Daughters of Karl Marx

Snezana 28 .12.2021

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The life of the Marx family after the expulsion from Germany in 1848 was reduced to frequent migrations through France and Belgium, until, finally, they settled in England. They were accompanied by misery, poverty and disease. With modest income from newspaper articles, and mostly due to the financial support of Friedrich Engels, they somehow managed to make ends meet.Karl Marx and Jenny von Westphalen had twelve children, but only Jenny, Laura and Eleanor lived to middle age. The Marx family was ruled by a patriarchal upbringing. They learned foreign languages, played the piano, painted and embroidered, as did all the exemplary middle-class ladies in the mid-19th century.

Dženi Marks Longe

The eldest daughter loved to read, familiar with contemporary political events. The socialist French press of the 1960s recognized her talent, and in 1870 caused a storm in the British Parliament with a series of articles in the French magazine Marseille. She published articles under the pseudonym J. Williams, the topic was the brutal treatment of Irish political prisoners in the UK. Under public pressure, they were soon released.Jenna's promising career ended abruptly with her marriage to the French revolutionary Longe, member of the First International, who believed that a woman had a place at home, with her family, and not in the socialist press.

Jenny suffocated family life in the suburbs, far from any important political activity. In one of his last letters, he complains to his sister Laura: "I believe that even monotonous work in a factory does not kill as much as endless marital duties." She dies seriously ill at the age of thirty-eight.

Laura Marks

Laura was the most traditional of the Marx sisters. She obediently followed her father, and later the will of her future husband. She did not possess the energy of her two sisters and did not like to be in the center of attention. She wrote about herself: "Since I am used to staying away, they often don't notice me and easily forget."

Laura dreamed of a happy marriage and many children, and she experienced the exact opposite: eternal flight and poverty. After the collapse of the Paris Commune in 1871, Paul Lafarg , like all prominent French Marxists, had to flee the country. Most of them fled to London. Lafarge fled to Spain with Laura, and returned to his homeland two years later. Laura helped her husband spread socialism in Spain and France, and at the same time dedicated her life to translating her father's works.

Laura and Paul ended their lives in a revolutionary way: with the suicide pact of 1911, believing that, at that time, on the threshold of old age, they had nothing more to offer to that same revolution. In his youth, Lafarge promised himself that he would not live to be seventy, which he put into practice. They were buried in the Pere Lachaise cemetery, and one of the speakers at the funeral was Lenin himself.

Elenor Marks

Eleanor's youngest sister was adorned with an astonishing intellect: she allegedly recited Shakespeare at the age of three and defeated her father in chess, and already at the age of eight she wrote about the position of workers in France and Prussia.

She remained a consistent, tireless activist all her life. She fought for workers' rights to eight-hour working hours, organizing strikes and uniting unions. She advocated against anti-Semitism, as well as for the rights of workers of Jewish origin in the East End (for that occasion, she tried to learn Yiddish). She also translated her father's works and the works of great writers into English. She also supported herself as a typist. She gave speeches in Hyde Park and worked as a translator at socialist rallies.He meets Edward Aveling, an English socialist and a failed playwright, a well-known womanizer and prodigal, a master scandal when, it seems, everyone else hated him, except Eleanor, of course. Her great friend George Bernard Shaw could not believe that such a woman, longed for by left-wing intellectuals of the time, fell for the deceiver Edward. Aveling was a temperamental, pathological liar, but an exceptional speaker. Eleanor lived with him in an extramarital affair, because Evelyn was already married.

While Eleanor was busy organizing a congress of miners in 1987, Eveling, learning that his wife had passed away, secretly and under a false name, married a young actress. After learning about Edward's double life, Eleanor decides to end her life. Perhaps the death of Emma Bovary, her favorite literary heroine, served Eleanor as an inspiration for suicide: at the age of forty-three, she ended up drinking cyanide, dressed in a white dress. After her death, Eveling declared her insane, burned her letters and declared himself the heir to her property.

Unfortunately, we are witnessing that the presence of women in the revolution is being neglected in the 21st century as well. For official school programs, the active role of women in great historical milestones does not seem to exist. Who were Rosa Luxemburg, Emma Goldman, Sofia Scholl, Corazon Aquino? Everyone has heard of Lenin, but he would hardly have succeeded without the help of his wife Nadja Krupskaya. Jaa Asanteva, Kitur Chenama and Queen Mavia successfully led large armies, but even today, warriors are viewed with contempt and ridicule.

Literature Biography of Karl Marx

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