Internationalism, empire, and the early Esperanto movement in India

Halladay, Andrew ORCID: 0000-0001-5684-2432 (2024) Internationalism, empire, and the early Esperanto movement in India. Historical Journal. ISSN 0018-246X (In Press)

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Abstract

The artificial language of Esperanto would achieve remarkable success in early twentieth-century Europe. Its popularity there is not surprising: though designed as a universal language, Esperanto was essentially European in its grammar and lexicon. But this Europeanness—or, more precisely, this near-Europeanness—also spoke to communities living further afield. In India before the First World War, groups regarded as Europeanized by most Indians but as Indian by most Europeans found Esperanto a literal language with which to articulate their social location. As an ‘Esperantist’, there was no contradiction between being Indian and participating in European society, and to claim the label offered a shorthand that others (whatever their relationship to the movement) could readily grasp. This article considers these dynamics against the backdrop of a visit to India by the Irish Esperantist John Pollen, an event that sheds light on both the innerworkings of the Indian movement and the importance that non-Indian Esperantists assigned to it. Though the popularity of Esperanto would eventually decline in India with the First World War, but until it did, the movement—indexical of Europe yet resonant in India—would promise a transnational community to which many in India felt they could aspire and belong.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2025
Divisions:	International History
Subjects:	D History General and Old World P Language and Literature
Date Deposited:	02 Jan 2025 15:36
Last Modified:	09 May 2025 19:58
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/126548

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