Marx Memorial Library

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Marx Memorial Library

The Marx Memorial Library in London collects books, brochures and newspapers on the subject of Marxism , scientific socialism, and on topics related to the labor movement and its history. The chairman of the library is Fred Williams.

history

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Karl Marx's death on March 14, 1933, the house “37a Clerkenwell Green” was renamed “Marx Memorial House”. Representatives of the Communist Party of Great Britain , the Labor Party of the trade unions and the cooperatives donated more than 4,000 books to the basic stock of the library by October 1933. Until 1950, training courses on political economy and history were held in the building. The library has around 900 members and around 50 organizations that can also be members. The inventory includes some original editions of the works of Marx and Engels , some of which are dedicated copies. In 2002 the library had a total of more than 150,000 volumes, mainly in English. But a few thousand are in German, French, Italian, Russian and Spanish. The library's holdings include the bequests of James Klugmann and John Desmond Bernal . Twice a year (spring and autumn) the Marx Memorial Library publishes its Bulletin of the Marx Memorial Library . Occasionally the house is supported by the national lottery .

The library is home to The Printers Collection, which contains the archives of the printer and papermaker's unions in Great Britain and Ireland. The archive consists of union documents, magazines, photographs and other material. The archive was opened in March 2009 by Derek Simpson and Tony Burke .

The library also houses the fresco The worker of the future upsetting the economic chaos of the present , painted in 1935 by Jack Hastings and the American painter Clifford Wight.

Prehistory of the building

In 1737 the building was built as a school for Welsh children. In 1772 the school moved to Gray's Inn and the building served as a commercial or fairground house for a long time. Between 1872 and 1892 the building was the seat of the radical "Patriotic Club". In 1892 the newspaper "Twentieth-Century Press" and the Social Democratic Federation moved in here. William Morris and Eleanor Marx worked here.

When Eleanor committed suicide on March 31, 1898 and her partner Edward Bibbins Aveling also did not claim her urn , her urn was brought to the office of the Social Democratic Federation by Friedrich Lessner . He put a note in the urn: "These are the ashes of Eleanor Marx". It was kept here until 1920. In 1920 the urn was brought to the headquarters of the Communist Party of Great Britain. When the police raided the party's headquarters in 1921, the urn was confiscated for no apparent reason. The urn was later returned to the Marx Memorial Library. It was not until Marx's grave was reburied on November 23, 1954 that Eleanor's urn was buried in Highgate Cemetery and Eleanor's name was also placed on the new tomb, which was inaugurated on March 14, 1956.

From April 1902 to spring 1903 Vladimir Ilyich Lenin had 17 issues of the Russian social democratic newspaper Iskra printed in this house . He was here at the invitation of Harry Quelch , the then leader of the Social Democratic Federation .

The house was uninhabited between 1922 and 1933.

literature

  • Andrew Rothstein: A House on Clerkenwell Green . Lawrence & Wishart, London 1966.
  • South and East Clerkenwell . In: Philip Temple (ed.): Survey of London . tape 46 . English Heritage, New Haven / London 2008, ISBN 978-0-300-13727-9 , Clerkenwell Green, pp. 86-114 ( online ).
  • Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Documents of his life. 1870-1924 . Volume 1. Selected by Arnold Reisberg . Philipp Reclam jun., Leipzig 1977, DNB 780354265 , pp. 291-309.
  • Asea Briggs: Marx in London. An illustrated guide . British Broadcasting Corporation, London 1982, ISBN 0-563-20076-6 .
  • Harald Wessel : Tussy or thirty-two travel letters about the very eventful life of Eleanor Marx-Aveling . 4. edit Edition. Verlag für die Frau, Leipzig 1982, DNB 830403418 , pp. 252-265.
  • Rolf Hecker : On the trail of Marx and Engels in London. A photo report . In: Contributions to Marx-Engels research. New episode 2000 . Argument, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-88619-686-0 , pp. 251 f.
  • Tish Collins: The Marx-Memorial Library Today . In: Contributions to Marx-Engels research. New episode 2002 . Argument, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-88619-689-5 , pp. 287-294.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In 1939 there were more than "4000" students. (Colin Tish, p. 288).
  2. ↑ Temple 2008, pp. 111-113.
  3. ^ Yvonne Kapp : Eleanor Marx. The crowed years. (1884-1898) Vol. II. Lawrence and Wishart, 1976, p. 703.
  4. ↑ Chushichi Tsuzuki: Eleanor Marx. History of her life 1855-1898. Colloquium Verlag, Berlin 1981, ISBN 3-7678-0437-9 , p. 297.
  5. ↑ Harald Wessel: Tussy. Pp. 341 and 345.
  6. ↑ Number "22 to 38". (Asea Briggs, p. 91)
  7. ^ Marx Memorial Library . In: Ben Weinreb, Christopher Hibbert (Eds.): The London Encyclopedia. Macmillan, London 1993, ISBN 0-333-57688-8 , p. 515.

Coordinates: 51 ° 31 '22.8 "  N , 0 ° 6' 20.6"  W.