THE FIRST BULGARIAN TRANSLATIONS OF MARX'S 'DAS KAPITAL'

MARX, KARL.

Kapitalut. Kritika na politicheskata ekonomiia. [i.e. Bulgarian "Das Kapital"]. [Translated by Dimitar Blagoev] (+) Kapitalut. [Translated by Georgi Bakalov] (+) Karlu Marksu i Negovoto Vreme [i.e. Bulgarian: "Karl Marx and his Time"].

[Blagoev-translation:] Sofia, [presumably 1910 but august 1909 stated on last leaf of preface] & [Ba

[Blagoev-translation:] 8vo. In a contemporary full cloth binding with red leather title-label with gilt lettering to spine. Spine with wear and light soiling to extremities. Hindges a bit weak First 10 leaves with stain in margin, otherwise a good copy. (6), XXXI, (1), 675, (1) pp.
{Bakalov-translation:] 8vo. In contemporary half calf with five raised bands and gilt lettering to spine. Wear to extremities and hindges a bit weak Repair to inner margin of title-page. Internally fine and clean. XXX, (2), 598, (2) pp. + frontiespiece of Marx. Withbound is "Karl Marx and His Time": (1)-180 pp.

A most interesting set consisting of the two first Bulgarian translations of Marx' 'Das Kapital'. Quite extraordinary in the history of translations of 'Das Kapital' two Bulgarian translation appeared, presumably, simultaneously and both translations seems to have been actively used though the 20ies and 30ies and they were reprinted simultaneously in 1930-31, both edited by Todor Pavlov. To our best knowledge Bulgarian is the only language which have had two complete translation published at the same time.

The Bakalov-translation is certainly published in 1910. The Blagoew-translation, printed in Sofia, has often been referred to as being printed in 1909 and has occasionally been referred to as the first translation of the two, solely because his foreword was proceeded by "August, 1909". That the book was actually printed in 1909 has, however, recently been disputed. Both translators were well aware of each other and perhaps Blagoew simply wrote "August 1909" to gain primacy in being the first to have a complete translation published: "I was not able to prove this, but this is either a typo (unlikely) or was Blagoev's way to acquire primacy over the other translation from 1910, that of Georgi Bakalov" (Panayotov, Capital without Value: The Soviet-Bulgarian Synthesis).

Translator Dimitar Blagoev, the founder and leader of the Bulgarian Worker's Social Democratic Party became (or Narrow Socialists, or Tesniaki), became the the first Marxist propangandist in Bulgaria.
About the present translation Blagoev said: "The translation was made from Russian, but we can rightly say that it came from Russian as well as from Russian German and French. We all had four Russian issues
but the basis for this was the last Russian translation, which was edited by G. P. Struwe, as it came closest to the original. In all this, however, we had to compare, almost line by line, with the original of the last, fourth German edition of Friedrich Engels and the French translation, which was specially reviewed by Marx himself."

Blagoev was also a prominent proponent of ideas for the establishment of a Balkan Federation, leading the Narrow Socialists into the Communist International in 1919, where the party changed its name to the Bulgarian Communist Party. However, during this period Blagoev and the party as a whole did not completely adopt Bolshevik's positions on the basic questions. This determined the party's policies during the Vladaya Soldiers' Rebellion of 1918 and the military coup of 9 June 1923 when the party adopted a position of neutrality. He was also an opponent of the failed September Uprising and thought that there were no ripe conditions for a revolution in Bulgaria yet.
A partial translation by Blagoev (only 122 pp) was published in 1905 and is of the utmost scarcity.

Georgi Bakalov published his translation from the German, in his hometown Stara Zagora. The publisher was The Liberal Club, which was a printshop rather than a proper publisher. He was also a member of Bulgarian Social Democratic Party as of 1891 and, likely much similar to many of the early Bulgarian socialists, was active in education and socalled 'uchitelsko delo' (teachers' affairs). In 1891-93 he studied in Geneva and quickly befriended Plekhanov, whom he translated in the 1890s.

OCLC only list no copies of either translation. We know, however, that a copy of both translations are held in the SS. Cyril and Methodius National Library (Bulgaria).

Order-nr.: 57297