Editing Universal Esperanto Association (section)

== 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|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 Esperanto|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.

[[File:1917-Hodler.jpg|right|thumb|upright=.8|Hector Hodler, son of famous Swiss painter [[Ferdinand Hodler]], in 1920]]

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.<ref name="Sikosek73">Sikosek, Marcus: ''Die neutrale Sprache. Eine politische Geschichte des Esperanto-Weltbundes'' (“The neutral language. A political history of the World Esperanto Association.” Diss. Utrecht 2006. Skonpres, Bydgoszcz 2006, pp. 73-76.</ref> 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 World Esperanto Congress|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 ===
[[File:Landoj kie estas naciaj asocioj ligitaj al UEA.PNG|left|thumb|upright=.8|Countries that joined the UEA are shown in green.]]

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 [[co-option|cooptation]].<ref name="Sikosek63">Sikosek, Marcus: ''Die neutrale Sprache. Eine politische Geschichte des Esperanto-Weltbundes'' (“The neutral language. A political history of the World Esperanto Association.” Diss. Utrecht 2006. Skonpres, Bydgoszcz 2006, pp. 63/64.</ref> (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 ===
[[File:1926-Locarno.jpg|right|thumb|upright=1|Meeting of the international Esperanto leaders in [[Locarno|Locarno, Switzerland]], in 1926 (some months after the famous [[Locarno Conference]] of the European political leaders)]]
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 [[Helsinki|Finnish capital]]. This system defined the movement to consist of these 'official' entities:
* ''Universala Esperanto Asocio'' (UEA), the international members' association in Geneva; it paid contributions to a common budget
* ''Konstanta Komitato de la Naciaj Societoj'' (''Ko-Ro'', Permanent Committee of the National Associations), a newly created body to represent the national associations; it collected contributions from the national associations for the common budget
* ''Internacia Centra Komitato de la Esperanto-Movado'' (''ICK'', International Central Committee of the Esperanto Movement), a newly created six-member body elected by UEA and ''Ko-Ro'' together; administering the common budget and doing the operational business for common international tasks, also representing the movement as a whole. It had a paid secretary.
* the congress committee, administered and subsidized by the ''ICK''
* the language committee (later the Academy of Esperanto), subsidized by the ''ICK''

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 and French associations, the largest ones, took up the initiative to found a new organization, ''Universala Federacio Esperantista'' (World Federation of Esperantists), as a federation of national associations. This new organization had scarcely come into existence when in early 1933 the UEA and the national organizations agreed on a complete reform of the movement.

=== The 'new UEA' and the schism of 1936 ===
[[File:Uk 2008 libroservo.JPG|right|thumb|upright=1|UEA book shop at the 2008 [[World Congress of Esperanto]] ]]

In 1933, at the Cologne congress, UEA and the national organizations made UEA the common or umbrella organization of the international Esperanto movement. In 1934 the UEA members accepted new UEA statutes. The 'new UEA', as it was called, was (and still is) a federation of national associations but also of individual members directly administered by UEA.

The highest organ of UEA was the Komitato. It gathered representatives from the national organizations; the numbers depended on the size of the national organization. Other representatives were elected by the delegates, depending on the number of delegates. A third group of representatives was elected by the two first groups; this opened the possibility to include 'experts' who were not linked to a national organization or popular among the delegates. Since 1947, one speaks of the ''komitatanoj A'' (from the national organizations), the ''komitatanoj B'' (from the delegates, later members) and the ''komitatanoj C'' (those indirectly elected).

As the representatives of the national organizations by far outnumbered the others, it is right to call UEA in essence a federation. But all officeholders of UEA had to be individual members, and the core services of the association, such as the Yearbook, were still reserved to individual members.

UEA since then is the legal heir of the former Helsinki organizations, such as the International Central Committee. The association since then also organizes the annual [[World Congress of Esperanto]].

Although in 1933-1934 it first seemed that the transition could happen in harmony, at the 1934 congress in Stockholm some UEA functionaries were not re-elected. In anger, UEA president Eduard Stettler and others resigned. The new board with president [[Louis Bastien (Esperantist)|Louis Bastien]] faced a catastrophic financial situation and decided in early 1936 to depart Geneva for London. In London, the capable activist Cecil C. Goldsmith wanted to become the new director (secretary), and for certain currency reasons UEA could exist significantly more cheaply in Britain than in Switzerland.

A hastily organized and secret campaign, led by former president Stettler, made it impossible for the Bastien-led board to legally move the headquarters away from Switzerland. After several months of discussions and a referendum, the Bastien board members and the Komitato members left the UEA altogether and established, in September 1936, a new association, the ''Internacia Esperanto-Ligo'' (IEL). Nearly all national organizations and individual members followed. In Geneva there remained a near-deserted shell of the UEA, in which the old leaders once again took power, the so-called Genevan UEA.

=== UEA after World War II ===
[[File:1937-01-ei-01.jpg|right|thumb|upright=1|Front page of the IEL organ in 1937, announcing a house in Heronsgate becoming the IEL headquarters]]

The international Esperanto movement survived World War II with its IEL headquarters in [[Heronsgate]], near London. Hans Jakob, from the Genevan UEA, tricked the IEL board into a merger of IEL and the rump Genevan UEA, falsely stating that the wealthy Eduard Stettler had left a huge sum to the UEA.<ref>Sikosek, Marcus: ''Die neutrale Sprache. Eine politische Geschichte des Esperanto-Weltbundes''. Diss. Utrecht 2006. Skonpres, Bydgoszcz 2006, pp. 234, 325.</ref>

[[Ivo Lapenna]], a London law professor originally coming from Croatia, in the 1950s reshaped the association significantly. The office moved from Heronsgate to Rotterdam, the board since then has a ''general secretary'', the ''Esperanto'' editor is a paid position. After 1956, the association in 1980 was again (and since then for the last time) given new statutes.

In the decades after the war, the staff grew. Before the war, it was common to have a director with only one or two assistants. After the war, the UEA at times employed ten or more people (e.g. a congress manager, a book seller, a librarian.)

Lapenna introduced a ''prestige policy'',<ref>Forster, Peter Glover: ''The Esperanto Movement'', Diss. Hull 1977, The Hague et al. 1982 (Hull 1977), pp. 233/234.</ref> for which he was willing to spend considerable funds. This included signature campaigns for Esperanto and efforts to make UNESCO support Esperanto in a moral way, which Lapenna accomplished in 1954 at the UNESCO conference in Montevideo, Uruguay. This made him famous in Esperanto circles as the ''hero of Montevideo''. After having served for more than 30 years on the board of UEA, Lapenna left the association in 1974 and created a rival organization (''Neŭtrala Esperanto-Movado'').

During the [[Cold War]], UEA had to deal with the difficulty of having national organizations and individual members in communist countries. Additionally, the work of Esperanto organizations in Western countries was sometimes influenced by the Cold War: In the early 50s, the American Esperanto leader George Allan Connor denounced dissenting members of his national organization as communists. His national organization and he as an individual were eventually thrown out of UEA. The collapse of the Soviet Union and its allied states between 1989 and 1991 completely changed the international situation.{{Explain|date=February 2021|reason=In what way did it change, and why exactly?}}