Alex Kurtagic
Feb 20, 20191 min
Hagiographical account of Rosa Luxemburg's life, focusing more on her emotional and personal life. We will not find any critical passages here, nor embarrassing facts; the negatives are presented neutrally or glossed over. Rather than a complete picture, we get a rose-tinted, soft-focus, slightly dreamy one of someone who set out on a path inspired by Russian terrorists. It's the story of a woman with a terrible identity crisis, who, as a young girl, fell in with a bad crowd, ended up in prison, learnt about Marx, got romantically involved with a sociopath (Leo Jogiches), and dedicated herself to communism. Now, this Leo Jogiches, whom I suspect was autistic, is probably the real protagonist here, because he was the driving force much of the time. Very troubled. Very intense. Completely anti-social and destructive. At the moment you only learn of him indirectly, via Ettinger's and Nettl's biographies. I would like someone to write his biography, because his life was truly grim.