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VII. A Struggling Young Doctor 

Esperanto was having a negative impact on Zamenhof's professional life, however. In 

the first place, he had to pay for his publications out of his own pocket and therefore 

needed to earn more money than his fellow doctors, who used their incomes only to 

support their families. Secondly, Esperanto took a good deal of time that his competitors 

were able to use for working, professional training and promoting themselves. Finally, not 

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16 

 

everyone was happy seeing a doctor who was busy creating a language. As a result, his 

early career was marked by financial difficulties, as he himself wrote: 

Esperanto soon swallowed up the greater part of my wife's money; the rest 

of it we spent on necessities, for the income from my medical practice was 

terribly small. At the end of 1889 we were left without a kopeck! (Mi estas 

Homo 104) 

Ludovic’s financial troubles were not the only ones to befall the Zamenhof family at 

this time. His father, Mark, lost his position as censor at the end of 1888 for having 

passed a politically suspect text for publication in the Hebrew newspaper Hacefira 

(which was shut down for three months as a result). 

In October 1889 Zamenhof prepared the material for the second issue of La 

Esperantisto, sent it to Schmidt, then moved from the Polish Kingdom to Russia to find 

a city where he could establish a successful practice, preferably without competition. His 

pregnant wife and his sixteen-month-old son Adam went to Kaunas to stay with Clara's 

father. 

Zamenhof tried unsuccessfully to establish himself in Brest (now in Belarussia) and 

in Bialystock, both in the Russian Grodna administrative district. He then went to the 

district capital of Cherson in southern Ukraine, but a woman oculist was already in 

practice there. Zamenhof had to compete with her to feed his family, which increased in 

size on December 1

st

, 1889 when his daughter Sofia was born in Kaunas. The Cherson 

experience was a fiasco, so in May 1890 the 30-year-old doctor returned to Warsaw and 

moved into number 21 Nowolipki Street (his parents still lived in Muranowska Street). 

Despite the small salary provided by Trompeter, the family finances were in a bad 

way. In fact, the family’s main support came from the generosity of Clara's father, 

Sender Zilbernik, for Zamenhof's medical practice was not at all profitable. His gloom 

deepened when his mother passed away on August 19

th

, 1892. He realized that he could 

not independently support his family in Warsaw and decided to move to Grodna, where 

the Jewish population was then in the majority with Russian, Belarussian and Polish 

minorities also living there. 

On October 22

nd

, 1893 Zamenhof filled out a form at the medical bureau of the 

Grodna administrative district requesting permission to set up a medical practice in the 

city. Having received the necessary permission and finding that the early days of his 

practice there gave reason to be hopeful, he returned briefly to Warsaw. On November 

27

th

 the Zamenhofs, with their two children, left the Polish capital for what would be 

several years. 

In Grodna the family moved into Policejskaja Street in the city centre. Zamenhof's 

clinic was in the same rented premises. Since his income in Grodna was higher than in 

Warsaw and the cost of living was lower, Zamenhof intended to remain there for some 

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17 

 

time. Consequently, he registered himself in the prestigious Grodna District Yearbook as 

a medical practitioner with a private practice. 

Along with his professional activity and his Esperanto work, Zamenhof still found 

the time to be active in the Grodna District Medical Society as well as in other areas. As 

a juror for the Grodna District Court, for example, he took part in trials and 

distinguished himself by his outstanding integrity and rigour. As an army reserve doctor, 

he gave notice in writing on June 24

th

, 1896 that he wished to carry out the duties of a 

military doctor in Grodna in the event of war. 

Working in Grodna in more favourable financial circumstances and a less stressful 

environment, Zamenhof decided to realize his dream of a Library of the International 

Language Esperanto (Biblioteko de la lingvo internacia Esperanto). The first work to 

appear in the series was his Esperanto translation of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. 

It was a real challenge: to translate the well-known, thought-provoking, heavily 

nuanced play into a language whose very structure was still under discussion. This was a 

work of literature “known by everyone”, either in the original or in translation, a work 

studied in every grammar school in the world, brought to the stage by the world’s most 

outstanding actors thousands of times in hundreds of theatres and in dozens of 

languages. And this unknown eye doctor from the outer regions of Russia accepted the 

challenge. The first readers were amazed by the translation's fluency, intelligibility and 

faithfulness to the original. Because of the translation of Hamlet, some readers lost all 

interest in reforming the language, because they became convinced that it was already 

perfectly functional. One reader even wrote that “reading Hamlet in Esperanto was more 

effective for him [..] than all the most expert theoretical arguments” (Esperantisto 1895 

35-36). 

Everything else written or translated by Zamenhof up to the later Hachette period 

(see following section, “Esperanto’s ‘French Period’”) and La Revuo (The Review) was 

overshadowed by his translation of Hamlet, even the Ekzercaro (Collection of Exercises) 

which received the finishing touches in Grodna and was published in the same 

Biblioteko. Nevertheless, the Exercises were a very important publication on account of 

their many model sentences. They later comprised one of the three constituent parts of 

the Fundamento de Esperanto, the Foundation of Esperanto. 

The Zamenhofs spent four years in Grodna. After the initial period of prosperity, 

they again encountered financial problems brought on largely by the appearance in the 

city of another oculist. In addition, Zilbernik insisted that his grandchildren be educated, 

not in the small city of Grodna, but in the capital, Warsaw. In the end, Zilbernik made 

his son-in-law realize that until he had definitively established himself in Warsaw, he 

must put Esperanto aside and devote himself exclusively to his profession. 

Little by little Zamenhof reduced his Esperanto activity, keeping up only the 

publication of the lists of names and addresses and the most essential correspondence. 

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18 

 

After the disappearance of Esperantisto, he also ceased publishing the Biblioteko. For 

several months, Esperantists had no common link. Finally, in December 1895, Lingvo 

Internacia (International Language) was launched in Sweden. Zamenhof sent it a text 

from time to time, but played no role in the publication’s editorial policy. 

His last initiative in Grodna was to plan “a written congress for discussion of and 

decision on the question of an international language”. In early 1897, he prepared a 

notice about the congress and sent it to six thousand publications and to representatives 

of various international-language groups, but the poor response it received caused the 

project to be dropped. 

On the 16

th

 of October, 1897, the Zamenhofs left Grodna and returned to live in 

Warsaw.