A Seamstress Wants to Learn Esperanto

A Seamstress Wants to Learn Esperanto | YIVO Institute for Jewish Research | The Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Collections Project

May 1, 2017

The publication of Esther Schor's Bridge of Words: Esperanto and the Dream of a Universal Language occasioned this excavation from the YIVO archives.

This application for registration in an Esperanto course offered in the 1930s in Vilna (Wilno) by VILBIG (Vilna Jewish Education Society) was filled out by Tsile Lyubitsh, a young lingerie seamstress. Born in 1911, she was a member of the first generation to have attended one of the new secular Yiddish schools that were established in the wake of World War II.

What motivated Tsile to want to learn Esperanto? One possible clue comes from the memoir of a young Jewish man in Kielce, born in the same year at Tsile. A. Greyno, as he signed his submission to an autobiography contest sponsored by YIVO in the 1930s, was from a poor family. Like Tsile, he was a garment worker, and in his case, a trade unionist. He also dreamed of a world without borders, but more specifically, of a unified world proletariat, and had found a socialist Esperanto organization with which to affiliate [....]

Thank you, YIVO! See also the YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe:

Bialystok
Belmont, Leo
Braun, Mieczysław
Gorshman, Shira
Korczak, Janusz
Tuwim, Julian
Zamenhof, Ludwik
Zaretski, Ayzik

Edmond Privat parolas pri D-ro Zamenhof

La Centro de Dokumentado kaj Esploro pri la Lingvo Internacia (Biblioteko de la Urbo La Chaux-de-Fonds) (CDELI) havas arkivon da sonregistraĵoj. Jen unu:

Privat Edmond: Parolado Okaze de la SES-kunveno 1954 Marto 14 (Registraĵo de Rene William Perrenoud) (32:12)

Jen kelkaj sed ne ĉiuj diskutitaj punktoj. Privat rakontas pri siaj renkontoj kun Zamenhof, kaj diskutas lian karakteron, ekz. lian modestecon. Zamenhof ne naive supozis, ke Esperanto portus pacon; prioritatas komunikado kaj egaleco. Zamenhof skeptikis pri la rezulto de la sendependiĝo de Pollando, prave se oni konsideras la kontraŭjudaj pogromoj.Privat subtenas nacian sendependecon, sed tio estas nur ŝtupo, ne fina celo. Zamenhof ne esits elstara intelekulo, nek lingvisto, sed li komprenis multe, kun longdaŭra perspektivo. Zamenhof pensis psikologie, ne politike. Zamenhof komprenis la patriotismon de ĉiuj, ne nur de favorata nacio, do la neakcepteblecon de ia nacia supereco.

Sam Green: The Universal Language

Sam Green presented a rough cut of this documentary at the Zamenhof Symposium at the UN in New York on 15 December 2010, the same symposium in which I spoke on the Centennial of the Esperanto Universal Congress in Washington, DC. Since then I have blogged about the forthcoming final version.

Well, the documentary has been out for some time, and can be purchased on DVD or downloaded via the Internet. In addition, Sam has a web site devoted to the documentary, with a blog and with web posts in both English and Esperanto:

The Universal Language: A Documentary Film by Sam Green

The blog is bilingual, with English and Esperanto versions of each post, which relates to some aspect of the film or to Esperanto more generally.

I translated one of Sam's original English posts into Esperanto:

Intervjuo kun Eva Soltes pri komponisto Lou Harrison
August 02, 2012

. . . corresponding to the original:

An Interview with Eva Soltes about composer Lou Harrison
August 02, 2012

I have blogged before about Lou Harrison, in English and Esperanto. I myself first encountered Eva Soltes at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, at the presentation of a documentary film about Harrison. This was the first event in a symposium about Harrison. I reported on this event (and subsequently the others) in Esperanto:

Lou Harrison: Mondo da Muziko
2011-02-28

In August viewers of Sam's film were invited to pose questions about it. Sam responded to the first round of questions. Before the month was out, I sent Sam some of my questions about the film. His responses to some of these are included in his second round of responses:

Respondoj al demandoj de legantoj II
August 30, 2012
Jen respondoj al kelkaj demandoj, kiujn vi sendis al ni

Questions from Viewers, Part II
August 30, 2012
Titles, futures, footage source

The comment about archival sources and the subsequent questions are mine. Sam provides images, video, and audio in response.

Here is some footage of the noted Andreo Cseh, of Cseh-method fame, teaching Esperanto to a class outdoors:



In response to my question about a voiceover, Sam presented a speech by the noted Esperantist orator and organizer Ivo Lapenna:

"La Kultura Valoro de la Internacia Lingvo" [The Cultural Value of the International Language] de Ivo Lapenna

Esperanto en anarkiisma arkivo

Jen Esperantaj eroj en arkivo de anarkiismo/liberecanismo:

Libertarian Microfiche Publishing/l - Libertarian Labyrinth

LAISANT, C.A., La Parlamentisma Iluzio, 1979, 15pp, in PP 1071. In Esperanto?

LAOTSE, See: VIVANCOS, EDUARDO, Lao Tse (viejo maestro) y su Libro Del Camino Y De La Virtud, traducido del Esperanto por Eduardo Vivancos. Introduccion y una Breve Excursion sobre el pensamiento en la Chia antigua, por Victor Garcia, Colleccion Historia Del Anarquismo, editado en 1962 por TIERRA Y LIBERTAD, Mexico, 125pp, in PP 1239.

LIBERECANA LIGILO, Bulteno de la Liberecana Frakcio de S.A.T., Nos. 49, 50, 63, 64, 66, 67, 1987(?) - 1989, 86pp, a libertarian Esperanto magazine: 99, in PP 1488. - I haven't tried to list the contents but would gladly microfiche a contents listing of ALL issues of this magazine if an Esperantist supplied me with it in photo-ready form. It might encourage some more people to take up Esperanto AND microfiching. - J.Z.

LIBERECANA LIGILO, N-ro 36, 1980 - 2, Bulteno de la Liberecana Frakcio de S.A.T., 16pp, in PP 1099.

Franz Kafka per Mauro Nervi

The Kafka Project by Mauro Nervi

La angla lingvo estas la bazlingvo de ĉi tiu ambicia projekto de eminenta Esperantista poeto Mauro Nervi. La celo estas enretigi ĉiujn el la germanlingvaj tekstoj de Franz Kafka, kaj estiĝu la plej eble kompleta retejo pri la verkaro kaj mondo de Kafka. Enestas neniom da Esperanto.

Esperanto und Pazifismus / Esperanto & Pacismo

Jen rimarkinda bildarkivo ĉe la Internacia Esperanto-Muzeo en Vieno, Aŭstria Nacia Biblioteko:

Esperanto und Pazifismus (Bildarchiv, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek)

Ekzemple, Alfred Hermann Fried (1864-1921), Nobelpremiito en 1911, estis aktiva Esperantisto.
(Rigardu ĉi-tiean foton; Vieno 1895.)

Estis multaj homoj kiuj partoprenis en ambaŭ movadoj, notinde, en kongresoj. En ĉi tiu fotoarkivo troveblas personoj kaj grupoj, kun biografietoj.

Esperanto USA 2010 Congress (3): Library of Congress visit

Library of Congress Field Trip
58th National Congress of Esperanto USA

On the afternoon of Saturday May 30 a contingent of Esperantists made a pilgrimage to the Library of Congress, one of our greatest national treasures, where we were greeted by Lee Douglas, a veteran Esperantist and librarian stationed in the Local History & Genealogy Dept. Also awaiting our arrival was a display of books from the library’s rich collection (on site and from the repository in Ft. Meade) and from Mr. Douglas’s personal collection, ranging from old and rare to recently published items. I made a note of a few items of interest: Class Leader’s Course by Correspondence (American School of Esperanto, Washington D.C., 1911); Practical Esperanto: Complete Method for Learning the International Language "Esperanto": Home Course (William Sol Benson, 1925-1932); Proleta Kurso de Esperanto, vol. 5 (Tokyo, 1932); La Lasta Usonano by J. A. Mitchell (various editions); Vivprotokoloj: Ĉiutagaj Vivoj, Rakontitaj de Esperantistoj compiled by Ulrich Becker & Zdravka Metz (2nd ed., 2009). In turn, we presented items for donation to the library’s collection.

Mr. Douglas treated us to an overview of how to fully use the library’s resources, which included information new even to me as a veteran researcher. There are various tricks to using the online catalog available to everyone, especially in light of the newer practice of “minimal level cataloging.”

In addition to researching the usual published formats, one must do some digging to find Esperanto-related material in various archives. For example, the library has on microfiche the German secret police reports covering the period 1920-1933, in which the Esperanto movement was heavily surveilled by government spies.

Finally, the acquisitions policies of the library were reviewed. The Library of Congress accepts everything, throws nothing away, but will probably never catalog a substantial percentage of material entered into storage. Esperanto material is of the lowest priority for cataloging, and of a very low priority for regular acquisitions. You can of course write to the Library of Congress yourself urging your priorities, but you are unlikely to have much impact unless you or someone you know has pull.

I trust that others moved on to take in other departments of the Library of Congress or other tourist attractions. I remained behind to pursue my research passion for a bit. Thanks, Mr. Douglas and the Library of Congress staff, for your service to our group as well as to the national memory.