Próba rozwiązania kwestii żydowskiej przez Ludwika Zamenhofa

Ludwik Zamenhof’s Attempt at Solving the Jewish QuestionZamenhof is well known as the creator of the international language Esperanto. The origins of Espe­ranto stem from his attempts to convince Jews that they could form a nation, even without territory, on the basis of a language, namely Esperanto; otherwise, they would always be an ethnic group only. Zamenhof presented his doctrine in 1901 in a booklet entitled Hillel­ism, published in Russian. He decided to address the Jewish intelligentsia in Russia, where the Jewish issue was the most pronounced and tense. But the intelligentsia was unable to work out a national programme. Already at the beginning of the 20th century, it was split into many groups with a variety of standpoints, and each group perceived the Jewish nation in a different way and, most importantly, located its future homeland in a different part of the globe. Esperanto itself, however, became increasingly more popular at that time. Its adherents strongly criticised a broad spectrum of different, mildly utopian doctrines on how to solve the Jewish issue. Zamenhof re-edited his Hillelism in such a way that his efforts to solve the Jewish issue began to be absorbed into broad humanism. Later, he gradually promoted Homaranism, being at a distance from Judaism itself. Zamenhof finally believed that he left Espe­ranto not to a “specific ethnic group” but to all humanity.