Internacia Esperanto-Ligo
The Internacia Esperanto-Ligo or International Esperanto League was the largest and most important neutral Esperanto association from 1936 to 1947 . In 1947 she was part of the World Esperanto Federation UEA .
prehistory
When the World Esperanto Federation was founded in 1908, the question of cooperation with the national Esperanto associations arose. They saw the World Federation as a competitor who would lure the active members away from them. A loose cooperation agreement from 1913 was more of a symbolic character.
From 1923 to 1932, the Helsinki system, which had been adopted at the World Congress in the Finnish capital in 1922, worked. The World Federation on the one hand and national associations on the other hand paid contributions according to the number of members and appointed the members of an international central committee. This committee decided on the use of the money for general tasks of the Esperanto movement, such as lobbying international organizations.
Most of the national associations terminated the cooperation in 1932 because they were looking for greater participation. After fierce disputes, a “new UEA” was agreed at the 1933 World Congress in Cologne. The World Federation became the umbrella organization , the national associations paid their contribution and sent their representatives to the Association Council of the World Association - the vast majority of them, in addition to which there were also some representatives of members in countries without regional associations as well as co-opted association council members.
In 1936 the board of directors was forced to relocate the association's headquarters from Geneva to London for financial and personnel reasons. Some Swiss members protested successfully at the Geneva district court and delayed the move until the board gave up and left the Alliance. With him most of the members and national associations went to the newly founded International Esperanto League (IEL). The World Federation (so-called Geneva UEA ) withered into a shadowy existence.
Work of the IEL
The IEL had its office at the British Esperanto Association in London for a few months and moved into a villa in Heronsgate near London before the end of 1936 . There, the association survived the war under General Secretary Cecil C. Goldsmith . She organized the Esperanto World Congresses of 1937, 1938 and 1939.
After the Second World War , the leadership of the Geneva UEA realized that there was no future besides the successful IEL. In 1947, at the first post-war congress, it was united with the IEL under the traditional name of Universala Esperanto-Asocio .
Regional associations
In 1936 the Esperanto associations in the following countries joined the IEL: Austria, France, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Poland, the Netherlands, North America (USA and Canada), Brazil, Japan and Czechoslovakia. Later came:
- 1937: Italy (with a special status) and Hungary (previously not in the UEA)
- 1938: Switzerland (the last association previously remaining in the UEA), Greece, Yugoslavia
- 1939: Finland
During and after the war they joined (again):
- 1942: Australia
- 1945: Morocco
- 1946: Argentina, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Yugoslavia
See also
literature
- Marcus Sikosek (Ziko van Dijk): The neutral language. A Political History of the World Esperanto Federation , Bydgoszcz: Skonpres 2006 , ISBN 978-83-89962-03-4
