ΜΑΡΞ, Καρλ [MARX, Karl]

Το ΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΟ: Κριτική της Πολιτικής Οικονομίας [Capital: Criticism of Political Economy], in 6 Volumes. Translation and Interpretive Notes by Yiannis D. Skouriotis.

Athens: ΑΝΑΞΙΜΑΝΔΡΟΣ [Anaximandros Publications], 1954 - 1972. 21.3x15cm: Four Books in Six Volumes (Vol. I: [104pp.], 1-480pp.; Vol. IA: 481-848pp., + 214pp. of notes, tables, and indexes; Vol. II: [30pp.], 1-559pp., + 24pp. of interpretive notes; VIII: [32pp.], 1-608pp.; VIIIA: 609-1121pp., 32pp. of Engels’s Epilogue, + 95pp. of notes, tables, and indexes; VΔ: [36pp.], 1-476pp., + 68pp. of interpretive notes. The first two volumes comprising The Process of Capital Production, the third volume constituting The Process of Capital Circulation, volumes four and five being The Entire Process of Capitalist Production, and the final volume constituting Theories about Surplus Value. Text in Greek. Bound in black leather with gilt titling and blindstamped portrait of Marx to front and spine. Crinkling to pastedowns, with toning to free endpapers. Scattered foxing and soiling to text block edges, mostly confined to top edge. Internally clean. Near Fine, in a beautiful contemporary binding.

The first attempts, though unsuccessful, to translate Das Kapital into Greek occurred during the interwar period. The first complete Greek translation of Das Kapital (complemented later with Theories about Surplus Value), was produced by the lawyer Yiannis D. Skouriotis and published at his own expense in a series of volumes beginning in 1954. His translation was based primarily on a German edition published in East Berlin in 1953, itself a reprint of the 1932 edition issued by the Marx–Engels–Lenin Institute in Moscow. Although Skouriotis’s work is generally regarded as a high‑quality translation, its linguistic style renders it difficult for contemporary readers because of his attempt to combine conceptual clarity with the ‘demotic’, or non-standardized vernacular, form of Greek. As a result, while Skouriotis accomplished a monumental task, his edition did not remain in print for long, leaving the later ‘Mavromatis translation’ as the primary translation in Greek.

The history of communism in modern Greece is quite complex, as is establishing publication history for the Skouriotis translation. Most sources identify his translation as being independently published, or published at his own expense, without acknowledging any specific publishing house that may have undertaken the actual publication and distribution of the text. The numerous booksellers we consulted in Greece corroborated that the book’s publication history is indeed ambiguous. Thus, we cannot state with certainty that this is the first edition in Greek; however, our research suggests that it is, at minimum, an early edition.

Price: $750.00

Item #10606