Henrik Seppik

Henrik Sepamaa (pseudonym, actually: Henry Richard Seppik ) (* January 27 ^{. Jul} / 9. February  1905 ^greg. In Pärnu , † 4. February 1990 in Tallinn ) was an Estonian self-taught teacher and grammarian of Esperanto . With the exception of his imprisonment in Stalinist camps from 1947 to 1956, he devoted almost his entire professional life to Esperanto as an adult education center and traveling teacher, translator, writer, editor, author of dictionaries and an Esperanto grammar, and finally as an “Esperanto entrepreneur”.

Esperanto teacher

Seppik graduated from the renowned Gustav Adolf grammar school in the Estonian capital. He learned Esperanto in 1920 when he was fifteen. From 1925 to 1928 he studied Romance and Estonian philology at the Philological Faculty of the University of Tartu .

Between 1924 and 1929 he taught the planned language Esperanto in numerous courses in Tartu , Tallinn , Pärnu and Petseri . In 1924 he was a lecturer for Esperanto at the “People's University” in Pärnu, and in 1928 in Tartu.

The widespread interest in the "peace language" Esperanto after the First World War in Western and Central Eastern Europe in general and the benevolent attitude of the young Estonian Republic in particular created a demand for Esperanto lessons, which enabled Seppik to make a living as a "professional Esperantist" deny.

1929-1931 he traveled as a teacher according to the "direct method" developed by Andreo Cseh through Sweden and taught in mass courses. In 1932 he was a Cseh teacher in Norway, then until 1939 in Denmark and Czechoslovakia.

Esperanto entrepreneur and official

In addition, he founded and headed the Estonian Esperanta Turista Komisiono ( ETK - Esperanto Tourist Commission ), which u. a. organized tourist exchanges with Sweden.

The mixed economic and idealistic activities of the ETK were made easier by the fact that Seppik was a member of the board of the Estonian Esperanto Association for several years.

Esperanto translator, editor and author

As early as 1924 Seppik translated several short stories by his compatriot and contemporary Friedebert Tuglas , one of the most famous writers of the Estonian Republic and their literary "figurehead". Seppik was one of the translators of exemplary literature in his country for the Estonia antologio (Estonian anthology, first part 1932) and co-author of the Enciklopedio de Esperanto (Budapest 1933-1934).

His work as a lecturer was significant - also internationally - and shaped the Esperanto style of his time. Practically all important literary translations from Estonian passed through his linguistic control, in particular the Estonian anthology, the national epic Kalevipoeg (translation Hilda Dresen ), the short story collection En Fremdda urbo (“In a strange city”) by Arvo Valton (translation Antonina Apollo) and others. a.

Textbooks and dictionaries, grammar

His two textbooks, "Esperanto for beginners" and "Esperanto for advanced learners", were developed from and for the classroom and were converted from Estonian via Esperanto into the languages ​​of the later countries in which he was taught. H. translated into Swedish and Czech or adapted to these languages.

One year after his release from ten years imprisonment under Stalinism , his “Small Dictionary Esperanto-Estonian and Estonian-Esperanto” was published in 1957. They reflect the lexical status before Esperanto was banned in the Soviet Union in 1937 and have since been replaced by more up-to-date dictionaries by Jaan Ojalo in 1973 and 1999.

On the other hand, his grammar “The Whole Esperanto” (1st edition Budapest 1938, further essentially unchanged editions 1971, 1984 and 1987) experienced a renaissance, although there were and are numerous detailed and more modern competing works in Esperanto and in many ethnic languages. Even a Yahoo group is dealing with it today. Created as the third level of teaching material for advanced learners and course instructors, La tuta Esperanto is characterized by its classic style, easy comprehensibility and high practicality, in which teaching experiences with students from the three language groups Finno-Ugric, Germanic and Slavic have been incorporated. The really innovative thing about the language description, however, lies in the change of perspective. Previously, grammarians who were trained on the model and in the categories of the inflected languages ​​Latin and Ancient Greek dominated. With the work of Seppik, a representative of an agglutinating language without “deformation” reached a wide audience for the first time through a classical high school education. His remarks opened the view to the fact that Esperanto, despite its ostensibly Romanesque-Germanic word facade in its internal structure, is closer to the agglutinating languages ​​and that its essence can only inadequately be described by the categories of the classical inflected languages. This knowledge has meanwhile become common property in modern Esperantology through comparisons between Esperanto and agglutinating languages ​​such as Finnish, Turkish or Japanese.

Works (selection)

• 1932 : Systematic course in esperanto. Stockholm: Förlagsföreningen Esperanto. [Textbook for Beginners, Swedish].
• 19 .. : Systematický kurs mezinárodniho jazyka esperanto [textbook for beginners, adapted for Czech by Ladislav Krajc]
• 1936 : Esperanto keele süstemaatiline kursus [textbook for beginners, Estonian]
• 1936 : Listen to the course in esperanto. [Textbook for advanced learners, Swedish]
• 1938 : La tuta Esperanto [All Esperanto, grammar for advanced learners, plus a guide for course instructors, in Esperanto].
• 1957 : Väike Esperanto-Eesti ja Eesti-Esperanto Sõnaraamat [small dictionary…]. Tallinn: Eesti Riiklik Kirjastus, 1957

Soviet occupation

After the Soviet occupation of Estonia, Seppik was deported to the interior of Russia. He spent the years from 1947 to 1956 in the Gulag in the Komi Republic . In 1956 he was able to return to his Estonian homeland. He established himself as a freelance translator in the Estonian SSR .

In addition to his extensive work as an Esperanto expert, Seppik made a name for himself as a translator, especially from the Scandinavian languages ​​into Estonian. He has translated fiction from Norwegian ( Ibsen , Hamsun ), Icelandic ( Laxness ), Danish ( Andersen Nexø ), Swedish ( Strindberg ) and Russian ( Gogol ) , among others . In 1982 he was awarded the renowned Juhan Smuul Prize for Literature .

literature

• Eesti elulood. Tallinn: Eesti entsüklopeediakirjastus 2000 (= Eesti entsüklopeedia 14) ISBN 9985-70-064-3 , p. 470

Web links

• Works by Henrik Seppik in the holdings of the Estonian National Library
• Books by and about Henrik Seppik in the collection for planned languages ​​of the Austrian National Library
• Seppik on a group photo of Estonian Esperantists, Tallinn 1923, in Bildarchiv Austria .
• “La tuta Esperanto” in html.
• Pdf edition of "La tuta Esperanto"
• The group “La tuta Esperanto” on Facebook

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from January 14, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ The chief reviewer of the Heroldo de Esperanto, Max Butin, emphasizes in his review of the anthology: "Polurita, brilpura lingvo, klasike Zamenhofa." (Polished, brilliantly clean language, in the classic Zamenhof style ); Heroldo 1933, no.8.