäre Tage Ostern '93 in Frankfurt - Documentation, Frankfurt 1994, p. 67f.
  4. ↑ Wolfgang Haug : On the subject of anarchism. Part 3: The Guild of Liberal Book Friends. In: Writings of the Erich-Mühsam-Gesellschaft, Heft 5, Lübeck 1994.
  5. ↑ Gerald Grüneklee (Ed.): Anares Anarchismus Katalog 2013, Bremen 2013, p. 6ff.
  6. ^ Jean-Philipp Baeck: End of a book distribution. Remnants of anarchy . Online at taz.de on June 3, 2013, accessed on January 4, 2016.
  7. ↑ Self-expression . Online at ziegelbrenner.com, accessed January 19, 2014.
  8. ↑ http://anares.org/verlage/index.php
  9. ↑ Helmut Rüdiger: Federalism - Contribution to the History of Freedom, Berlin 1979.
  10. ↑ Anares Federation of Anarchist Sales (ed.): Anares Bibliography available anarchist books 1988/89, Bern 1988, cited. after the return envelope.