Letter 1 : Leipzig, July 7, 1916

Written: July 1916–October 1918.
First Published: Letters from Prison: by Rosa Luxemberg: with a portrait and a facsimile, Young International at Schönberg in Berlin, 1921–1923.
Source: An exact reproduction by the Square One pamphlets series by the Independent Labor Party in 1972, the notes and translation being the same as in the original 1923 edition.
Translated: (from the German) by Eden and Cedar Paul.
Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford and Brian Baggins,
Public Domain: Luxemburg Internet Archive 2005. This work is completely free.

These letters are personal rather than political and in 1923, all the proceeds went to the support of Liebknecht’s widow and children. A few of the letters were republished in a new English translation in 1998 by Humanities Press in The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg, edited by Bronner. Two letters, that of May 2 1917 and that of mid-December 1917 were published in The Rosa Luxemburg Reader, Monthly Review, 2004, that of May 2 1917 being a new translation, that of mid December the 1923 one.

Leipzig, July 7, 1916
(A postcard)

Rosa Luxemburg was arrested on July 10th. This postcard is the only one written while Rosa Luxemburg was still at liberty.

My dear little Sonya,^[1]

The heat is steamy and oppressive, as it so often is in Leipzig – I find the weather here very trying. This morning I sat for two hours beside the pond in the park, reading The Man of Property.^[2]

It’s brilliant. A little old woman sat down beside me, glanced at the title page, and smiled, saying: “That must be a fine book. I am fond of reading myself”. Before I settled down to read, of course I had a good look at the trees and shrubs in the park, and was glad to see that they were all old friends. It is quite different with human beings, for I find that contact with them grows continually more unsatisfying: I think I shall retire into a hermitage, like St. Antony – minus the temptations! Try not to worry.

With much love,
Rosa

Love to the children.

Footnotes

^[1] Pet name for Sophie Liebknecht, wife of Karl Liebknecht. R.L. sometimes uses the diminutive form Sonichka. Occasionally it is Sonyusha. Karl Liebknecht, son of Wilhelm Liebknecht, was born in 1871, and was murdered, like R.L., on the night of January 15th, 1919.

^[2] John Galsworthy’s novel.