International organization of Esperanto speakers
The Universal Esperanto Association (, UEA), also known as the World Esperanto Association, is the largest international organization of Esperanto speakers, with 5,501 individual members in 121 countries and 9,215 through national associations (in 2015) in 214 countries. In addition to individual members, 70 national Esperanto organizations are affiliated with UEA. Its current president is Prof. Duncan Charters. The magazine "Esperanto" is the main publication to inform UEA members about everything happening in the Esperanto community.
The UEA was founded in 1908 by the Swiss journalist Hector Hodler and others and is now headquartered in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The organization has official relations with the United Nations and has an office at the United Nations headquarters in New York City.
Structure and affiliated organizations.
According to its 1980 statutes (Statuto de UEA), the Universal Esperanto Association has two kinds of members:
The UEA's supervisory board, the "Komitato", has members ("komitatanoj") elected in three different ways:
The "Komitato" serves as a sort of parliament and elects a board, the "Estraro". The "Estraro" installs a general director and sometimes a director as well. The general director and staff work at the UEA headquarters, "Oficejo de UEA", in Rotterdam.
Individual members can become a "delegito", a 'delegate', who serves as a local contact person for Esperanto and UEA members in their town. A "ĉefdelegito" (chief delegate) is someone installed also by the UEA headquarters, but with the task to collect and remit membership fees in a given country.
Youth section.
TEJO, the World Esperanto Youth Organization, is the youth section of the UEA. Similar to the World Congress, TEJO organizes an International Youth Congress of Esperanto ("Internacia Junulara Kongreso") each year in a different location. The IJK is a week-long event of concerts, presentations, excursions attended by hundreds of young people from all over the world.
The youth section has a "Komitato" and national and specialist affiliated organizations, just as the UEA itself. A TEJO volunteer works at the Rotterdam headquarters.
National organizations.
The first national Esperanto organization was founded in 1898 in France, originally as a potential international association. In 1903 the second one followed, in Switzerland. Within a couple of years, many of the still existing national organizations came into existence. Since 1933-1934 they have sent representatives to the UEA "Komitato", making it a federation of national organizations. In Esperanto these were initially termed as "Naciaj Societoj" (national societies), but they have subsequently become known as "Landaj Asocioj" (country associations).
When UEA accepted national organizations in 1933-1934 for the first time, it required them to
Especially the last prerequisite caused serious problems, e.g. to the German national association submitting to Nazi Party rule. Decades later, in 1959, the Cuban association was refused because its statutes respected the leading role of the Communist Party of Cuba. In 1980, the UEA statutes were altered to specify that while a national organization need not be neutral itself, it must respect the neutrality of UEA.
Specialist organizations.
Specialist organizations are similar to the national organizations. They are divided into two groups:
The youth section TEJO has two affiliated specialist groups, the Esperantist cyclists and Esperantist rock music fans.
Activities.
Publications.
UEA publishes "Esperanto", the most important Esperanto periodical. It was started in 1905 by Paul Berthelot, three years before UEA was founded. UEA founder Hector Hodler took it over in 1907 and made it the official UEA magazine in 1908. In 1920 he left the magazine to the association. Since the 1950s it has had a paid editor-in-chief. Next to "Esperanto", the "Yearbook" ("Jarlibro de UEA") which published for 108 years, was the oldest continuous publication of the association.
UEA publishes books and has the largest mail-order Esperanto bookstore in the world (with over 6,000 book titles, CDs and other items). It also maintains an information centre and an important Esperanto library, called the Hector Hodler Library. The organisation has a network of local representatives from around the world, the "Delegita Reto", who are available to provide information about their geographical area or professional field.
Conventions.
The yearly World Esperanto Congress ("Universala Kongreso de Esperanto"), which attracts 1,500–3,000 people to a different city each year, is held under the direction of UEA. The first congress took place in 1905, and since 1933–1934 the UEA has had responsibility for the annual event. Since 2009, World Congresses have been held in Białystok, Poland, the hometown of L. L. Zamenhof, the creator and guiding spirit of Esperanto, as well as in Havana, Copenhagen, Hanoi, Reykjavík, Buenos Aires, Lille, Nitra, Seoul, Lisbon, Lahti, Montreal and Turin. In 2020 and 2021 the Congresses were held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Congresses are scheduled for Arusha, Tanzania in 2024 and Brno, Czech Republic in 2025.
Twice a year, in spring and autumn, UEA headquarters in Rotterdam holds an Open Day.
International organizations.
In addition to the UN and UNESCO, UEA also has consultative relations with UNICEF and the Council of Europe, and a general working relationship with the Organization of American States. It works in an official capacity with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as an A-liaison to ISO/TC37. UEA is active in public information in the European Union and, as necessary, at other interstate and international organizations and conferences. The organisation is a member of the European Language Council, a common forum of universities and language associations for the awareness of languages and cultures inside and outside the European Union.
In May 2011, UEA officially became an Associate Member of the International Information Centre for Terminology (Infoterm).
Grabowski Prize.
The Grabowski Prize is a prize awarded to young authors writing in Esperanto by the Antoni Grabowski Foundation, part of the Universal Esperanto Association (UEA). It is named after Antoni Grabowski, who has been called "the father of Esperanto poetry". The awards for the first three winners are $700, $300 and $150 respectively.
Past recipients.
Ulrich Becker, a publisher of literature in and about Esperanto and of interlinguistic literature in general, was awarded the Grabowski Prize (Premio Grabowski) in 2005 for his achievements in publishing in Esperanto. Among other works, he is the publisher of the thrice-yearly periodical of Esperanto belles-lettres, "Beletra Almanako".
History.
The founding years of the Esperanto movement, 1888–1914.
The modern UEA is the result of a decades-long process of several attempts to give the Esperanto movement a sound foundation. The first Esperanto associations were local clubs, of which the one in Nuremberg, Germany, is considered the first (1888). From 1898, national Esperanto associations were found in several countries, with the French one being the first. In 1903 followed the Swiss association; then in 1904 the British, in 1906 the German and Swedish, etc.
The founder of Esperanto, L. L. Zamenhof, wished for an international association to come into existence, but the first world congress of 1905 produced only a general manifesto about the essence and neutrality of the movement. The organizing team passed the torch to organizers of a next congress the year after, which eventually created a "Konstanta Kongresa Komitato" (Permanent Congress Committee). It consisted of two members representing the previous congress, two for the current one, and two for the next following congress.
Esperantists agreed that the whole movement must support two common international tasks: international documentation, propaganda in countries without movements of their own, lobbying at international organizations, organizing the world congresses, etc. Esperantists did disagree on which or what organization should be responsible for these tasks, how it should collect the money and how it should decide on spending the money.
In 1906, the French Gen. Hyppolyte Sebert created his "Esperantista Centra Oficejo" (Central Office of the Esperantists) in Paris. It collected information on the movement and published an "Oficiala Gazeto". In spite of this 'official' name, the office was a purely private enterprise of Sebert, but he tried to engender support from the various national associations.
One year later, at the Geneva world congress, Zamenhof created a "Lingva Komitato" (Language Committee), the basis of the later Akademio de Esperanto. It consisted of some eminent speakers from several countries and was intended to safeguard the evolution of the Esperanto language; members were elected for a nine-year term.
In 1908, a group of young Esperanto speakers founded an international association based on individual, direct membership: "Universala Esperanto-Asocio", based in Geneva. According to Hector Hodler and his followers, an international cause such as Esperanto must be supported by a unitary, truly international association, and UEA members should found separate organizations on national and local levels.
The national (and local) associations initially saw the UEA not as a supporting resource but as a threat, as undesirable competition. They were afraid of a division in the movement between the traditional groups on the one hand and the UEA members on the other. Also, propaganda and lessons were the task of the national associations (often federations of local groups). They did not like the perspective that new Esperantists, created by the traditional groups, would be picked up by UEA.
The national associations then tried to build up an international organizational level of their own. A first attempt took the form of "rajtigitaj delegitoj" to the congresses in 1911 and 1912 (not to be confused with the UEA "delegitoj"); an "Internacia Unuiĝo de Esperantistaj Societoj" (International Union of Esperanto associations, 1913-1914) was a second attempt. This evolutionary thread ceased in 1914 with the breakout of World War I, which forced the movement as a whole to pause many of its activities, and the Congresses planned for 1916, 1917, 1918 and 1919 were cancelled.
UEA in its first years.
The original UEA was purely based on individual membership. The members in a given locality, e.g. a town, were supposed to have UEA member conventions and elect a "delegito" (plural "delegitoj"), a delegate. The delegate was tasked with collecting membership fees and sending them to the Geneva headquarters, and was expected to represent the other local members on the international level. The totality of delegates held referendums, and they elected the "Komitato."
The Komitato board initially had eight (since 1910: ten) members, with a president and a vice-president. One of the board members served as director; from 1908 to 1920 this was Hector Hodler. The director installed delegates in towns with fewer than 20 members. These were 94 percent of the delegates, so the UEA was not so much a democracy but a circular, self-renewing system of cooptation. (Since 1920, the "Komitato" was enlarged, becoming a kind of parliament, and a board with the name "Estraro" was established.)
Hodler was still the owner and publisher of his magazine "Esperanto", published every second week. From the beginning, UEA had a Yearbook — "Jarlibro" — with basic information about the association and with the addresses of the delegates.
Esperanto speakers are divided by different subjects they are interested in. In those early years, some specialist organizations developed — for example, the "Universala Medicina Esperanto-Asocio" of 1908. Hodler tried to give those 'specialists' a home in the UEA. Instead of founding specialized associations of their own, with separate bulletins and conventions, he wanted them to be UEA members and have 'fakoj' (compartments). He also thought of partner organizations — for example, hotels which would give a discount to UEA members in exchange for an advertisement in the UEA Yearbook.
Hodler projected an organization fit to contain tens or hundreds of thousands of members, the so-called "esperantianoj" (UEA members, in opposition to the simple "esperantistoj", Esperanto speakers). In fact, UEA never exceeded a membership of 10,000. The association adopted several new statutes until 1920.
Attempts at organization in the interbellum, 1920–1933.
In 1920, the Esperanto movement gathered again for the first time since the war, at The Hague congress. The discussions eventually created the so-called Helsinki system, on which UEA and the national associations agreed at the congress of 1922 in the Finnish capital. This system defined the movement to consist of these 'official' entities:
This Helsinki system lasted for only a couple of years. The heads of the movement saw that at the world congresses there was considerable overlap, and three separate groups were discussing essentially the same subjects: the "Komitato" of UEA, the "Ko-Ro" of the national associations and the six members of the "ICK." From 1929, they all had a joint gathering called "Ĝenerala Estraro" (general board). A number of proposals came up in the movement to reform the organization.
The final blow to the Helsinki system came in 1932 when UEA did not pay its contributions for the common budget, and the same was true for some of the national associations. The British, German