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homaranism. Now it is a question of striving towards “a spiritual union of all human 

beings”. 

An analysis of the four versions of this philosophy (Hillelism, 1906; Homaranism, 

1906; Homaranism, 1913; Homaranism, 1917) reveals that Zamenhof attributed less and 

less importance to the problem of language. Esperanto is not mentioned at all in 1913 

and 1917, and the 1917 version even omits all mention of the neutrally human language. 

Zamenhof's target audience had changed. The first universal project (Hillelism, 1906) 

took into account the interests of the Russian Jews, but this consideration later 

disappeared. The final version of homaranism was intended by Zamenhof to be 

disseminated, not in the Esperanto community, but in the entire world, and not through 

Esperanto, but through the major national languages. 

Indeed, striving to bring about a brotherhood of humanity, the eradication of 

interracial hatred and a spiritual union of all human beings is a more general goal than 

that of achieving linguistic and religious unity. Furthermore, the guiding principle of 

homaranism (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” in the final version) 

is not religious, but moral. The concept of striving towards a brotherhood of humanity 

and the application of the above-mentioned principle (also of “tolerance”, which is 

implicit in homaranism although not explicitly named) could make homaranism 

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attractive, less to Esperantists and religious believers than to ordinary “progressives”, for 

whom language and religious problems were not of utmost importance. 

A few weeks before his death, Zamenhof began writing his last essay, On God and 

Eternal Life, which he considered very important, even though he expected that his 

sudden expression of religious belief would be subject to much criticism. Unfortunately, 

after the introduction there is nothing but a one-paragraph description of his loss of 

religious belief during his early childhood. Besides this paragraph, all that remains of the 

projected article is a small sheet of paper with an outline of the content and two 

sentences written in the right-hand margin: “I began to feel that perhaps death is not a 

disappearance, but a miracle, and that there exist some kind of laws in nature by which 

something guides us to some kind of destination [...]” and “everyone probably has some 

vaguely felt belief, for otherwise their life would have no more meaning than that of an 

animal” (Mi estas Homo, 245). 

This was his last, unfinished, ideological writing. In it, Zamenhof says he “reflected 

a great deal and read various scientific and philosophical works”, but it is not known 

which specific works he meant. His own writings, especially the earliest ones, were 

influenced by the ideas of the already fading Haskala movement, by Pinsker's 

autoemancipation, Dubnov's autonomism, Herzl's political Zionism, and especially the 

spiritual Zionism of Ahad Ha'am. 

Zamenhof's ideas were, to different degrees, related to the ideals of the French 

Revolution, the American “melting pot”, Russian cosmism, cosmopolitanism, Christian 

ecumenism, freemasonry, the Bahai faith, etc. The influences of the Russian philosopher 

and poet Vladimir Solovyov, the German Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen, and the 

French philosopher Auguste Comte are evident in his works. 

He was unable to finish his last essay, because his weakness made it too difficult for 

him to write. On the afternoon of the 14

th

 of April, 1917, in German-occupied Warsaw, 

Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof's heart stopped beating. 

Zamenhof was dead, but he left behind his children (they were all murdered by the 

Nazis during the Second World War), his Esperanto language, which was his gift to the 

world, his translations, and his ideas, which even today still inspire those who consider 

themselves, not just members of an ethnic group or a religion, but ,members of the 

human race, members of the brotherhood of humanity, who believe in its unity in 

diversity. 

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Notes 

                                                 

1

  As a citizen of Russia, Zamenhof was formally named Lazar’ Markovitch Zamenhof. This particular 

form, consisting of the personal name, the father's personal name and the family name, in that order, 

was obligatory in Russia. To avoid confusion, he will be referred to in this text by the name he 

adopted later and by which he is generally known: Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof or L. L. Zamenhof, 

as he usually signed himself. 

2

  Formed in 1569, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth extended from the Baltic almost as far as the 

Black Sea and included not only modern Lithuania and Poland, but also Belarus and Ukraine. The 

Commonwealth broke apart in 1795. 

3

  Hasidism is a spiritual movement that arose among Eastern European Jews in the 1700s. It teaches 

that one can become closer to God through emotion and devotion to the Torah rather than through 

the intellect. 

4

  75% of the working population of Russian Jews were tradespeople or merchants in the mid-

nineteenth century. 

5

  The Maskilim were adherents of the Jewish Haskalah movement, which had begun in Germany 

during the Age of Enlightenment and was heavily influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment 

philosophers. 

6

  The Real School was a secondary school that put more emphasis than the Gymnasium on practical 

subjects. 

7

   The first Volapük textbook was published in the spring of 1880 by the pastor Johann Martin 

Schleyer from Baden. The language spread quickly, clubs and journals were established in a number 

of countries, and international Volapük conventions were held in 1884, 1887 and 1889. However, its 

popularity rapidly waned in the 1890s, in part because of the advent of Esperanto. 

8

  Idiom Neutral, published in 1902, began as a much modified version of Volapük, but by the time of 

its publication was a distinctly new language. Its name means “Neutral Language”. 

9

 The Tolstoyans were adherents to the philosophical ideas of the great Russian novelist Tolstoy. 

Essentially, they studied the teachings of Jesus Christ and recognized no authority but that of God. 

Their refusal to recognize secular authority made them suspect in the eyes of the Russian 

government. The Posrednik publishing company was launched in 1884 to publish works accessible 

to the Russian peasants, to act as the “intermediary” between Russian culture and literature and the 

peasant class. 

10

 The Esperanto flag is green with a white star. Green is also the colour of the star Esperantists often 

wear on their lapel to identify themselves as Esperanto speakers. 

11

 The correlative words in Esperanto are a logically defined set of words that express the ideas of 

“that, what/which, some, every, no”. Their structure is logical: kiu = who, what, which; iu = some 

one; kie = where; ie = somewhere; nenie = nowhere; etc. 

12

  Monosemy means that each word has only one meaning. 

13

  The concept of reversibility is based on the assumption that, because the words of the language are 

formed from invariable elements (for example, Esperanto's affixes), it is possible to derive from any 

given word all other words of the same semantic group. Thus, from the word “vendisto” 

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(salesperson) it is possible to derive the infinitive “vendi” (to sell), the noun “vendejo” (shop, store), 

the adjective “vendebla” (saleable), etc. From any one of these words, it is possible to derive all the 

others. 

14

 There was a general dissatisfaction with the rule of the Czars that led to strikes and a revolt in Russia 

during this period, especially following the massacre of about 1,000 demonstrators at the Czar’s 

Winter Palace in January 1905. This period set the stage for the later Bolshevik revolution of 1917 

that ended the rule of the Czars and ushered in the period of communist rule. 

15

  Nahum Sokolow was a leading Zionist at the time. He was a journalist and a prolific Hebrew author. 

16

  The links between homaranismo and Esperantism did not go unnoticed in the world, however. On 

the 8

th

 of June, 1940, for example, a report by the State Office for Security summed up the Nazi's 

relationship to Esperanto as follows: 

  The Polish Jew Zamenhof, an eye doctor in Warsaw in his day, came out of the Zionist 

movement (Chovevey Zion). He strove to bring about the Jewish reign over the world, 

as prophesied in Isaiah 2:2-4, the reign of peace under Jewish rule. All races were to 

voluntarily subjugate themselves to the Jews. This goal was to be achieved by 

“peaceful” penetration and decomposition of the master races. The tools used by 

Zamenhof were unbridled pacifism, a new religion, homaranismo, initiated by him as a 

preparatory step towards the Jewish religion, and the universal language invented by 

him, “Esperanto”, which, through the same reading material for people of all races, 

colours and geographical origins, through the same education, ideals, beliefs and goals 

was to lead gradually to a general racial stew. 

  These three goals together, not just the promotion of a universal language, make up 

Esperantism, which, after about 1905, has served as an auxiliary weapon of the Jews. 

 [...] 

  To consider “Esperanto” as just an auxiliary language for international communication 

is wrong. The artificial language Esperanto is part of Esperantism, of the weapon of the 

Jews. (Lins 124, 127) 

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