More Anarchists and Esperanto

La anarkiistoj estas ĉie!

If there were any doubt remaining that there was a broad use of Esperanto by the anarchist movements of the early twentieth century, here’s a third article on Esperanto and anarchists. I’m actually a little behind on this one, as it’s a rehash of an article that appeared in the Washington Times on September 6, 1908.[1] As I’ve been going through these articles, I’ve been stepping back in time, since the notice in the anarchist newspaper for Italian speakers in the US was in 1914, the Spanish anarchists in 1909, and now we’ve taken this all the way back to 1908.[2]

This could be the earliest association between Esperanto and anarchism, and though I passed on it when I first read it, the Perrysburgh Journal (of Perrysburg, Ohio) is giving me a second chance by running this abridgment of the article in its October 23, 1908 edition. The article had some legs, since I found it reprinted in three other newspapers with later dates.[3] As I noted, it seems to have been an abridgment of the Washington Times article, which was itself taken from an item in the Pall Mall Gazette.[4]

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Esperanto and the Spanish Anarchists

Are we  sure about this?

I recently wrote about the announcement of an Esperanto class for Italian speakers in a 1914 subversive newspaper, but it wasn’t clear why they were studying Esperanto. It didn’t have to be for anarchist or subversive politics (though it probably was). In general, the early Esperanto movement seems to have hewed to a progressive view, with many of its early members also being active in women’s rights, public health measures, and so forth.

The early history of Esperanto in Russia was marked by concerns that the language would be used to conceal forbidden political activity. And the Third Reich initially banned materials in Esperanto from coming into the country, later going on to ban any use of the language at all. (Which pales in the face of their seeking out and murdering descendants of L. L. Zamenhof).

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Esperanto and the Italian Subversives

Similar, but not Esperanto.

I don’t know what surprises me more: that there was an Esperanto group just for Italian speakers in New York, or that there was an Italian-Language newspaper in Vermont. It just doesn’t strike me as a place with a large Italian population. But they had the Cronaca sovversiva. Clearly with a name like “Subversive Chronicle,” this was a newspaper of the Italian anarchists of the early twentieth century. Sort of the thing you’d expect to see Sacco and Vanzetti reading.[1] The Library of Congress notes that the place of publication varied in its run from 1903 to 1920. No doubt when Lynn, Massachusetts became too hot for an anarchist publication, the editor packed off to Vermont.

We’ve have several threads here, weaving through the (unlikely) location of Barre, Vermont. Early on, Esperanto was picked up by the labor movement and to a degree it’s still there. The major Esperanto dictionary, Plena Ilustrita Vortaro (Complete Illustrated Dictionary) is published by SAT, the Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda, the World Non-National Association. They’re not just a dictionary publisher; their real goal is just what their name implies. Then there was the thought that in the near future Esperanto would indeed be the common tongue. So if you were an immigrant, why not learn Esperanto? And, of course, with the large immigrant Italian population of New York, why not give Esperanto classes in Italian?

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