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Progress Report: January 2014

January 25, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

While I’ve been posting plenty of draft translations to the blog, it’s been some time since I’ve been able to say much about the progress of the Bakunin Library project. The publisher and I spent quite a bit of last year negotiating the shape of the Bakunin Reader and the subsequent volumes, and there has been a lot of mostly useful back and forth in the process. But progress has not always been without a hitch, and as we entered December of last year I found myself at the beginning of another look through Bakunin’s works, trying to outline a […]

Letters to a Frenchman on the Present Crisis (6 of 6) (1870)

January 24, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

Letter VI September 15 Having said what I think of the possible union of the workers and peasants to save France, I want to return again to the essential point of my thesis, namely the absolute impossibility for any government, republican or not, and especially of the government of Gambetta et Co., to prevent the catastrophe that is brewing and that can be averted only by the direct and almighty action of the people themselves. If it return, in the course of my demonstration, to some arguments that I have already used, it is because there are some things we […]

A Million Words

January 19, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

It’s been quiet here on the blog, which usually means I’ve been busy elsewhere. This time is no exception. The next phase of the work on Proudhon involves writing up some truly introductory material, which is always slow, meticulous work. The Corvus Editions project is at another awkward transitional point, unsurprisingly given the state of the book trade, so I’ve been trying to take a hard look at the viable options there. And I’ve also made a number of publishing commitments, which are taking big bites out of my work day. Mostly, though, 2014 looks like it’s shaping up to […]

Letters to a Frenchman on the Present Crisis (1870)

January 19, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

Letters to a Frenchman on the Present Crisis (September 1-8, 1870, Locarno, Switzerland) Letter to a Frenchman ___________ My dear friend, The latest events have placed France in such a position, that it can no longer be saved from a long and terrible slavery, from ruin, poverty, and annihilation, except by a rising en masse of the armed people. Your principal army being destroyed, — and that is no longer in doubt today, — there remains to France only two outcomes: either to submit sheepishly, shamefully, to the insolent yoke of the Prussians, to bow beneath the staff of […]

Speech of the citizen Bakunin to a public assembly of foreign socialists (1868)

January 19, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

Speech of the citizen Bakunin to a public assembly of foreign socialists November 23, 1868 [After saying that the Assembly had not only gathered to pay homage to the memory of the brave republican Baudin, murdered by the brigands of December, but also to express its devotion to the principles of the democratic and social Republic, the citizen Bakunin expressed himself in these terms:] We are socialists, [he said,] that is to say that we all want: Equality of political, economic and social conditions for all; Equality of the means of support, education, and instruction for all children of both […]

The Swiss Police (1870)

January 18, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

[I found this article in the midst of revising a translation of “The Bears of Berne and the Bear of Saint Petersburg,” which covers much the same topic at considerably more length.] The Swiss Police It appears that all the police of Europe have now put themselves in the service of the Russian government. Some very active searches continue, it is said, in Germany, in Switzerland, in France and even in England. Who are they seeking? Is it some political conspirators? No, doubtless, that would be too awkward, for excepting the governments of England, which have never ceased to conspicuously […]

A Poster from the Lyon Commune (1870)

January 18, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

[Poster, Lyon, September, 27 1870] French Republic REVOLUTIONARY FEDERATION OF THE COMMUNES The disastrous situation in which the Country finds itself; the impotence of the official powers and the indifference of the privileged classes have put the French nation on the edge of the abyss. If the People organized in a revolutionary manner do not make haste to act, their future is lost, the Revolution is lost, all is lost. Inspired by the immensity of the danger, and considering that the People’s desperate action can not be delayed for a single moment, the delegates of the Federated Committeesfor the Salvation […]

Jenny P. d’Héricourt, “A letter from America” (1868)

January 17, 2014

[I’ve been working on the remaining untranslated portions of Jenny d’Héricourt’s Woman Affranchised, which has included a number of pleasant surprises, including some borrowings from her adversary Proudhon that suggest she was a close and careful reader of much of his work. I also made another search through the online archives for material I hadn’t seen and ran across this letter to La Solidarité: journal des principes, a journal published by Charles Fauvety, who was both a friend of Héricourt and an old collaborator of Proudhon’s. Fauvety was also indirectly connected, through association with Alphonse-Louis Constant, aka Eliphas Lévi, with […]

Jean Grave, “The Adventures of Nono” (1901) – Full translation

January 1, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ve completed a working translation of Jean Grave’s “The Adventures of Nono,” a children’s book written for the Ferrer Schools. It’s a strange and fascinating novel, with a style and vocabularly not quite appropriate in some places for most children, but with sections that seem well wrought for that purpose. I’m going to have to think about this one a bit before I make final decisions about those questions of style and vocabulary in the revision stage, but for now I think this is a pretty good representation of Grave’s work. Click the image in the sidebar for a pdf […]

Flora Tristan, “The Modern Utopians” (1846)

December 24, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ve started translating a short posthumous work by Flora Tristan, “The Emancipation of Woman,” published in 1846. I’m presenting the final chapter, which includes brief appraisals of a number of prominent socialists, including Proudhon. You’ll also find a comparatively glowing paragraph on one Simon Ganneau, a Saint-Simonian heretic known as the Mapah, who believed himself the androgyne incarnation of both the Mère and Père (Ma+Pa), messiah-figures sought by Saint-Simon’s followers. He founded a religion called Evadaisme, a name combining those of Eve and Adam. The whole work is quite interesting, combining influences from various early socialist schools with Tristan’s own […]