Esperanto and Its Rivals: The Struggle for an International Language
- Автор: Garvía Roberto
- Год: 2015
- Язык: русский
- Жанр: Культурология
Электронная книга - «Esperanto and Its Rivals: The Struggle for an International Language». Краткое содержание книги:
"Hidden-World Seekers": Esperanto in New Wave and Old Religions
If the celebration of science and the search for organizational efficiency were part of the spirit of the times, equally characteristic was the reaction by some against the dehumanizing character of scientific and technological progress. For many, it looked like a new tyranny had triumphed: the tyranny of the mechanical and the artificial, which was about to cut man off from nature and suffocate the true, spiritual character of humanity. The blind material- ism and consumerism brought about by mass production and embodied in a continuously expanding plague of department stores should be resisted. The first decades of the twentieth century revived a search for new lifestyles, which ranged from more trivial return-to-nature movements, such as vegetarian- ism or the wandering societies, to more radical new spiritual movements which, critical of science's manipulative power, searched for truth elsewhere.
Among the latter were the theosophist and spiritists. Founded in late nineteenth-century New York, the Theosophy movement expanded to Europe in the early twentieth century, particularly to the United Kingdom, Germany, and the Austrian empire. Theosophy, or Anthroposophy, as its splinter move- ment was called in German-speaking lands, liberally blended Western and Eastern philosophy, Buddhism and Christianity, mysticism and spiritualism.1 It promised its followers a mystical avenue to the ultimate and transcenden- tal truths, a plea to liberate the Dionysian forces of human nature (at odds with bourgeois values) and, perhaps more important, a method to commu- nicate with the beloved dead ones, which appealed to both the educated and non-educated. Among the former, most significant were the members of the British Society of Psychical Research, founded in 1882. Presided by promi- nent people such as William James, Henri Bergson, the Esperantist and So- cial Darwinist Charles Richet (whom we met in the last chapter), and Arthur Balfour (also prime minister of Her Majesty's government from 1902 to 1905), the Society sought to disclose charlatans and imposters while hoping to find scientific proof of the afterlife and the possibility of communicating with the dead.2 Also in Fabian quarters the occult and the paranormal had their fol- lowers.3 Thus, in 1902, Frank Podmore published a two-volume treatise on the subject, Modern Spiritualism, and on more than one occasion he convinced fellow Fabians Edward Reynolds Pease and George Bernard Shaw to escort him in his research into haunted houses.4 By 1911 the British Theosophy move- ment had 16,000 members and the interest in the occult and the paranormal only increased after the butchery of World War I and the Spanish flu, which left many new mourners trying to contact their loved ones.5 Sharing the trou- bles and anxieties of their time, it is not surprising to find Esperantists in these circles. Thus, in 1911, the Teozofia Esperanta Ligo (Theosophycal Esperan- tist League) was created with an eye to facilitating contacts among European and American theosophists, and two years later the official journal of the league, Espero Teozofia (1913-1928), was created.6 Among the Esperantist oc- cultists, the most popular was perhaps the pacifist and journalist William T. Stead, who in 1905, the same year he co-founded the first Esperanto club in the United Kingdom, published After Death, which detailed his exchanges with his beloved dead friend Julia Ames. But spiritualism and Esperanto also intersected in continental Europe. The French philosopher and rector of the University of Dijon, Emile Boirac, also president of the Lingva Komitato, never hid his strong interest in psychism. In 1908, he published La psychologie inconnue. Introduction et contribution a l'etude experimentale des sciences psychiques and, in 1919, the year of his death, Havenir des sciences psy- chiques. Also, in 1907 French booksellers could display in their windows the Esperanto translation of Gustav Fechner's best seller On Life After Death. In neighboring Belgium the Spiritualist Federation published the Revuo de Esperanta Psikistaro (1912-1913), and in the prewar years spiritualists held special meetings on the occasion of the World Esperanto Congresses. In 1934, a new international organization, the Psiĥan Esperanto-Ligon (Psychic Esperanto League), was created.7
Less exciting, although no less popular avenues for alternative lifestyles than theosophy and spiritism, were vegetarianism and wanderism. And as was the case with the occult seekers, the Esperantists were also well repre- sented in both movements. A religiously inspired vegetarian movement had existed in the United Kingdom since the mid-nineteenth century. In the fol- lowing decades, the movement expanded to other corners of Europe and particularly to Germany, gaining new momentum in the first decades of the 1900s. But it was not until August 1908 that vegetarians combined efforts and created the International Vegetarian Union. Interestingly, this associa- tion was set up by the Esperantist and secretary of the Friends of the Vegetarian Society, the British Quaker J. Arthur Gill, who almost simulta- neously created the corresponding International Union of Vegetarian Espe- rantists (Esperantist Internacia Unuiĝo de Esperantistaj Vegetaranoj), which in 1914 launched its official journaclass="underline" Vegetarano. As he expressed to fellow British vegetarians after the launch of both international organizations, Es- peranto could be invaluable for the exchange of information and commu- nity building:
At the recent International [Esperanto] Congress in Dresden there was opportunity for observing the part which language can play in the spread of a movement. The present writer is an Esperantist and a vegetarian who attempted to attend both series of meetings [the Espe- rantist and the non-Esperantist vegetarian meetings]. After one of the vegetarian meetings, he found a German regarding him with friendly eyes, and at once tried to fall into conversation with him. But no! After each had cudgeled his brains for a few stray words in the other's language, the whole and sole result was the following scene: "Vegetarian? Yes!" "Vegetarian? Yes!" Violent and delighted handshake. When this had been repeated two or three times . . . the interest waned. How different was the case [among vegetarian Espe- rantists]. Picture a little group of half-a-dozen sitting round a table and vastly amused with everything around, and especially one another, all speaking with interest and animation. From the conversation it was impossible to learn of their nationality, yet one would be a Finn, another a Tyrolese, another a Frenchman, and so on.8
Also in search of different life experiences was a new social group. With the expansion of educational and professional training institutions, and the parallel extension of the formative years, young people emerged in the first decades of the twentieth century as a distinct social category, trying to find their place in a rapidly changing world. All over Europe, young people orga- nized and banded together. They searched for social recognition not simply as adults in the making.9 The scouting movement illustrated the emerging youth movement. In Germany it was the Wandervogel movement (Wander- ing Bird movement), founded in 1896, while in Bohemia and Moravia it was the Sokol movement (Falcon movement), founded in 1862. Although these movements promoted the exploration of nature and the experimentation with a new kind of freedom, unburdened by conventional life, they could also op- erate as schools of patriotism and national pride, since a healthy nation al- ways requires a healthy youth.10 It is not too surprising that some Bohemian Esperantists, uncongenial toward the German-speaking Esperantists of their country, tried to forge ties with the nationalist Sokol movement.11 The Boy Scouts movement, established in 1908 in the United Kingdom, was more transnational and, thus, more attractive to Esperantists. In 1918, the Briton Alexander W. Thompson, who had been a corpsman in World War I, created its Esperantist counterpart: the international Skolta Esperanto Ligo (League of Scouts Esperantists). This was the first international scouts organization. The non-Esperantist scout movement had to wait two more years to launch their World Organization of the Scout Movement. Occasionally both inter- national organizations, the Esperantist and non-Esperantist, convened to- gether the international camp gatherings (or "jamborees," in Scout jargon).12 Spiritualists, theosophists, vegetarians, and wandering young people were Hinterweltler, or hidden-world seekers: people searching for meaning and au- thenticity not in a distant heaven, but right now and here, or just "behind the wallpaper," as the popular German journalist Carl Bry remarked. They com- prised a new breed of believers, people who thought that the unattainable could be reached with the proper amount of conviction and commitment. They were members of a kind of pseudo- or disguised (verkappte) religion, brought about by the accelerating pace of modern life.13