Rosa Luxemburg was celebrated in New York at NYU's Tishman Auditorium on March 14th, where actress and writer Deborah Eisenberg brought Rosa's remarkable correspondence to life on stage. Eisenberg joined a distinguished panel of Luxemburg scholars who reminded us of the continuing importance of Luxemburg's work today: Paul Le Blanc, Anthony Arnove, Helen C. Scott, Peter Hudis and Annelies Laschitza.
Deborah Eisenberg, an American short-story writer, actor and teacher who received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2009, is the author of several collections of stories including The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg,which has just been awarded this year's PEN/Faulkner Award.
Many thanks to Noel Benford for making this footage available. This event was organized to launch The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg.
In International Women's Week, the Guardian asks 'who are the heroines of literature?' The Books podcast 'Heroines and feminists' profiles Rosa Luxemburg.
Claire Armitstead, literary editor of the Guardian, spoke to self-confessed Rosa Luxemburg "fanette" Susie Orbach, David Edgar and Dr Lea Haro at the launch at the Swedenborg Society about why Luxemburg's work is so personally inspirational for them and its value for society today.
Harriet Walter read a selection of Rosa Luxemburg's letters, ranging from her arrival in Berlin in 1898, to one of her very last to Clara Zetkin before her death in 1918. Included in the selection is a letter that shows Luxemburg to be a critic of the use of political language, revealing her own passionate approach.
Jacqueline Rose and Lea Haro speak to Louise Hidalgo about Rosa Luxemburg's life and work for "Witness" on BBC World Service.
Harriet Walter brings The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg to life, beginning with one of the first—a love letter to Leo Jogiches, written from Switzerland in 1893.
Rose and Haro give insights into Luxemburg's childhood in Poland, and the start of her political life whilst attending secondary school in Warsaw. They follow her through her rise in German Social Democracy and the development of her ideas, including about the mass strike, her opposition to the First World War, the founding of the Spartacist league, her imprisonments and finally to her murder.
Luxemburg spent much of the war in prison, following news of the Russian Revolution from behind bars. In November 1917, she writes to Clara Zetkin,
I am now convinced that in the next few years a great upheaval in all of Europe is unavoidable especially if the war lasts much longer. The events in Russia are of amazing grandeur and tragedy. Lenin and his people will not of course be able to win out against the tangle of chaos, but their attempt by itself stands as a deed of world historical significance and a genuine milestone.
Visit the BBC World Service to listen to the programme.