Homaranismo: Zamenhof's idea of a neutral humanism

Homaranismo (in English "Humanitism") is L. L. Zamenhof's philosophy of equal peoples, a neutral language and one shared rule: treat others as you wish to be treated. It grew out of Hilelismo ("Hillelism"), published in 1901 under the pen name Homo sum, and received its name in 1906. Zamenhof called it the object of his whole life, yet he kept it separate from Esperanto, and the Esperanto movement, neutral since the Declaration of Boulogne (1905), never adopted it. No movement formed, and the congress he planned for it never took place.

#What does homaranismo mean?

The word is hom·ar·an·ism·o: homaro "humanity", -an- "member", -ism- "doctrine" – see suffixes. A homarano is a member of the human race and, in Zamenhof's sense, a follower of the doctrine. The Reta Vortaro calls homaranismo Zamenhof's project of a neutral religion, continuing Hilelismo.

#Where did homaranismo come from?

In 1901 Zamenhof published a Russian book, Hilelismo ("Hillelism: a project for solving the Jewish question"), signed Homo sum, Latin for "I am a human being". Hillel was a sage of King Herod's time who summed up the Law as: do not do to others what is hateful to you. According to the biographer Aleksander Korĵenkov, Zamenhof proposed a small Jewish community with a purified religion, free of ethnic rules, using Esperanto for teaching and worship. It roused little enthusiasm among Russian Jews.

The first World Esperanto Congress changed his plan. In August 1905 a crowd of 688 people from about 20 countries spent a week speaking only Esperanto, and Zamenhof concluded that the idea could work for everyone. Unrest in Russia then pushed him to publish before the next congress.

Zamenhof realised that Hilelismo sounded too Jewish and its foreword was too tied to Russia. The 1906 booklet says Hillelism had concerned one group, while homaranismo concerned all peoples and religions, and defines it as celado al pura homeco kaj al absoluta intergenta justeco kaj egaleco – "a striving for pure humaneness and for absolute justice and equality between peoples".

#What are the main principles of homaranismo?

The fullest short statement is the 1913 Deklaracio pri Homaranismo, with a reply form for readers who wished to be listed as homaranoj. In summary:

Two sentences carry the core. Mi estas homo, kaj la tutan homaron mi rigardas kiel unu familion. – "I am a human being, and I regard the whole of humanity as one family." And: Mi vidas en ĉiu homo nur homon. – "In every person I see only a person."

The 1906 text was longer: twelve points, "homaranist temples" where people of different religions would meet, names such as Peterburgio for Russia, and Esperanto named as the neutral language. In 1913 Zamenhof dropped the temples and the list of country names, added communities of freethinkers (liberkredaj, believing in no existing revealed religion) and no longer named Esperanto.

#Was homaranismo the same as Esperanto?

No, and Zamenhof insisted on the difference. The Declaration of Boulogne, accepted on 9 August 1905, says: Ĉiu alia ideo aŭ espero, kiun tiu aŭ alia esperantisto ligas kun la Esperantismo, estos lia afero pure privata. – "Every other idea or hope that an Esperantist links with Esperantism will be his purely private affair." The creator's own opinions bind nobody; only the Fundamento does. He had already given up all personal rights to the language in the Unua Libro of 1887.

His 1913 foreword repeats it. Esperanto means full neutrality, and its "internal idea" is only a vague feeling of brotherhood, while homaranismo is a defined political and religious programme, mian kredon pure privatan – "my purely private belief". He foresaw that enemies of Esperanto would use it as a weapon.

#How did Esperantists react?

Badly. Korĵenkov reports that non-Jews disliked the Talmudic name, atheists found the text too religious, believers found it heretical, and people absorbed in class conflict thought it politically misguided. Louis de Beaufront attacked it in L'Espérantiste. Zamenhof answered a priest's criticism by writing that homaranoj wanted no new religion, only a bridge between existing ones.

Two close French supporters, Émile Javal and Hippolyte Sebert, advised him to hide his authorship, and before the 1906 congress in Geneva persuaded him to cut the part of his speech that tied the "internal idea" to homaranismo (Korĵenkov). For some time he spoke only of the "internal idea".

#What was the congress Zamenhof planned?

He wanted a meeting on a neutral-human religion for people who had left their inherited faiths, first around the tenth World Congress in Paris in August 1914. The Parisian organisers feared the French nationalist press and refused. Then war cancelled the Paris congress.

On 9 September 1914 he asked the Swiss Esperantist Friedrich Uhlmann to organise a congress in Switzerland in 1915 for everyone who aspired to the unity of humanity (Korĵenkov). According to Edmond Privat, the circular for a smaller preparatory meeting named December 1916, then August 1917, and finally "after the end of the war". Nothing took place; Zamenhof died on 14 April 1917.

#What happened to homaranismo after Zamenhof?

It did not become a movement. Few readers signed the membership form, Privat notes; according to the Esperanto Wikipedia, many pacifists sympathised. His youngest child, Lidia Zamenhof (1904–1942), promoted homaranismo alongside Esperanto and, from about 1925, the Baháʼí Faith; see Zamenhof for her fate. Historians still study the doctrine, notably Korĵenkov (Homarano, 2009) and Christer Kiselman. Other ties between Esperanto and faith, such as Esperanto and Spiritism in Brazil, grew independently.

#Why is homaranismo criticised?

• Too much language and religion. Korĵenkov says Zamenhof, raised in multilingual Russia, overlooked that Western Europe was largely monolingual and barely weighed political, economic and psychological factors.
• Class. Ernest Drezen (1929) argued from a Marxist view that it ignored class conflict; "or social class" was added to the text only by 1913.
• Impractical details. Privat says Zamenhof himself dropped the renamed countries as unworkable.
• Tension in the aims. In a paper written in 1910 for the 1911 Universal Races Congress, Zamenhof argued that hatred between peoples would vanish only when humanity shared one language and one religion, while peoples kept their own at home. Kiselman reads his doubts as a conflict between saving the Jews and uniting humanity.
• Risk to Esperanto. Javal and Sebert feared a split in the movement. For criticism of the language itself, see criticism of Esperanto; for the wider story, the history of Esperanto.

#Common questions

#What is homaranismo?

Zamenhof's ethical and religious philosophy of the unity of humanity: all peoples equal, people judged by their deeds, a neutral language between communities. It developed from Hilelismo (1901) between 1906 and 1917.

#Is homaranismo a religion?

Zamenhof called it a political and religious programme, and the Reta Vortaro a project of a neutral religion. He denied wanting to replace existing religions: people were to keep their own and add neutral ethics.

#Is homaranismo the same as the "internal idea" of Esperanto?

No. The "internal idea" is a vague hope of brotherhood that many Esperantists feel. In 1913 Zamenhof wrote that homaranismo is a precise, private programme and not part of Esperanto.

#Did the congress of 1915 take place?

No. Zamenhof asked for it in September 1914, but the war made it impossible. Later plans slipped to 1916 and 1917, and he died in April 1917.

#Are there homaranoj today?

There is no organised movement today, although Zamenhof's writings on the subject are still studied.

#Sources

• A. Korĵenkov, Zamenhof: The Life, Works and Ideas of the Author of Esperanto, Esperantic Studies Foundation, 2009 (chapters XIII–XVI)
• Edmond Privat, Vivo de Zamenhof, Vikifontaro
• L. L. Zamenhof, Deklaracio pri Homaranismo (Madrid, 1913; public domain), Vikifontaro
• J. Dietterle (ed.), Originala Verkaro de L. L. Zamenhof (1929), part III "Hilelismo-Homaranismo", Vikifontaro
• Enciklopedio de Esperanto (1934), Zamenhof entry
• Akademio de Esperanto, Deklaracio pri la Esenco de la Esperantismo (9 August 1905)
• Ernest Drezen, Zamenhof (1929), chapter "Homaranismo"
• Vikipedio, Homaranismo, Hilelismo, Lidia Zamenhof and Ludoviko Lazaro Zamenhof; Wikipedia, Homaranismo, Declaration of Boulogne and Lidia Zamenhof; Wikipedia (pl), Homaranizm and Ludwik Zamenhof
• Reta Vortaro, homar-, Hilel- and kred-
• Stuart Schoffman, The Great Family Circle, Jewish Review of Books, 2017 (review of Esther Schor, Bridge of Words)