Collectibles
– Survey –
The Lubitz' Collections primarily consist of books, pamphlets, other printed material and some manuscripts. In addition, some other material (like memorabilia, busts, video and audio tapes, DVDs, reproductions of photographs and other pictures in poster format, flyers, ex libris and book stamps as well as a few objects of the genre "Trotsky stuff") are forming part of our collection, too. A small selection of such material is presented within the framework of our small picture galleries.
We are very proud to be in possession of one of the outstanding and very rare busts of Leon Trotsky sculpted in 1945 by Duncan P. Ferguson (1901-1974), an American sculptor of great talent; Ferguson produced 12 copies of this sculptural master work (size: 44 cm high), which were given to the various regional branches of the SWP (Socialist Workers Party, at that time being the American section of the Fourth International, launched in 1938) of which Ferguson had become a member. We purchased one of those 12 copies in 1994 from Asher Harer (1912-2004), a veteran of the American Trotskyist movement, through the good offices of Bolerium Books, a second-hand bookseller in San Francisco, California. In 1994, the very well preserved and nearly 50 years old original plaster head was professionally restaurated and a bronze head was casted on our behalf at the bronze foundry Frank Herweg Kunst- und Bildgusswerkstatt, Berlin-Kreuzberg. Thus, both a bronze bust as well as an original plaster head are forming veritable highlights of our Trotskyana Collection.
We also acquired a bronze casting of a miniature version of the Trotsky bust originally sculpted by Clare Sheridan (1885-1970) in 1920. An original plaster version of Sheridan's Trotsky bust was donated to the Museo Casa de León Trotsky (Coyoacán, México) by Sara Jacobs (Weber). Two copies were made from it: one in marble, now exhibited in Trotsky's office, another one in bronze, being in Esteban Volkov's possession. The bronze casting which now forms part of our Trotskyana collection was made by Ismael Rodríguez (México, D.F.) in Summer 2006 through the good offices of Esteban Volkov (México, D.F.) and Gabriel García Higueras (Lima)
Within the framework of TrotskyanaNet we present
Video and Audio Cassettes, DVDs
Here's a selective list of sound cassettes, video tapes and DVDs containing Trotsky films, lectures about Trotsky and the like, which form part of our Trotskyana collection, occasionally with some annotations and background information:
- Trotsky's home movies / directed by Oliver Curtis. Movies taken by Alex Buchman [1939/40]. - London : Channel Four, BBC, 1990. - 1 videocassette (VHS-PAL), running time: 40 min.
Video recording of a TV programme broadcast on Aug. 29, 1990 as part of Bundung Ltd.'s 'Rear Window' series for Channel 4 (BBC) on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Trotsky's assassination. It features the amateur movies filmed on a hand-held Bell & Howell camera by Alex Buchman between December 1939 and March 1940, depicting Trotsky, Nataliia Sedova, several guards, visitors and other people inside and outside the famous house in Avenida Vienna, Coyoacán, Mexico, where Trotsky spent the last exile years of his life. Trotsky's home movies provide a quite unique glimpse into Trotsky's day-to-day activities, from picnicking with friends and relatives and collecting cacti to animated discussions with political supporters taking place in his study. These rare and remarkable film documents are accompanied by a roundtable discussion in which Alex Buchman, Tamara Deutscher, Esteban Volkov, Veronica Volkov, and Stuart Hook participated. Our videocassette contains copies of Buchman's original films, too. Alex Buchman (1911-2003) was a retired aeronautical engineer and longtime amateur photographer who went to Mexico in 1939 to show Trotsky his photographs and films he took in China where he had been active in the Trotskyist Left Opposition and an eyewitness of the Japanese aggression. While he was in Coyoacán, Alex Buchman was enlisted to improve the security system and served as a guard. He stayed there for 5 months 1939/40 and took hundreds of still photographs (including some colour pictures) and a film of Trotsky.
- Exile in Buyukada : Leon Trotsky's exiled years in Istanbul. - [Venice, Cal.] : Pathfinder Home Entertainment, 2002. - 1 DVD videodisc, running time: 1 h 12 min.
This DVD videodisc is a release of a fascinating documentary drama produced by Ayda Yavuz and Bravo Productions in 2000. Turan Yavuz functioned as director of the film; he also wrote the screenplay, chiefly based upon the first chapter of Isaac Deutscher's famous The prophet outcast, the third volume of his great Trotsky trilogy which was originally published in 1963. The film is in Russian, French and Turkish language with English subtitles and narrated enchantingly by Vanessa Redgrave, renowned British actress and longtime activist of the Healyist current of British Trotskyism. Trotsky is personified by Russian actor Viktor Sergachev (bearing a strong resemblance to the Trotsky of 1939/40 rather than that of 1929/30), surpassing the meager performance of Richard Burton in Joseph Losey's The assassination of Trotsky produced in 1972.
Exile in Buyukada is a well done hybrid of drama and documentary aiming at historical truth; it depicts Trotsky being exiled and deprived of Soviet citizenship in early 1929 and shows him during the first years of his third exile, living as a man without visa in Turkey (1929-33). The first shots are showing him together with his wife Natal'ia on the deck of a Russian vessel on the way from Odessa to Constantinople (renamed Istanbul in 1930), then first residing there in the Soviet consulate, and eventually moving to Prinkipo (Turkish name: Büyük-Ada, or, Buyukada), an island situated in the Marmara Sea, some 20 miles from Constantinople and inhabited mainly by Greeks and Turks. The film gives good impressions of how much Trotsky's fate depended on the good will and tolerance of the government of the young Turkish Republic and of his futile attempts to find asylum in one of the western countries. It points out that Trotsky's safety was a continuing preoccupation for Turkish officials and police, and it demonstrates Trotsky's great concern about the rise of fascism in Germany, about the failures and weaknesses of the Stalinized Comintern and about the consolidation of Stalin's dictatorship in the USSR. It gives good impression, too, of the various family troubles (e.g. the suicide of daughter Zinaida in Berlin), but also of Prinkipo's beauty and silence, of Trotsky's fishing expeditions, etc. It depicts Trotsky as a tireless writer, historian and pamphletist (it should be mentioned that during his years at Prinkipo he wrote some of his most eminent works such as the multi-volume History of the Russian revolution and My life). As a documentary, the film contains a lot of rare motion pictures of Trotsky, Stalin, and Kemal Atatürk and other political figures as well as photographs and film sequences from the Russian revolution, from historical Constantinople, from Trotsky correspondence and from contemporaneous Turkish gazettes etc.
- Trotsky : film de Alain Dugrand et Patrick Le Gall. - Paris : IMA Productions, 1988. - 2 videocassettes (VHS), running time: 2 h.
Videocassette release of a film originally produced as a TV programme of FR3 (France) in 1988 with French historian Pierre Broué as scientific counselor. This is a fine documentary portrait of Trotsky by photos, filmclips and interviews with several contemporaries and historians. German, Dutch and English versions of this film (partly abridged) have been available on videocassettes, too. The film was presented at various Trotsky conferences as well as by various TV stations all over the world.
- Le monde des trotskystes, trotskystes du monde : un film de Guy Girard. - [Paris] : L.C.J. Ed., 2007. - 1 DVD videodisc (zone 2, PAL, col., Dolby), running time: 2 h 40 min.
Guy Girard's two-part documentary, produced in 2005 by JEM Productions (Paris), was originally boadcast by French TV channel France 2 in June 2006. The interviews with past and present-day Trotskyists from France, Italy, Brazil, Russia etc. were conducted by Claude Askolovitch with the collaboration of Jean Puyade. The film was produced by Jacques Kirsner [i.e. Charles Stobnicer] for JEM Productions and France 2. Narration and subtitles are in French. The DVD was released in April 2007. "C'est un voyage entre continents où l'on rencontre ouvriers, syndicalistes, artistes et intellectuels, figures du passé et militants du présent. C'est d'alleurs l'une des constantes du mouvement trotskyste: les pieds dans la réalité sociale, la tête dans les nuages" [from the container text]. EAN: 3550460020072.
- Trotzki - Tod eines Propheten. - [DVD recording from TV]. - 1 DVD, running time: 48 min
This is a DVD recording (produced by RBB Media Mitschnittservice, Berlin, 2007) of a TV documentary originally broadcast by Deutsches Fernsehen, Erstes Programm in 1965 as part of the series Der politische Mord. André Libik and Harry Schulze-Wilde functioned as responsibles and advisors, respectively. The film, produced by Sender Freies Berlin (SFB), contains inter alia some longer statements by L.A. Sanchez Salazar, D.A. Siqueiros and Esteban Volkov.
- Das Attentat : L.D. Trotzki - Tod im Exil. - [Videorecording from TV]. - 1 videocassette (VHS), running time: 2 h 30 min.
This two-part documentary drama about the assassination of Leon Trotsky was originally broadcast by Deutsches Fernsehen, Erstes Programm (ARD) on Nov. 28, 1967. documentary drama about the assassination of Trotsky. The screenplay by Paul Mommertz is based upon the famous book Murder in Mexico by L.A. Sanchez Salazar and Julian Gorkin. Directed by August Everding, the film was produced by Bavaria Atelier GmbH on behalf of WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk). Actors: Peter Lühr (as Leon Trotsky), Hannes Messemer (as Colonel Sanchez Salazar), Edith Heerdegen (as Natalia Sedova), Peter Fricke (as Joseph Hansen) et al., narrator: Alexander Hegarth.
- El asesinato de Trotsky. - [DVD recording from TV]. - 1 DVD-V, running time 1 h 38 min.
A TV documentary play, originally emitted by The History Channel for Latin America, broadcast on Aug. 20, 2007. Directed by Motfos Gueilburt, Narrated by Julio Bracho, investigated by Guillermo Almeyra. A co-production of Anima Films and The History Channel Latinoaméricana. - Containing commentaries by Olivia Gall, Manuel Aguilar Mora, Javier Wiemer, Carlos Fernández, Esteban Volkov et al.
- Trotzki. - [DVD recording from TV]. - 1 DVD-V, running time 53 min.
A TV documentary by Daniel and Jürgen Ast, produced by ARTE and RBB, 2007, originally broadcast on ARTE, Oct. 31, 2007
- The assassination of Trotsky. - London : Channel 5, 1986. - 1 videocassette (VHS), running time: 1 h 40 min.
Originally released as motion picture in 1972 by Josef Shaftel Productions Ltd., this drama was directed by Joseph Losey, the screenplay was written by Nicolas Mosley. Actors: Alain Delon (as Ramón Mercader), Richard Burton (as Leon Trotsky), Romy Schneider (as Sylvia Ageloff) et al.
- Zhizn' prekrasna / avtor stsenariia: Julii Nikolin. Rezhisser: Petr Mostovoi. - [Moska : Zsentral'naiia Studiia Dokumental'nykh Filmov, 1990]. - 1 DVD videodisc, running time: 25 min.
A Soviet documentary from the final phase of the shortliving Perestroika era, depicting some rare film and photograhic material from Soviet and Mexican collections. Video recording was privately made from a Soviet TV programme (exact date of broadcasting is unknown).
- Ernest Mandel - une vie pour la révolution = Ernest Mandel - een leven voor de revolutie / un documentaire de Chris Den Hond. - [Bruxelles] : Avanti Productions, 2005. - 2 DVD in container, running time: 1 h 40 min.
Two documentary films (Ernest Mandel - une vie pour la révolution, produced in 2005 by Chris Den Hond and Un homme nommé Ernest Mandel, produced in 1972 by Frans Buyens) about the life and work of Ernest Mandel (1923-1995), probably the best-known Trotskyist leader for more than 3 decades. The films contain dozens of interviews with Ernest Mandel, E. Toussaint, F. Vercammen, A. Krivine, J. Habel, T. Ali, A. Henry, F. Louca, M. Warschawski, J. Machado, C. Samary et al.
- Trotsky / by David Law and Stephen Smith. - London : Sussex Publications, [ca. 1990]. - 1 sound cassette in container, running time: ca. 1 h 40 min. With a companion booklet written by David Law.
- Trotsky and Trotskyism / by William Arthur Tupman. - Cardiff : Drake Educational Associates, 1982. - 1 sound cassette in container, running time: 50 min. - (Exeter tapes ; R 875)
- Trotski / by Henri Guillemin. - Grenoble : Ed. La Voix de Son Livre, 1987. - 1 sound cassette in container, running time: 1 h. - ISBN 2-86986-040-4. [2 parts had been announced but only part 1 was factually published.]
- Leo Trotzki : Basiswissen / by Bert Alexander Petzold. - Leipzig : Amor Verl. 2021. - 2 sound cassettes in container, running time: 1 h 49 min. - ISBN 3-947161-60-3. - (Basiswissen strukturiert und verständlich ; 10)
Wolfgang and Petra Lubitz, Aug. 2004
last (slightly) rev. November 2021
