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XV. Spirituality and Esperanto 

Having divested himself of his official role in Esperanto at the Universal Congress 

in Cracow, Zamenhof could transfer his activity to the ideological sphere. A little more 

than a year previously, in late 1910, he had written a speech in Esperanto for the First 

Universal Races Congress in London, Gentoj kaj Lingvo Internacia (Peoples and the 

International Language). 

Zamenhof believed that interracial divisions and hatred were not caused by political, 

economic, geographic, anatomical, or intellectual differences, or by different origins. 

The main cause, he argued in his speech, was difference in language and religion. 

Therefore, “interracial divisions and hatred will completely disappear only when the 

whole of humanity shares a single language and a single religion”.(Mi estas Homo 195) 

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Because the creation of a unified human race was not possible in the near future, 

however, humanity should organize itself in such a way that “keeping their ethnic 

language and religion for use within their own linguistic and religious group, human 

beings use a neutrally human language in all interracial relations and live according to 

neutrally human ethics, morals and living arrangements.” (Mi estas Homo 196) Without 

treating the religious theme in detail, Zamenhof argued for the use of Esperanto. 

He did not attend the congress, which took place from the 26

th

 to the 29

th

 of July, 

1911, with 3,000 participants, but his speech was published in the imposing acts of the 

congress (International Language 425-432). 

Having shown the way to dispel linguistic divisions, Zamenhof presented, after the 

Cracow congress, the solution to religious differences. 

In 1913, he planned to organize a Congress for a Neutrally Human Religion in 

conjunction with the 10

th

 Universal Congress of Esperanto to be held in Paris the 

following year. His idea was unusual: he intended to address, not those who believed 

their religion was the only true one given by God, but freethinkers who had abandoned 

the religion of their forefathers. Of the four theses expressed in his Declaration, three 

were more or less in line with the religious dogmas of homaranism, while the fourth 

dealt with organization. The Parisian leaders of the Esperanto movement opposed his 

plan, so he decided to hold a separate, small congress in Bern following the Esperanto 

Congress in Paris. 

In the same year, he published a new version of the Declaration of Homaranism 

and, for the first time, signed it with his real name. The text was changed somewhat, 

especially in the religious part, where the temples were no longer mentioned, but 

communities of freethinkers were added. The concrete, neutrally human names of 

countries no longer figured in the text. Mentions of Russia and the Boulogne congress 

were deleted from the foreword. Zamenhof accepted that, within a state or city, the role 

of neutral language could be filled by the official language or by the “cultural language 

spoken by the majority of the local population” and that the neutrally human language 

was recommended for those places where different ethnic groups were in conflict with 

each other. 

At the ninth Universal Congress in Bern in 1913, Zamenhof was for the first time 

just a simple congress participant. The keynote speech was delivered by the Swiss 

scientist René de Saussure, brother of the famous linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. 

Two weeks before the Bern congress, on the 12

th

 of August, 1913, Carlo Bourlet 

passed away. Bourlet's death was a severe blow, because without his influence, Hachette 

lost interest in Esperanto and the eighth volume of La Revuo (September 1913–August 

1914) turned out to be the last. Zamenhof quickly realized that in August 1914 he would 

lose his main source of income and that he would not be able to publish his Biblical 

texts with Hachette. He looked for a new publisher. Finally, he reached an agreement to 

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publish his translation of the Old Testament with The British and Foreign Bible Society. 

Because the translation of the Old Testament took all his free time, he set aside 

almost everything else related to Esperanto. We will mention only two events in which 

he was obliged to intervene. 

1)

 

In 1914, it was suggested to Zamenhof that he become a member of the Hebrew 

Esperanto Association, whose founding meeting was to take place during the Paris 

Congress. Zamenhof approved of the association's founding, but, as a homaranist, 

he did not want to ally himself with any ethnic group or religion and explained his 

decision in the following way: 

I am deeply convinced that all nationalism represents nothing but the 

greatest misfortune for humanity and that every human being should 

strive to create harmony within the human race, whose only 

boundaries should be geographical, not racial or religious. It is true 

that the nationalism of oppressed peoples, which is a natural reaction 

of self-defence, is much more forgivable than that of their oppressors. 

Nevertheless, if the nationalism of the powerful is ignoble, that of the 

weak is imprudent, for they each give rise to and sustain each other 

and represent a vicious circle of misery, from which humanity will 

never escape unless all of us sacrifice our group egotism and make an 

effort to stand on completely neutral ground. 

That is the reason why, despite the heart-rending sufferings of my 

people, I will not ally myself with Hebrew nationalism, but prefer to 

work only for absolute justice between peoples. I am profoundly 

convinced that I can do much more good for my unhappy race in this 

way than by nationalistic endeavours. (Mi estas Homo 217-218) 

2)

 

Antisemitism was increasing in Poland. It even permeated the review Pola 

Esperantisto (Polish Esperantist), which published in its May 1914 issue the 

article Poloj kaj Hebreoj by Andrzei Niemojewski, a Polish author, translator and 

scientist, who was also an Esperantist. It was not the article itself that most 

distressed Zamenhof, for similar articles were common in Poland. What upset him 

the most was the foreword by Pola Esperantisto's editor, the Warsaw journalist 

Mieczysław Czerwiński, who called the Talmud “a horrible book of superstitions 

and hatred of everything non-Jewish”. 

Zamenhof sent a protest to Pola Esperantisto. Czerwiński did not publish it and, 

instead, mentioned in the June issue that the editor had received several protests 

from Jews who “clearly revealed to us the lack of education of those who defend 

the Talmud”. At the same time, he declared open war on the Talmud. 

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