Verda Majo: Esperanto kaj demokratio

"Mireille Grosjean deklamas tekston de Verda Majo (Hasegawa Teru), aperinta en Lernilo de Esperanto n-ro 11-12 ; nov.-dec., 1943, sub la titolo 'Esperanto kaj demokratio'. La deklamo okazis en la 77a Hispana Kongreso de Esperanto kaj la 51a Kongreso de ILEI, okazintaj en Madrido en 2018."

Interna ideo, cinike

Mi plurfoje blogis pri satirado de esperantistoj kaj la Esperanto-movado fare de esperantistoj. Jen gvidilo:

Nova Esperanta Krestomatio . . . & satiroj

Mi forgesis mencii mian propran poezian kontribuegon:

La Interna Ideo

Mi ĵus trovis pluan specimenon, ja aplikeblan:

LA INTERNA IDEO
de Poul Thorsen

La interna ideo
estas viva muzeo
por mistiko kaj ambiciemo
kaj por malsamidea subpremo.

Carl Alpert remembers Lidia Zamenhof

 Thanks to Neil Blonstein for publicizing this article and attendant information:

 “Interesting People I Have Met: Lidia Zamenhof” by Carl Alpert

From this little piece alone one can see the idealism and naivete of Lidia. She thought she could solve social problems by propagating Esperanto and the Baha'i religion throughout the world. In a way, her thinking was a step backward from her father's, which itself did not sufficiently engage the world politically. Lidia's innocence extended to her sojourn in the USA, which was far more extensive than her father's, but it had a curious twist: Lidia innocently crossed racial boundaries in the USA in a way that others would not have. There are many black Bahai's in the USA—I've known many of them myself—and Lidia cultivated a number of them in the 1930s.

1906: Pogromo & “Mia Esperantistino”

Oni gajnos koncepton pri la socipolitika perspektivo de Zamenhof el sia angoro pri la pogromo kontraŭ judoj en sia hejmlando, esprimite en sia parolado ĉe la Universala Kongreso en Ĝenevo en 1906:

"Malferma parolado de Zamenhof en la dua Universala Kongreso"
(Svislando, Ĝenevo, la 28-an de aŭgusto, 1906)

aŭ ĉe:

Parolado antaŭ la Dua Kongreso en Genève en la 28a de aŭgusto 1906

Marjorie Boulton parte tradukis ĝin en sia biografio pri Zamenhof; mi tradukis la ceteron:

The Second Universal Congress of Esperanto: Opening Address, Geneva, Switzerland, 28 August 1906 de L. L. Zamenhof; partial translation from Esperanto by Marjorie Boulton, completed by Ralph Dumain

Tute male ol ĉi tiu ĉagrena afero estas ĉi tiu leĝera eldonaĵo, partituro, originalaĵo kiun mi lastatempe akiris:

“Mia Esperantistino” (Kanzono) de W. M. Pace & J. A. Moonie (Partituro, 1906)

La kovrilan paĝon vi vidas supre.

Nova Esperanta Krestomatio . . . & satiroj

Se oni konsultos Vikipedion, oni trovos enhavon (ne kompletan almenaŭ pri Auld, kaj ne en sekva ordo) de Nova Esperanta Krestomatio, antologio kompilita de William Auld (Rotterdam: Universala Esperanto-Asocio, 1991). Jen la organizo de la libro:

1 Antaŭparolo
2 Ekzercoj (de L.L. Zamenhof)
3 Rakontoj (originalaj)
4 Mondliteraturo (traduka)
5 El Vivo kaj Sciencoj
6 Prilingvaj Artikoloj
7 La Esperanta Muzo
     Majstro
     Lingvo
     Interna Ideo
     Aliflanke (satiro k.s.)
8 Internacia Liriko (traduka)

Jen recenzo de Don Harlow.

Trafoliuminte la antologion, mi emas konsenti kun la draŝa recenzo de Korĵenkov:

NE ĈIO NOVA ESTAS BONA de Aleksander Korĵenkov, La Ondo de Esperanto. 1992. № 2 (3).

Mi tralegis sekcion 7. Kelkaj poemoj povus aperi sub aliaj rubrikoj. La subsekcio "Aliflanke" temas pri satiraj kaj skeptikaj poemoj. La jenaj poemoj tamen aperas sub aliaj rubrikoj:

“Kiom Longe Atendi” / Brian Price-Heywood
Eklogo pri la Sankta Afero / William Auld

Kaj pluraj poemoj temas pri lukto de esperantistoj en subpremiga mondo:

Kanto de l'Sklavo / Stanislav Schulhof
En Amara Horo / Kálmán Kalocsay
Esperanto /  Kálmán Kalocsay
Amara Pens' / J. Velebit

Bedaŭrinde, William Auld ellasis sian plej bonan poemon pri Zamenhof, splenan, kvazaŭ-blusforman:

"Al la Granda Masonisto".

Bedaŭrindas ankaŭ, ke Auld inkluzivis sian plurpaĝan tedaĵon "Letero Okaze de la 90-jara Jubileo de Esperanto" kaj sian mallongan tedaĵon "La Plenumo."

Sub rubriko "Lingvo" la poemojn kiuj plej interesas min verkis du rusoj:

Plendo de Nikolao HOHLOV

Kokino kaj Inkubatoro de Boris Mirski.

Nesurprize laŭ antaŭa sperto, kortuŝas la poemoj de Imre Baranyai (Emba):

La Bona Oĉjo Bion 
Popol’ Ni Estas
Idolfalo (pri Stalin)

Jen la enhavo de la subsekcio "Aliflanke":

• Urban, Stepan: Guto
• Redondo Ituarte, Fernando: La Misvojo
• Julio Baghy: Estas Mi Esperantisto 
• Schulhof, Stanislav: Desperanto
• Adamson, Hendrik: Nia Plimulto
• Beraru, Misu: Propagando
• Beraru, Misu: En Nia Lando
• Beraru, Misu: Nova Kolonio
• Dresen, Hilda: Verdaj Plendoj
• Schwartz, Raymond: Esperantisto, Ekesto kaj Malapero
• Schwartz, Raymond ; Esperanta Eliksiro
• William Auld: Bonan Matenon, Majstro

El  la supraj, al mi elstaras kelkaj versoj de la frutempa poeto Schulhof, efikantaj en "Desperanto.". Ankaŭ la cinika "Propagando" de Beraru.

Mi jam blogis pri satirado de Esperantistoj en Esperanto:

• Satire pri esperantistoj
• Jorge Camacho kaptita sen iluzioj (Vidu ankaŭ lian satiron pri Giorgio Silfer: Epigramo)
• Izrael Lejzerowicz
• William Auld revizitata (3)
• Spiritismo por Stultuloj
• Raŭma Manifesto (poemaĉo)
• Esperanta Respubliko: sur posteno 
• Neciklopedie mi!

Don Harlow's Esperanto Book

I did not fully appreciate Don Harlow when I met him at the office of the Esperanto League for North America in the San Francisco Bay area towards the end of the 1980s. I surmise this was because I was extremely irritated by the American Esperanto movement at the time. I remember that he published a book in English in Esperanto, but I never saw it until I consulted his indispensable web site of Esperanto literature many years later:

Literaturo en Esperanto (Don Harlow)

Literature in Esperanto (Don Harlow) [ligoj al literaturaj revuoj, recenzoj, k.a. / links to literary magazines, reviews, et al]

Even then, I did not pay sufficient attention to his book. Reading over several chapters in the past week, I finally realized what a great background source it is for English speakers/readers who want to learn more about the Esperanto phenomenon. While the whole book is worth reading, I want to single out several chapters of current interest.

The Esperanto Book by Don Harlow, last rev. 1995. :

• Chapter 7: History in Fine ... A short introduction to the history of the Esperanto movement
• Chapter 9: The Literary Scene ... An introduction to the history of Esperanto literature
• Chapter 11: The Inner Idea ... More than just a language
• Appendix 2: Esperanto and Science-Fiction ... Esperanto in science-fiction and science-fiction in Esperanto (Don HARLOW)
• Appendix 4: Some Worthwhile Reading ... Books in and about Esperanto

Now I think this is one of the best introductions to Esperanto in English you can find. Of course, 17 years have passed, and there is much to add, especially in the area that interests me the most right now, literature. But the book has not been rendered obsolete. There is Harlow's history of personal engagement, a precis of the evolution of Esperanto literature, trends in the history of the Esperanto movement in the large sociopolitical context, varying ideologies and cultural politics associated with Esperantists, and finally the question of what is Esperanto culture and the role of the moral idealism within it.

Important here I think is conveying the texture of the Esperanto world as a culture-forming phenomenon. Ultimately, this is far richer approach than kindergarten-level propaganda. That is, convey Esperanto as a living language, not just advertise how it is the interminably procrastinated solution to the world language problem.

There are a few tidbits on the various cultural-literary positions of prominent Esperantists. How many places can you read in English the divergent postures of Esperanto's two most influential cultural figures in my life span, the Hungarian Kálmán Kalocsay and the Scot William Auld? Kalocsay is more aloof than his fellow Hungarian literary pioneer Julio Baghy, and is primarily interested in literature, valuing literary translation highest. Kalocsay doesn't believe in Esperanto culture outside of literature, whereas Auld does.

Harlow pretty much follows the position of Auld and others, citing the many cultural particularities of the Esperanto world, embodied in its in-group expressions. But I claim that this proves Esperanto is a subculture. As to what kind of a subculture it is, we come to the question of the "interna ideo" (internal idea), i.e. that well-known moral idealism that is said to underlie the Esperanto movement. I think Harlow is right to suggest that the internal idea expresses the emotional tie to the language that allowed Esperantists in former times to endure, survive, and surmount hardship, ridicule, persecution, and eventually mass murder. Nevertheless, to simply characterize the Esperanto community past or present in this way is to mistake ideology for reality. Elsewhere Auld emphasizes the emotional tie to the language. I agree that this is an essential part of the explanation for whatever cohesion can be found among Esperantists, but I think that this language loyalty is more variegated and its motivation often less obvious than what the prevailing ideology claims.

Perhaps the best and most effective remedy at hand is to tell as rich a story as possible, about Esperanto as a living language, which could work wonders in the public mind that all the cookie cutter promotional literature in the world could not.  And Harlow has made a valuable contribution in this direction.

Julia Cho: "The Language Archive" (4)

The final performances of this great play in Silver Spring, Maryland are today:

Saturday at 2 PM & 8 PM

An Open Forum discussion will follow the matinee.

Read this brief interview:

Better Know an Actor: Mitchell Hébert - Forum Theatre

Note that the actor who plays both the main character and Zamenhof says that he is most moved when he recites Zamenhof's lines saying that Esperanto was worth creating even though the Nazis killed his whole family. I think I'm going to be verklempt all over again.

Julia Cho: "The Language Archive" (3)

Everyone I know who saw this play loved it. Now for some more links.

First, the Forum Theatee's own web page for the play:

The Language Archive

There is also a blog for your comments (see mine):

OpenForum Blog: Announcing a Season, part 2 of 4

The Forum Theater also has a Facebook page. The Theatre references my review on this blog and says (21 Feb.):

A nice blog response to THE LANGUAGE ARCHIVE from an Esperanto perspective! Dankon!

To which actor Mitchell Hébert, who plays the Language Archivist George and Dr. Zamenhof, adds: "Dankon!!"

Now for reviews in the press and the blogosphere. The first one I found was:

The Language Archive, By Tim Treanor (DC Theatre Scene, February 20, 2012)

This is an eminently fair and positive review. I don't agree with the few negative criticisms, but they are not major.

Here is a very attentive and favorable review:

The Language Archive at Forum Theatre, By Amanda Gunther, Maryland Theatre Guide, February 20, 2012

The Washington City Paper review plays up the comic aspects of the play:

The Language Archive at Forum Theatre, Reviewed: Or: The case of the tongue-tied linguist By Rebecca J. Ritzel • Washington City Paper • February 24, 2012

Ritzel indeed lauds the comedy. As for her less favorable remarks, the show did not drag for me at any point. She also criticizes Mary's encounter with the ostensibly suicidal baker. Of course there is exaggeration and not every encounter depicted would be realistic outside of the theater. The reviewer does not adequately attend to the serious side of the play. While a bare account of the theme might strike the unwary reader as trite, the execution of the play's premise is a work of superior craftsmanship, and is in the end emotionally powerful. Already one reader's comment has appeared. I may add mine as well.

Julia Cho: "The Language Archive" (2)

The Language Archive
Presented by Forum Theatre
By Julia Cho
Directed by Jessica Burgess
February 16 - March 10, 2012
Round House Theatre, Silver Spring, Maryland

In my previous blog post of last June on this play, I embedded videos of scenes from the play as well as of playwright Julia Cho. There is, of course, a vast difference between watching a YouTube video and experiencing a play live in a theater. Still, I will claim that the Round House production is second to none. The intensity of the acting beats what I see in these videos. Both the hilarity and pathos of this production are most compelling, hence I recommend it to all.

---

“Language is an act of faith.” – L. L. Zamenhof (as an apparition)

The Language Archive, opening with a marital conflict and broadening with other characters and relationships, gets more and more hilarious, but in the end it is incredibly moving. The bickering between the language archivist and his wife rings all too familiar. The nature of communication is shown to be a much broader phenomenon than the language in which it is imperfectly embodied and is shown to be itself imperfect in its paralinguistic dimension. Esperanto plays a major role in the play—both comical and serious—and Zamenhof himself is a character. The notion of the language archive—an institution dedicated to the recording and preservation of dying languages—is not a mere playwright's gimmick: there is poignancy in the vanishing worlds of the last speakers of these languages, and in the loss of personal relationships in worlds still living, but also something profound is conveyed about the chronic failure of the quest for mutual understanding. The play does have a resolution but neither a happy nor an unhappy ending. We constantly fall short in our attempt to communicate ourselves, and yet we persist. Language is an act of faith.

---

Towards the end of the play, when Zamenhof makes the statement I quoted, I started to choke up, as I did at play's end, which involved both the final "resolutions" of the characters as well as the various dead languages being spoken over the loudspeaker. While attempting to minimize the spoilers, I guess I have to explain my reaction to the Zamenhof character. The treatment of Zamenhof as a wise old man reminds me of the appearances of Einstein in popular culture, in movies or TV shows. But what's relevant in this particular scene is that the lab assistant asked Zamenhof if he would have acted differently had he known that all his children would be targeted and murdered by the Nazis because of Esperanto. Zamenhof replied, no. And then he says: "Language is an act of faith." For me this encapsulated the theme of the whole play. But the broad theme was love and communication. Both often fail, yet even with the imperfection of the process and the outcome, there is nonetheless a vehicle, even if an imperfect one, which provides a means at least to make something happen—a bold foray into the unknown and uncontrollable course of events.

When I relayed this scene yesterday to my companion over coffee, once again I was verklempt. My companion thought this utterance by the phantom Zamenhof a profound one. Why does it affect me so? It reminds me of the program note of another philosophical favorite, Duke Ellington:

Communication itself is what baffles the multitude. It is both so difficult and so simple. Of all men's fears, I think that men are most afraid of being what they are — in direct communication with the world at large. They fear reprisals, the most personal of which is that they "won't be understood."

. . . Yet, every time God's children have thrown away fear in pursuit of honesty — trying to communicate themselves, understood or not — miracles have happened.

I have, by the way, translated this into Esperanto:

Duke Ellington Komunikas ‘Preter Kategorio’

Returning from public to private communication, I find it rather remarkable that the notion of compiling a recording of "I love you" in all the dying and extinct languages of the world works so well as a theatrical device. You might think it the corniest gimmick ever. Not so. No, sir. Nothing could be more effective than the voices of all those ghosts of lost worlds, expressing the fundamental human motivation behind everything we care about. The peculiar, divergent metaphorical expressions in all those languages that we unify under the rubric of this one meaning reflect both the imperfection of the linguistic vehicle and the concept it aims to express beyond its own linguistic means; that is, we feel the striving to communicate those lost and invisible worlds (of two people or of an entire culture) even while not comprehending the languages through which they are spoken. Hence our own perception is raised beyond our own unreflective habits. Hence theater itself pushes out beyond the limits of culture into a new perception of our reality.

And now to reconnect the private and the public, and in this note, Ellington with Zamenhof. Esperanto never was the all-encompassing vehicle for Zamenhof's aims, nor could the development of the Esperanto movement be contained within or adequately expressive of those aims. Yet, groping half-blind into the uncertain future, with all the imperfections of human relations and communication, Zamenhof cast his lot with his linguistic creation, a language unique in its genesis, character and physiognomy, but still only a language, like all others, yet a language made with love. One feels it in Zamenhof's own passion. Whatever other illusions one wishes to dispel with respect to the language and its creator, this vital force continues to inspire. Lives have been lived and lost with this language. And the fact of striving is as important as the outcome. Expression is happiness.

Poemeto por la Zamenhof-tago

Hodiaŭ estas la naskiĝtago de la kreinto de nia lingvo. Yippiiiiiii!

Adoptita Mama Loŝen

Ho, orfo de Eŭropo orienta,
Kiel mi vin vartas ame,
Kontraŭ malkompata frido venta--
Mi bezonas ŝirmon same.

-- R. Dumain, la 15-an de decembro 2007

(Mama Loŝen = karesnomo de la jida lingvo: "Panjo Lingvo")