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:
Somewhat more ecumenically oriented than the Catholic IKUE was its Protestant counterpart, KEL (Christian Esperantist League, or KELI, Kristana Esperantista Ligo Internacia, after 1923). Established in 1911, KEL emerged from readership of the Esperanto journal Dia Regno (Godly kingdom), which gave voice to Anglicans, Lutherans, Calvinists, and other non-Catholic Chris- tians unconcerned about denominational boundaries. The man behind Dia Regno was the German engineer Paul Hubner (1881-1970). Originally, KEL Esperantists aimed to cooperate with the YMCA (Young Men's Christian As- sociation, an international organization with headquarters in Geneva) and the American Christian Endeavour Society to promote these two organiza- tions' international agendas. KEL's membership, however, was never sizeable. In 1912, Dia Regno had 410 subscribers, mostly Germans, and twenty years later KEL's total membership amounted to 420 members, most of them Dutch. From 1914 to 1928, KEL was languishing and not even able to issue its journal. Like Catholic Esperantists, Protestant Esperantists were regularly chastised by conservative Protestants for their association with pacifists, freethinkers, leftists, and even Catholics. In reality, KEL preferred to confine itself to the fulfillment of its Christian mission, preferably through the YMCA, rather than forge ties with other Esperantists. KEL felt obliged, however, to cooperate with Catholics and Quakers in the Esperanto translation of the Bi- ble (published in 1926), but, in fact, ecumenism was not high on KEL's agenda. Hence, the quarrel between KEL's president, Paul Hubner, and Livingstone Jenkins, the Quaker and editor of the Esperanto ecumenical journal Inter Ni (Among us). The latter was willing to get involved in an open debate with non-Christians, and this was too much for Hubner. Nor was KEL much in- clined to exchange points of view with IKUE, all the more so when the latter was controlled by the more conservative Esperantists. Only in 1968 did both Catholic and Protestant Esperantists convene their annual meeting at the same time and place.
Largely marginal in the Esperanto community, KEL could have improved its popularity among fellow Esperantists on the occasion of the Twenty-fifth World Esperanto Congress that took place in the summer of 1932 in Cologne, when the mass persecution against leftists after the Reichstag fire was still in full swing. But in 1932, Paul Hubner was under the spell of National Social- ism, like many among the German Evangelical pastorate.20 Much to the out- rage of Dutch KEL members, he encouraged Esperantists to attend the Cologne Congress, even when many of them, particularly the Jews and leftist-oriented, were expressing strong reservations not only because of personal safety but also because of the possibility that the Nazis would try to exploit the Espe- ranto Congress to save face. Hubner, however, saw things differently, and en- couraged fellow Esperantists to attend the congress so that when they returned back home, they could expose the "lies" (kalumnioj) that the international press was mounting against the Nazis.21 His stance certainly did not increase KEL's popularity in the Esperantist community. Only after the Nazis forced him to stop his Esperanto activities did Hubner change his mind about Na- tional Socialism, but by then the damage had already been done.
Freethinkers, Socialists, and Herderians
The emergence of new lifestyles and "disguised" religions, as the journalist Carl Bry called them, was not the only front that the established churches had to contend with. Darwinism and, in general, the scientism of positivists and Monists also posed a serious threat to the privileged position that Cath- olic and Protestant churches had long enjoyed. This challenge was exacerbated when freethinkers and socialists created their own cross-border internation- als that mimicked those of traditional religions. And also in this direction the Esperanto movement spread.
In 1880, British, French, Dutch, Belgian, and American freethinkers es- tablished the International Freethought Federation.1 Since 1905, the Inter- national had been considering the introduction of Esperanto as a co-official language in its annual meetings, under the assumption that it could strengthen universal fraternity and international relations. Although always regarded sympathetically, the plan to adopt Esperanto never obtained the necessary support.2 The Esperantist freethinkers, however, were undaunted. In 1908, on the occasion of the third World Esperanto Congress in the United King- dom, the freethinkers in attendance created their Internacia Societo Espe- rantista de Liberpensuloj (International Society of Esperantist Freethinkers) and launched Libera Penso (1908-1914). After World War I, the organization was reestablished under the name Internacia Ligo de Liberpensuloj (Inter- national League of Freethinkers), and Libera Penso became Liberpensulo (1925-1927).
While freethinkers broadly defended the separation of church and state, they focused on education as their battleground with organized religion. Free- thinkers not only opposed the public funding of religious schools but also their very existence. In their fight for the laicization of the school system, free- thinkers were not alone. With the extension of public education since the last third of the nineteenth century, and in close relation with socialist and anarchist intellectuals, the freethinkers formulated a new pedagogical para- digm to replace the disciplinary education of traditional schools. Examples include the orphanages established by Janusz Korczak in Warsaw, as well as the Austrian Freie Schule (Free Schools) of Red Vienna, sponsored by free- thinkers, freemasons, and socialists.3 More radical were La Ruche (The Col- ony), a school founded by the anarchist Sebastian Faure; the experiments of Paul Robin with the education integrale; and the Escuela Moderna (the Modern School) of Francisco Ferrer (more about him later). Although too radical for many, these experiments shook the old educational paradigm and were a driving intellectual force for the new and enlarged teaching profes- sion. To exchange ideas and educational experiences, an International Com- mittee of National Federations of Teachers in Public Secondary Schools was created in 1912, and in 1923 the trade unions-based International Trade Secretariat of Teachers was founded. But by then, Esperantist teachers had already established their own international, the Internacia Asocio de Instru- istoj (International Association of Teachers), created in 1910, which made the early-established Internacia Pedagogia Revuo its official journal.4
Freethinkers, progressive teachers, and socialists usually combined their anti-religious sentiments with a pacifism tinged by anti-nationalism. This was the case, for example, with Austrian sociologist Theodor Hartwig, who in 1925 established the International of Proletarian Freethinkers, which supported Esperanto.5
But a more vital example of this mix of anticlericalism, anti-nationalism, Esperantism, and pro-socialism is perhaps the Spanish pedagogue and free- thinker Francisco Ferrer, the founder of the Escuela Moderna. Executed by the Spanish authorities in 1909 after being falsely accused of organizing the anticlerical and antimilitary riots in Barcelona that year, Ferrer became a mar- tyr for both anarchists and freethinkers. Although Ferrer was not an Espe- ranto speaker, he was quite clear about his pedagogical and political approach toward the intertwined problem of language and nationalism in the working- class school network that he founded: