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Hoping to unite all of humankind and revolutionize the world, Ludwik Zamenhof launched a new international language called Esperanto from late imperial Russia in 1887. Ordinary men and women in Russia and all over the world soon transformed Esperanto into a global movement. Esperanto and Languages of Internationalism in Revolutionary Russia traces the history and legacy of this effort: from Esperanto's roots in the social turmoil of the pre-revolutionary Pale of Settlement; to its links to socialist internationalism and Comintern bids for world revolution; and, finally, to the demise of the Soviet Esperanto movement in the increasingly xenophobic Stalinist 1930s. In doing so, this book reveals how Esperanto – and global language politics more broadly – shaped revolutionary and early Soviet Russia. Based on extensive archival materials, Brigid O'Keeffe's book provides the first in-depth exploration of Esperanto at grassroots level and sheds new light on a hitherto overlooked area of Russian history. As such, Esperanto and Languages of Internationalism in Revolutionary Russia will be of immense value to both historians of modern Russia and scholars of internationalism, transnational networks, and sociolinguistics.
Representing a crucial intervention in the history of internationalism, transnationalism and global history, this edited collection examines a variety of international movements, organisations and projects developed in Europe or by Europeans over the course of the 20th century. Reacting against the old Eurocentricism, much of the scholarship in the field has refocussed attention on other parts of the globe. This volume attempts to rethink the role played by ideas, people and organisations originating or located in Europe, including some of their consequential global impact. The chapters cover aspects of internationalism such as the importance of language, communication and infrastructures of internationalism; ways of grappling with the history of internationalism as a lived experience; and the roles of European actors in the formulation of different and often competing models of internationalism. It demonstrates that the success and failure of international programmes were dependent on participants' ability to communicate across linguistic but also political, cultural and economic borders. By bringing together commonly disconnected strands of European history and 'history from below', this volume rebalances and significantly advances the field, and promotes a deeper understanding of internationalism in its many historical guises. The volume is conceived as a way of thinking about internationalism that is relevant not just to scholars of Europe, but to international and global history more generally.
This is Volume 2 of Dangerous Language. This book examines the rise of the international language Esperanto, launched in 1887 as a proposed a solution to national conflicts and a path to a more tolerant world. The chapters in this volume examine the position of Esperanto in Eastern Europe during the Cold War; in particular it explores Stalin’s final years and the gradual re-emergence of the Esperanto movement. At first, its revival was limited to the satellite countries, especially Bulgaria and Poland, but, with Stalinism’s gradual retreat, Esperanto organizations reappeared in most East European countries and eventually in the Soviet Union itself. The progress was uneven, and its details reveal the stresses and strains that became apparent as the solidarity of the Soviet bloc declined. This book will appeal to a wide readership, including linguists, historians, political scientists and others interested in the history of the twentieth century from the unusual perspective of language. This volume is complemented by the sister volume Dangerous Language — Esperanto under Hitler and Stalin which offers a concentration on the creation and early emergence of Esperanto as an international language.
As perceived icons of indifferent marginality, disorder, indolence, and parasitism, “Gypsies” threatened the Bolsheviks’ ideal of New Soviet Men and Women. The early Soviet state feared that its Romani population suffered from an extraordinary and potentially insurmountable cultural “backwardness,” and sought to sovietize Roma through a range of nation-building projects. Yet as Brigid O’Keeffe shows in this book, Roma actively engaged with Bolshevik nationality policies, thereby assimilating Soviet culture, social customs, and economic relations. Roma proved the primary agents in the refashioning of so-called “backwards Gypsies” into conscious Soviet citizens. New Soviet Gypsies provides a unique history of Roma, an overwhelmingly understudied and misunderstood diasporic people, by focusing on their social and political lives in the early Soviet Union. O’Keeffe illustrates how Roma mobilized and performed “Gypsiness” as a means of advancing themselves socially, culturally, and economically as Soviet citizens. Exploring the intersection between nationality, performance, and self-fashioning, O’Keeffe shows that Roma not only defy easy typecasting, but also deserve study as agents of history.
This is Volume 1 of Dangerous Language. This book examines the rise of the international language Esperanto, launched in 1887 as a proposed solution to national conflicts and a path to a more tolerant world. The chapters in this volume chart the emergence of Esperanto as an answer to a widespread democratic desire for direct person-to-person international communication regardless of political boundaries. Its early success was limited, mostly because of the Czarist regime's suspicion of direct communication with foreigners, and, later, similar suspicion by dictatorial regimes generally. As speakers of a "dangerous language," its adepts were harassed and persecuted, especially in Germany and the Soviet Union. This book argues that the fate of Esperanto over the 130 years of its existence serves as a barometer to measure the degree to which regimes tolerate spontaneous personal contact with other countries and allow the pursuit of self-education outside prescribed national or ideological constraints. This book will appeal to a wide readership, including linguists, historians, political scientists and others interested in the history of the twentieth century from the unusual perspective of language. This volume is complemented by the sister volume Dangerous Language - Esperanto and the Decline of Stalinism which offers a concentration on the Cold War history of Esperanto in Eastern Europe.
This book is the first to offer a concise, accessible overview of the evolution of the Soviet Union as a multiethnic empire. It reflects on how the Soviet Union was home to many ethnic minorities, and how their fates, and that of the USSR itself, were bound to the question of how the Soviet state responded variously throughout its existence to the fundamental question of ethnic difference across its vast and diverse territory. The book then examines how the Soviet collapse in 1991 fractured the Union along markedly national lines, leading to a variety of new nation-states – including the Russian Federation – being born. Brigid O'Keeffe explains how and why the Bolsheviks inscribed ethnic difference into the bedrock of the Soviet Union and explores how minority peoples experienced the potential advantages and disadvantages of ethnic politics within the Soviet Union. Ukrainians and Georgians, Jews and Roma, Chechens and Poles, Kazakhs and Uzbeks – these and many other minority groups all distinctively shaped and were shaped by the Soviet and post-Soviet politics of ethnic difference. The Multiethnic Soviet Union and its Demise gives you the historical context necessary to understand contemporary Russia's relationships and conflicts with its 'post-Soviet' neighbors and the wider world beyond.
"A history of Esperanto, the utopian "universal language" invented in 1887"--
This book explores how Esperanto – often regarded as a future-oriented utopian project that ended up confined to the past – persists in the present. Constructed in the late nineteenth century to promote global linguistic understanding, this language was historically linked to anarchism, communism and pacifism. Yet, what political relevance does Esperanto retain in the present? What impacts have emerging communication technologies had on the dynamics of this speech community? Unpacking how Esperanto speakers are everywhere, but concentrated nowhere, the author argues that digital media have provided tools for people to (re)politicise acts of communication, produce horizontal learning spaces and, ultimately, build an international community. As Esperanto speakers question the post-political consensus about communication rights, this language becomes an ally of activism for open-source software and global social justice. This book will be of relevance to students and scholars researching political activism, language use and community-building, as well as anyone with an interest in digital media more broadly.
The transnational and diasporic dimensions of early Chinese migrant politics opened in the late nineteenth century when Chinese radical groups bent on overthrowing the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) vied with one another to win Chinese overseas to their modernizing projects, and immigrants who had suffered discrimination welcomed their proposals. The radicals’ concentration on Chinese communities abroad as outposts of Chinese politics and culture strengthened the stereotype of Chinese as clannish, unassimilable, xenophobic, and deeply introverted. This book argues that such a view has its roots less in historical truth than in political and ideological prejudice and obscures a rich vein of internationalist practice in Chinese migrant or diasporic history, which the study aims to restore to visibility. In some cases, internationalist alliances sprang from the spontaneous perception by Chinese and other non-Chinese migrants or local workers of shared problems and common solutions in everyday life and work. At other times, they emerged from under the umbrella of transnationalism, when Chinese nationalist and anti-imperialist activists overseas received support for their campaigns from local internationalists; or the alliances were the product of nurturing by Chinese or non-Chinese political organizers, including anarchists, communists, and members of internationalist cultural movements like Esperantism. Based on sources in a dozen languages, and telling hitherto largely unknown or forgotten stories of Chinese migrant experiences in Russia, Germany, Cuba, Spain and Australia, this study will appeal to students and scholars of Chinese history, labour studies and ethnic/migration studies alike.