2023-06-02 16:14:25
Friday, June 2, 2023, 12:55 p.m.
“It is a book that is interested in history and the evolution of society, it is not an edition aimed at experts”. This is how the translator Idoia Santamaría sums up the essay by the thinker Karl Marx, ‘Luis Bonaparte’s Brumaire’ (Igela), recently translated into Basque. The spark or starting point is the coup d’état delivered by Louis Bonaparte in Paris on December 2, 1851, but the purpose is deeper, as Santamaria said: “It is not a Time.news, there are no details, it interprets these events to explain to itself and the reader why the workers’ revolution of 1848 failed. He doesn’t want to tell, he wants to interpret and come up with an explanation.”
The text is also not strictly chronological, because Marx was clear that the reader knew about the coup d’état. In 1852 he first published it separately in the magazine ‘Rebelion’ and then in 1869 in a book. That edition is considered canonical because, in addition to Marx’s text, it contains a lot of instructions “both about what Marx says and about Marx’s interpretation”.
This is why the documentation process has been so important. “I’m not a historian, the 18th century. I knew something more about the French Revolution in the 19th century, but Much less than the century.” In addition, the criteria have been established and decision-making has been adjusted. In the words of Santamaria, since Marx wrote about the events, he did not have to give terrible explanations because the princes, deputies or the quarrels between the different monarchies described were familiar to a person who read the press. Thus, they have opted for placing some 200 footnotes “in order to place the current reader in the text of 150 years ago, it is not a lecture edition for Marx specialists. Only if there is any information that will prevent the reader from moving forward in the sentence or paragraph, we have put a short note about it, but without being an obstacle.’
The proposal was made to Santamaria by Lander Majuelo Igela, the manager of the Igela publishing house. “He explained to me that with this book he wanted to create another new line in the publishing line, to also release works that are not fiction”. The collection is specifically called ‘Ordu urdina’ and the intention is to present chronicles, memoirs or letter exchanges that tend to remain on the margins of literature. As Majuelo explained, it will be “slow” and the plan is to publish one or more books a year, linking them to the classics and collecting “non-contemporary” essays that are not available in academic or bookstores.
‘Louis Bonaparte’s Eighteenth Brumaire’
It was nice for Santamaria to be the debut, but he has treated Marx as he has treated the other translations. “It gave me more respect that I’m not a historian and that I didn’t know what happened that well. In order not to get into trouble, I had to prepare well in advance not to get into trouble with those friends.” Along the way, documentation has been the main challenge
Thus, Santamaria thinks that the conversation written by the historian Emilio Majuelo can be very helpful for the reader. “Because it places Marx very well historically and makes a brief but very detailed review of his work. For those who don’t know it, it can be a good way to get into the book, because afterwards Marx interprets certain events rather than telling them.”
Marx’s voice in Basque
The second main challenge has been style, finding Marx’s voice in Basque. “XIX He is a prose writer of the 20th century and, like most, he chains long sentences and many centuries one after the other. In order to bring this mold to Basque, he has made it clear that he could not fill the book with simple sentences, even more so if the authors do not use simple sentences. “You have to make a text that can be read in Basque with sentences that have a slow tempo and rhythm used by Marx, so that the reader does not have to start the sentence from the beginning again and again to understand.”
It is not the first attempt to bring Marx into Basque and Santamaria has taken into account those published works, most of which were published in the 1970s. “Xabier Mendigure’s Bereziartu presented a ‘selection of Marx’s works’, which is like an anthology and includes the first and last chapters of the Brumaire. I have consulted them mainly for the matter of terminology, to see how they clarified the Orleanists, Bonapartists and similar issues of the time.’ In terms of syntax, one of the main challenges in translation, Basque prose has sought fewer solutions due to its evolution.
Santamaria’s career has been helpful in this field, as he brought the German writer WG Sebald’s ‘Austerlitz’ into Basque in 2022. “He He accepted the influence of the German prose writers of the 20th century and although I have moved from fiction to essays, I have continued with German and I was somehow trained in the difficulty of complicated sentences.’
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