Esperanto — A New Language in Germany

Esperanto's first magazine

One of the great early moments in the history of Esperanto was the defection of the Nuremberg Volapük Society, which abandoned Volapük for Esperanto as a group. At the time, the Volapük movement was already on the skids, but instead of just dissolving with the rest of the Volapük movement, the Nuremberg group stayed with the idea of an international language.

It was not, apparently, without problems with for the Esperanto movement. On the Wikipedia page for Leopold Einstein, Zamenhof is quoted as saying that the Nuremberg group brought the spirit of reform from Volapük to Esperanto. On the other hand, it also brought with it a magazine. The publication, La Esperantisto, mentioned in the article was the first periodical published in Esperanto. Leopold Einstein encountered the Unua Libro in 1888[1] and September 1889, the club was publishing La Esperantisto.[2]

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Professor Schinz, the Accuser of Esperanto

Professor Claims Esperanto a German Plot

To recap: On November 25, 1916, the New York Sun published a letter by Creston Coigne about how Esperanto was progressing despite the war. This occasioned a response on December 2 from Professor Albert Schinz of Smith College, who essentially accused a British Esperantist who was covertly corresponding with a German Esperantist friend of treason, and suggested that the only reason that the Germans were putting war dispatches out in Esperanto was to disrupt the likelihood of French and English being the co-international languages, and advance the cause of German. To this, on December 11, Jozefo Silbernik, Dr. Zamenhof’s brother-in-law, and an active Esperantist in New York City, showed that Professor Schinz’s contention that the Germans did this because they knew they would lose the war was false, since the Germans started the dispatches before getting officially involved in the war.

Not enough for Professor Schinz. On December 12, 1916, he’s back in the pages of the Sun with a further question for the Esperantists. At this point, I had to look ahead; Professor Schinz gets the last word. After initial enthusiasm for Esperanto, French academics had somewhat soured on it, and I suspect Professor Schinz got his view of Esperanto from his French colleagues. His real issue seems to be the prospect of French as one of the world’s languages of international use.

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Silbernick Defends German Use of Esperanto

Acquitted? Was it on trial?

The New York Sun published a lengthy letter about Esperanto on December 11, 1916. It’s long enough that I was inclined to quote it only in part, until I reached the bottom and saw who wrote it: Joseph Silbernik. The first time I wrote about Mr. Silbernik, it was quickly pointed out to me (thanks!) that Silbernik was the maiden name of Klara Zamenhof. Her father, Marcus Silbernik, funded the publication of the the Unua Libro. I have since learned that Joseph Silbernik was Klara Zamenhof’s brother.

Or so says a page on the Esperanto Wikipedia. There is no source for the assertion, but it seems to work out. Joseph Silbernik was about 21 years younger than Aleksandro Silbernik (Klara’s father). Another Silbernik relative, Joseph Levite (Klara’s brother-in-law) lived in Warsaw, and it was at his home that Ludovik met Klara.[1] But like Ludovik, Joseph was born in Bialystok, about seven years before Ludovik. It looks like there were a number of intersections between the Zamenhof and Silbernik families.

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