FIRST ESTONIAN TRANSLATION OF MARX'S 'DAS KAPITAL'

MARX, KARL.

Kapital. Poliitilise Ökonoomia Kriitika [i.e. German "Das Kapital"].

Tallinn, Kirjastusühing "Soprus", 1936

4to. In contemporary half calf with gilt lettering to spine. Extremities with light wear and corners bumped. Housed in a nice full black cloth clamshell box with black leather title-label to spine with lettering in silver. Otherwise fine and clean. (8), 9-43, (3), 640 pp.

The rare first complete Estonian translation of Karl Marx's 'Das Kapital'. The comparatively late translation was due to the fact that German was Estonia’s official language and the language of grammar school and higher education prior to 1918/1920. It was replaced by Russian starting in the 1890s.

Translator Nigol Andresen (1899-1985) worked as a teatcher at various Estonian High Schools from 1918 to 1932. In 1932 he was dismissed for political reasons because of his membership in the Estonian Social Democratic Labor Part. In the same year he was elected to the Estonian Parliament, to which he formally belonged until 1937. In 1934 Andresen was expelled because of his contacts with the Communist Party from the Social Democratic Labor Party. He was then union secretary and became, after the Sovietization in 1940, a proponent of the new communist system. In a short period under the Vares Cabinet he functioned as foreign minister.

At the outbreak of the German-Soviet War in 1941 he went to the Soviet Union and lived in Moscow. After returning to Estonia, he was from 1946 to 1949 Member of the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic. However, at the infamous eighth plenum of the Estonian Communist Party of March 1950 he fell out of favor and was imprisoned. Only in 1955 he was released from custody.

Order-nr.: 59261