Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA)

Work began on the MEGA, i.e. the publication of the complete writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in Moscow and (East-)Berlin during the 1960s. In the wake of the dramatic changes in East Germany in 1989 scholars throughout the world pressed for the continued publication of the MEGA, which also received top marks from an international panel of experts. 

The IISH, the keeper of most of the original manuscripts, was instrumental in setting up IMES in 1990. The politically independent IMES is an international network that includes, alongside the IISH, the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW), the Museum and Study Centre Karl-Marx-Haus Trier of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) and the Russian State Archive for Socio-Political History (RGASPI).

The aim of the IMES is to complete the MEGA as a historical-critical edition of the complete works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The scope of the MEGA has been reduced to 114 volumes of which 55 have been published until 2008. At the present time, teams of scholars from Germany, Russia, France, the Netherlands, Austria, the USA, and Japan are working on the MEGA, making it the most important international project of its kind. The MEGA is also sponsored by the European Union.

From the outset the IMES has endeavoured to ensure that the MEGA remains unconstrained by any party political allegiances. For this reason, since 1998, the publication of the MEGA has been in the hands of Akademie Verlag, an experienced academic publisher with a worldwide reputation for this type of publication. Akademie Verlag has been part of De Gruyter since 2013.

Click here for individual title information for each volume of the MEGA.