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This film is based on letters and manuscripts
of F. Engels from 1838 to 1842.
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To spite the Philistines,* I've grown myself
a moustache. Sending you my drawing.
*(who shaved their faces)
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THE YOUNG FRIEDRICH ENGELS
a portrait in letters*
*(all from Marx-Engels col. works, V.2)
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Soyuzmultfilm, Moscow &
DEFA animation, Dresden
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written by Klaus & Katja Georgi,
script editors R. Tomas, Arkadiy Snesarev
consultants H. Ulrich, H. Skambraks, N. Belousova
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art directors Vadim Kurchevskiy,
Vladimir Naumov, music V. Pich,
narrator M. Wagner / V. Tatarskiy
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animators Mariya Motruk,
T. Kazantseva, Yuriy Klepatskiy, M. Henke
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montage A. Uebe, sound H. Philipp
camera W. Baensch, M. Henke
exec. producers Iosif Boyarskiy, G. Hammer
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directors Katja Georgi, Fyodor Hitruk,
Klaus Georgi, Vadim Kurchevskiy
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In the summer of 1838 Friedrich Engels,
son of a rich manufacturer, left Barmen
(Wuppertal) to move to Bremen.
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Per his father's wishes,
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he was to receive a mercantile education
in the trading house of consul Leupold.
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Here, in Bremen, a correspondence
of the 17-year-old Engels with his sister
Maria and his school friends begins.
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Cari amici (dear friends)!
I miss you so much.
Now I must make do with letters -
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it's terrible. Here's a drawing showing
me waiting for your letters.
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Postman: Consul, sir, a letter for you!
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Consul Leupold: A-ha, good.
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Engels: None for me?
- No!
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500 boxes of sugar sold, thus, 250 000
pounds sold... a pound of coffee costs
well... nine-and-a-half... which sums up to...
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four silver groat, eight pfennig...
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Dear Maria, in front of my desk there is a
big window through which I can see almost the
whole town. I'll draw you the church, to start.
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Here in Bremen the merchants' houses
are all built in a very remarkable way.
The roofs are very close together.
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This is a scene from the Weser riverside.
One can observe the unloading of cargo here.
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Interesting fellows, aren't they?
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But old Roland, emblem of the city, is the best.
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I've just returned from the
daily parade on the great square.
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The great Hanseatic army make their
exercise there. About forty soldiers.
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The parade lasts two whole minutes.
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The soldiers come out, form lines,
prepare their weapons and leave again.
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A deserting soldier was caught yesterday.
Now he will receive sixty lashes.
Soldiers are always beaten with sticks here.
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Oh, the boss is here! I'm going back to work...
Five sacks of coffee, 17 sacks of sugar...
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A broker called Jan Krusbecker has
just arrived. I'll draw him for you.
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There he is. He has eyes like rockets and
an always half-melancholy, half-smiling air.
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This is an old wine merchant tasting sour wine.
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Next is the sales agent providing him this sourness.
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This guy, dead drunk, yells every morning:
"Imashijen, imashijen!", which means
"I am a citizen of Bremen".
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Engels to his friends Wilhelm
and Friedrich Graeber:
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Carissimi! In vostras epistolas haec
vobis sit respondentia. (My dearest ones,
let this be an answer to your letters.)
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Enough. No more Latin.
Anyway, the best thing here is that
there are a lot of newspapers.
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Dutch, English, French. Seizing the
opportunity, I learned Turkish and Japanese.
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Thus I know 25 languages and am going to
write a multilingual letter to you soon.
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I'll take now the English language
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No, better my beloved Italian...
Dolce Suave come el Saphiro
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Or Spanish....
Langue come viento en los Arbores
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Or Dutch.... Gelijk den damp
uut einer pijp tobac sehr genüklich (genoeglijk)
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A new newspaper,
"The Bremer Stattbote", just came out.
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It has a walking fellow on the first page.
He looks like this.
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Any nonsense is being printed
in this Stattbote
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I send pathetic lyrics there just for
fun, but they earnestly publish them.
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Going on. First I used black ink,
now there will be red.
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So, the most important thing...
my Spanish ballad failed.
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I have more and more doubts about
my poetry and its potential each day.
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Nevertheless, I will continue writing.
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I can't sleep at night,
ridden by the ideas of this century.
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By the way, I've read
various liberal publications here.
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They especially vilify that lousy goat
Ernst August, King of Hannover.
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There are plenty of ghosts in my side-street.
Luminous ghosts attack me from all sides.
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What should I, a poor man, do?
Become loyal? To hell with that!
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Hold on to Saxon moderateness?
Dreadful! If only I could sort it out!
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Engels to theology student
Friedrich Gerber:
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You say lack of doubt
is freedom of spirit?
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No! It is the greatest spiritual slavery.
Are we really to blindly believe the Bible
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merely because our parents tell us to?
I can only regard as divine a teaching
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that can stand the test of reason.
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When it's a matter of defending the freedom
to reason, I protest against all compulsion.
Man was born free. He is free.
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In March 1839, in Telegraph fur Deutchland
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the "Letter from Wuppertal" was published.
Its author was the 18-year-old Friedrich Engels.
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Terrible poverty prevails
among the lower classes.
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In Elberfeld alone,
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out of 2,500 children of school age
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1,200 are deprived of education
and grow up in the factories.
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The wealthy manufacturers
have a flexible conscience.
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Causing the death of
1 child more or 1 less
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does not doom a pietist's soul to hell.
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Oh, it seems that the article
has caused a stir!
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Here's the scene in Barmen.
What it means you can deduce for yourself.
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Your Friedrich Engels
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I add several strokes of my quill
showing its facility and speed.
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Dear Maria, there have been
substantial improvements in our office.
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You see a hammock which is occupied
by my person smoking a cigar.
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By the way, remind mother
to send me the
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works of Goethe as soon as possible.
I really need them.
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It is so hot today that, despite a stuffy
nose, I want to take a swim in the Weser.
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Recently I swam across the Weser
four times in a row.
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Hardly anybody in Bremen
could compete with me.
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Besides, every Sunday
I occupy myself with horseback riding.
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Oh damn! His ancientness,
mister Leupold, has arrived.
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As Shakespeare says,
it's time to get into a serious tone...
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Well, let's get back to the fine arts.
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I want to draw you the
haircuts young people here have.
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These guys look like calves,
I'll be damned!
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Here's my neighbour, Georg,
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in English, George.
The first dandy in Hamburg.
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Combine both drawings...
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Add a skinny torso and long legs...
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And you will get a full picture of this fool.
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He gets new nonsense in his head every day.
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He's simply inexhaustible
in distasteful and boring ideas.
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Awake is this idler at least 20 hours, during
which he wears me out me with his chattering.
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Genius of latest fashion.
Fool of latest fashion.
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He who finds just letters and words
in heaps of writings is not a wise man.
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The meanings will remain foggy to him,
even with his head full of phrases.
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Embody your aspirations yourselves,
look for new ways yourselves.
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Following old steps won't lead
to a final victory.
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When I see the Prussian coat of arms,
the spirit of freedom overtakes me.
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The Prussian king is Friedrich Wilhelm
the Just. I hate the bastard!
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There is no time period more full of royal
crimes than the years from 1816 to 1830.
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Almost every one of the kings of that era
deserves the capital punishment.
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Devoted Charles X...
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Ferdinand VII of Spain.
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Franz of Austria.
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The patricide Aleksandr and
his equally guilty brother Nikolay.
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I expect good from a monarch only
when his head is spat upon by common folk
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and his windows are shattered by revolution!
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Dear Maria,
my musical lessons go on.
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I've taken up composing a new chorale.
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There's no accompaniment yet. It's
possible I will rewrite it here and there.
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This winter I want to take up dance lessons
in order to get some gracefulness into my legs.
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00:11:23,580 --> 00:11:28,610
Also, we have lessons in fencing now.
You can see me handling the sabre here.
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I fence passionately now
and soon will cut you all in half.
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Recently the tenth anniversary
of the July Revolution was celebrated.
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The most beautiful representation
of the people's will.
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A storm is approaching us from France.
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Its echo rises in the depths of our nation.
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Thrones are shaking and the kingly
scepter is trembling.
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Ernst August, I bravely
gaze at you with an angry look.
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You are just as calm on your throne
as me in my boat in the eye of a storm.
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I've grown myself a moustache and
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amuse myself with the gentry
who are stunned by my impertinence
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to show up in good society looking like that.
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Yet, the ladies are exalted.
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Some fools express themselves
in excessive eloquence.
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These gentlemen are incapable of developing
their thoughts logically even for three seconds.
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It's enough to ask them some innocent questions
and they splendidly contradict themselves.
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By the way, I too can preach,
even without preparations.
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Oh you, political patsies!
Oh you, heroes!
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The tide of time will drag you into politics
all the same and drown your kingdom of ideals.
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You will be standing like rams in a gateway then...
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Dear Greber, I confess I don't have
the desire for continuing our devout disputes.
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We have ceased to understand each other.
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I am now on a direct route to Hegelism.
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I study Hegel's philosophical history.
Magnificent work!
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His titanic ideas take me by terrible force.
I...
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Damn...as soon as I sit down by the book,
office work crumbles over...
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"Your most respectful and obedient",
these were
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the last words I wrote in a business
letter, as I finished
my work at the office today
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Thank God that I too am leaving this
dreary hole where there is nothing to do
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but fence, eat, drink, sleep and drudge.
Your Friedrich.
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In autumn of 1841 Engels departs
to Berlin to serve in the army.
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At the same time he attends
Berlin University as an un-enrolled student.
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Dear Maria, do you see how picturesquely,
but strictly against regulations,
I have put on my uniform coat?
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My uniform is most impressive
and I'm worthy to be put on show.
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Incidentally I have now been a bombardier for
4 weeks in the royal infantry-artillery company.
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I was on parade drill this morning
from 8 till half past 11.
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During this I got a very stiff
telling-off from the Lieutenant-Colonel
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I also have to suffer being growled
and shouted at by my Captain
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but think to myself:
who cares, let him growl.
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Anyway, it's time for me to go.
Your brother Friedrich.
Berlin, Doroteinstrasse 56.
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From an 1842 article by Engels,
"Diary of a guest Student":
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Berlin University enjoys
the reputation of standing in
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the mainstream of contemporary thought
and of having made itself
this arena of intellectual battles.
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Dear Maria, This tender little flower will,
I hope, compensate for the long time
which I have kept you waiting.
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Recently I shocked the poet Ruckert
at University.
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During his lecture I sat
right in front of him
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He looked at my shiny buttons for so long
that he lost his train of thought.
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Engels to his publisher Arnold Ruge:
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00:15:35,120 --> 00:15:38,870
Dear esteemed Doctor. Enclosed please find
an article for the [Deutsche] Jahrbücher.
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I have put the work on Dante
aside for the time being.
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Dear Maria!
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00:15:50,330 --> 00:15:56,710
You will certainly not have heard yet
that Herr Liszt has been here.
I'm sending you his portrait.
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There are pictures of the great, charming,
heavenly, genial, divine Liszt in every house here.
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The Berlin ladies
were so besotted by him,
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that there was a fight for possession
of a glove he had dropped.
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00:16:09,930 --> 00:16:20,550
Countess Schlippenbach poured the tea which
the great Liszt had left in a cup into her
Eau-de-Cologne bottle and is keeping it since like a holy relic.
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00:16:21,570 --> 00:16:25,880
The young ladies fought over him
but he snubbed them frightfully,
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and preferred to go and drink
champagne with a couple of students.
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Engels to Arnold Ruge:
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00:16:39,080 --> 00:16:43,110
You ask me why I didn't send you my
article "Shelling and Revelation"?
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Because I had in mind to put out
an entire pamphlet against him.
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00:16:46,670 --> 00:16:51,850
"Schelling, the philosopher in Christ"
is also from my pen.
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00:16:54,870 --> 00:17:01,330
Meantime,
in Berlin University a stormy polemic,
around Hegelian dialectics, takes place.
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Its greatest opposer was
the philosopher Schelling.
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00:17:07,040 --> 00:17:11,250
The 22 year old Engels sharply took
a stand against Schelling with articles,
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arousing great interest not only in
Germany, but across its border too.
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The letter to Arnold Ruge, continued:
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Besides this, I am not a Doctor.
and cannot ever become one.
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I am only a merchant
and a Royal Prussian artillerist
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so kindly spare me that title.
Yours sincerely, Friedrich Engels Oswald.
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Dear Marie!
Today I can tell you the glad news
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that we are probably not going
on parade tomorrow.
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His Majesty, the King, has
condescended to leave for Potsdam.
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All of which suits me very well.
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Oh yes, I own a dog now.
It's a handsome young spaniel,
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and quite crazy. Nevertheless,
I have taught him one thing.
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When I point to someone and say
"that's an aristocrat!"
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he goes wild with rage
and growls hideously.
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Engels to Arnold Ruge:
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00:18:19,820 --> 00:18:22,710
This time I write you to announce
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that I won't be sending you anything anymore.
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I have decided to abandon all
literary work for a while.
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I have learned enough to form my own viewpoint
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and, when necessary, to defend it,
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but not enough to be able to work for it
with success and in the proper way.
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My literary activity thus far
has been merely
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an experiment to test the extent
to which my natural capacities
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would allow me to help
bring forth progress
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and participate actively
in the movement of the century.
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In November 1842
Engels departs for Manchester.
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Here a new period in his life begins.
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In the struggling proletariat
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he saw the only force
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that was capable of changing the world.
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October, 1844.
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Dear Marx...
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Subs by Niffiwan (2022), and Eus
(2018-2019) based on earlier subs by
dust-angel & a Vol 2 M.E.-Works translation