Lidia [Life of Lidia Zamenhof, Daughter of Esperanto by Wendy Heller]

Zamenhof had planned to present his proposal for Homaranismo at the Second Universal Congress of Esperanto in Geneva in 1906. But the storm of antagonism against the idea was so strong that some advised Zamenhof not to go to Geneva. Although he abandoned the idea of formally presenting Homaranismo, he resolved to speak openly of his beliefs at the congress. Zamenhof had been profoundly dismayed by the vicious opposition to what he felt were universal ethical ideals, and by claims that Esperanto was 'only a language'. To Zamenhof, Esperanto had never been only a language. He had created it for the unification of mankind.

On 28 August at 8 p. m., Geneva's Victoria Hall was filled. This year there were nearly twice as many in attendance as there had been in Boulogne. The Esperantists anxiously awaited Dr Zamenhofs speech. The trip had been hard on him. He was weakened by his heart condition and the bitter mental anguish of the attacks against him.

'Ladies and gentlemen!' he began. 'At the opening of our Congress you expect some kind of speech from me; perhaps you are expecting something official, indifferent, pale and without content, such as official speeches generally are. However, I cannot give you a speech like that. In general, I do not like such speeches, but especially now, this year, such a colourless official speech would be a great sin on my part. I come to you from a country where now many millions are having a difficult struggle for their freedom, for the most elementary human freedom, for the rights of man.' But Zamenhof would not speak of that: the congress could have nothing to do with politics. Another struggle was also going on, he said, 'a cruel struggle between the races . . . The state of things is fearful in the many-languaged Caucasus, fearful in West Russia. Accursed, a thousand times accursed, be racial hatred!

'When I was still a child in the town of Bialystok, I gazed with sorrow on the mutual hostility which divided the natural sons of the same land and the same town. And I dreamed then that after some years everything would be changed for the better. And the years have passed; but instead of my beautiful dream I have seen a terrible reality; in the streets of my unhappy native town savages with axes and iron stakes have flung themselves, like the fiercest wild beasts, against the quiet town-dwellers, whose sole crime was that they spoke another language and practiced another racial religion than that of the savage brutes . . . I do not want to tell you the dreadful details ofthe butchery in Bialystok; to you as Esperantists I want to say only that the walls between the peoples, the walls against which we fight, are still fearfully high and thick.'

Ifonly the different peoples knew one another well, the stirring up of passions through lies and slander would not have such dreadful results, Zamenhof told them. If only they could communicate, they would come to realize their common humanity and the ethics and ideas they shared. 'Break down, break down the walls between the peoples,' he cried, 'give them the possibility of meeting and communicating on a neutral basis, and only then those atrocities which we now see in various places will come to an end . . .

'Now, when in various parts of the world the struggle between the races has become so cruel, we, the Esperantists, must work harder than ever. But in order that our work may be fruitful, we must first of all explain thoroughly to ourselves the irtner idea of Esperantism . . .

'Unfortunately, of late there have been voices in the Esperanto Movement saying, "Esperanto is only a language; avoid even privately connecting it with any kind ofidea, for otherwise people will think that we all have this idea, and we shall displease various people who do not have this idea." Oh, what words! From the fear that perhaps we may displease those people, who themselves wish to use Esperanto only for their practical purposes, we are all to tear out of our hearts that part of Esperantism which is the most important, the most sacred, that idea which is the chief aim of the Esperanto business, which is the star that has always guided all fighters for Esperanto! Oh, no, no, never! With vigorous protest we reject that demand. If we, the first fighters for Esperanto, are to be obliged to avoid in our activities everything idealistic, we shall indignantly tear up and burn everything we have written for the sake of Esperanto, with sorrow we shall obliterate the work and the sacrifices of our whole life, we shall throw the green star that we wear on our breasts far away, and we shall cry out in disgust, "With that Esperanto, which must serve only for commercial and practical purposes, we want nothing in common!"

'There will come a time when Esperanto, having become the property of all humanity, will lose its ideological character, then it will become only a language, one will no longer struggle for it; one will only derive profit from it. But now, when almost all Esperantists are not yet profiting but only struggling, we all are very conscious that it is not the thought of practical utility that causes us to work for Esperanto, but only the thought of the sacred, grand and important idea contained in the international language itself. This idea - you all feel it very well - is brotherhood and justice among all peoples.'