Skip to main content
Rosa Luxemburg and the regenerative power of nature
The prison letters of the great Polish revolutionary reveal how birdsong and the limited parts of the natural world she could observe from her cell sustained her during her incarceration, writes JOHN GREEN
(L to R) Rosa Luxemburg in 1910, Berlin, yellow mocking bird and Robert Stroud in the late 1930s [(L to R) Public domain - GeoffClarke/CC -US Federal Government/Public domain]

IT IS notoriously difficult to describe birds’ songs in words, apart from the those like the cuckoo and chiff-chaff, whose names perfectly describe their songs. 

In notes Rosa Luxemburg wrote in prison, she describes in words a number of the bird songs she heard from her cell. Her descriptions are so precise, that it is possible, over 100 years later, to identify the species of birds she was listening to.

Luxemburg was one of the key foundation figures of the socialist movement that emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
BROAD PLURALIST APPROACH: Adopted by nearly all the left parties in Europe including France Insoumise / Pic: France Insoumise/flickr/CC
Features / 25 April 2026
25 April 2026

JOHN REES replies to Claudia Webbe

Victor Grossman with some of the works he published in the G
Features / 5 February 2026
5 February 2026

Hundreds in Berlin gathered on January 15 to honour the US-born socialist who made East Germany his home. Florentine Morales Sandoval reports

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Services on December 8, 2025, a rescue worker puts out a fire of a residential building damaged by a Russian strike in Sumy region, Ukraine
Germany / 19 December 2025
19 December 2025
Wilfred Willett and his seminal Birds of Britain / Pic of Willett Country Standard
History / 19 December 2025
19 December 2025

A WWI hero, renowned ornithologist, medical doctor, trade union organiser and founder member of the Communist Party of Great Britain all rolled in one. MAT COWARD tells the story of a life so improbable it was once dismissed as fiction