Editing Universal Esperanto Association (section)

=== 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.