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Peace and language – peace and the Esperanto movement

In the decades before the outbreak of the First World War there were close contacts between the Esperanto and peace movements. The overlaps in terms of personalities and content led the historian Bernhard Tuider to speak of “parallel movements”.

Esperanto is probably the most well-known constructed language and has the largest number of speakers. Comprehensive literature about its origins and spread is contained in the Austrian National Library’s Constructed Language Collection. It is based on a brochure written under the pseudonym Dr Esperanto and published in 1887 in Warsaw with the title International Language – Foreword and Complete Grammar, which sets forth the basic principles and grammar rules of the language. Dr Esperanto was in fact the ophthalmologist and philologist Ludwik Zamenhof, who even as a schoolboy had had the idea of creating a language that would permit and promote international exchange and understanding.

Zamenhof’s new language proved quite popular after the publication of his grammar (Unua Libro) and soon acquired a number of followers. The first magazine in Esperanto was published in 1889, and in the 1890s numerous textbooks and grammars and the first translations of famous works from world literature also appeared. At this time it attracted the attention of representatives of various peace societies. At the world peace congresses in Luzern in 1905 and Munich in 1907 not only did the participants discuss the question of a world language, in particular Esperanto; speakers of this language also held their own meetings. The participants were mostly members of the Internacia Societo Esperantista por la Paco, an Esperanto peace society founded in 1905 by the French pacifist Gaston Moch. He called for international understanding through the use of Esperanto and believed, like most of the supporters of the peace movements of the time, that future conflicts should be settled primarily by international arbitration. The peace society also published the magazine Espero Pacifista as well as a series of translated books by prominent pacifists including Henry Dunant and Alfred H. Fried. Conversely, articles about and sometimes even in Esperanto appeared regularly in pacifist magazines like Friedens-Warte. It was also admitted as a language for correspondence within the Austrian Peace Society.

Alfred H. Fried began himself to learn Esperanto around 1901, as several surviving letters written or received in this language demonstrate. In 1903 he created an Esperanto group in Berlin and two years later joined the Esperanto-Klubo-Vieno. Fried was very interested in Esperanto and had a positive attitude to it, above all regarding its future use in pacifist movements and their communication with one another. In a letter he wrote: “Esperanto can rightly claim to be a universal lingua franca. I can make myself understood very well both orally and in writing with people whose language I don’t know.”

Translation: Nick Somers

Bibliografie 

Tuider, Bernhard: „Wie Sie sehen, war Ihre Anregung, Esperanto zu lernen, nicht vergebens.“ – Beziehungen zwischen Esperanto- und Friedensbewegung vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg, in: biblos. Beiträge zu Buch, Bibliothek und Schrift, Heft: Sondersprachen, Kunstsprachen, 2/2011,  29–49

 

Quotes:

„parallel movements“ : quoted from: Tuider, Bernhard: „Wie Sie sehen, war Ihre Anregung, Esperanto zu lernen, nicht vergebens.“ – Beziehungen zwischen Esperanto- und Friedensbewegung vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg, in: biblos. Beiträge zu Buch, Bibliothek und Schrift, Heft: Sondersprachen, Kunstsprachen, 2/2011, 30

„Esperanto can rightly claim to be a universal lingua franca...“: Alfred H. Fried to Fritz Mauthner, 22.04.1904, LON, IPM, Fried Papers, Box 68, quoted from: Tuider, Bernhard: „Wie Sie sehen, war Ihre Anregung, Esperanto zu lernen, nicht vergebens.“ – Beziehungen zwischen Esperanto- und Friedensbewegung vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg, in: biblos. Beiträge zu Buch, Bibliothek und Schrift, Heft: Sondersprachen, Kunstsprachen, 2/2011, 40

Contents related to this chapter

Aspects

  • Aspect

    Discontent

    The longer the war lasted, the more disagreement was voiced by representatives of the Austrian peace and women’s movements and also by sections of the Austro‑Hungarian population. They became increasingly tired of the war, reflected in strikes and hunger riots and in mass desertions by front soldiers towards the end of the war.

Persons, Objects & Events

  • Object

    Media

    All Quiet on the Western Front was released in 1930. It was the film of Erich Maria Remarque’s novel of the same name about the experiences of a soldier during the First World War. Remarque’s book and the film adaptation are classic anti-war statements. Alongside the patriotic, glorified heroic epics and “authentic” documentation of service for the fatherland, this was just one way in which the First World War was portrayed in literature and films – a medium that had come into being only twenty years before the outbreak of war.

  • Person

    Alfred Hermann Fried

    In 1899 Alfred Hermann Fried founded Die Friedens-Warte, which still exists today, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1911 for his work.

  • Object

    For peace

    The face on the 1000-schilling note is Bertha von Suttner, probably the most famous representative of the Austrian peace movement. During the First World War there were lots of people and groups who followed her example and protested against the war and in favour of peace. Although they had little influence, their advocacy of peace was particularly courageous in view of the prevailing and controlling censorship.