Antoni Grabowski

Antoni Grabowski (1857 - 1921), Polish, chemical engineer. Called the father of poetry in Esperanto . It started to be interested in Esperanto as of the publication of the Unua Libro and was the first to be spoken in Esperanto with Zamenhof. It chaired a long time the Company Polonaise of Esperanto and directed the Grammaire section of the Academy of Esperanto starting from 1908.

Biography

Born the June 11th 1857 in Nowe Dobre (Poméranie), died 4 July 1921 with Warsaw. It obtained its diploma for the occupation of chemical engineer to Breslau. After a few last years to be worked in various towns of Poland, it settled definitively in Warsaw. Impassioned by its work, it made appear a translation of the works on the chemistry of English I. Remsen and a technical dictionary Polish .

It made knowledge with Esperanto in 1887. The first time that Esperanto was used orally was at the time of a conversation which it had with Zamenhof. He spoke also perfectly the Volapük and had already returned visit to his creator, Johann Martin Schleyer (it is told that this visit was for him the occasion to note that the author even volapük did not have a perfect command of this difficult language).

Large polyglot, it knew about thirty languages. During a few years it was one of the chiefs of the movement reformist, seeking the cause of the slow diffusion of Esperanto in its imperfections. But after the decisive vote of 1894, it recognized that it was more important to accept the language such as it was rather than to discuss without end the always possible improvements. He said: “A table must be named tablo not following any logical or different reasoning, but simply because thus wanted it Zamenhof. If he had wanted to name it tiŝo we would have accepted all this mot.” Consequently he remained faithful to the Fundamento until the end of its life.

Grabowski took an active part in the movement esperantist: starting from 1904, he was president of the Varsovia Esperanto (Varsovia ES), that, thanks to his authority and its diplomacy, he saved several times of disappearance due to divergences of opinion of his members. In 1908 it occupied the presidency of the Pola Esperanto-Asocio founded at that time and remained at this station during all its life, posts delicate and obstructing partly because of the political circumstances, partly because of the prompt internal divergences to cause the ruin of it.

During the war, it had to leave Warsaw. Returned during the German occupation, it found its house empty: the members of its family had emigrated in Russia. In its deserted house, it finishes then the translation of Mr Tadeusz , this work being its only consolation, apart from the long visits with Zamenhof. After the death of Zamenhof, it became very solitary. Its evil of heart worried it, the more so as it could not be looked after correctly because of a difficult financial position. When its family returned, it was physically exhausted. It however continued to work without slackening for Esperanto until its brutal death (it died of an heart attack in front of the window of a bookstore esperantist).

It is as a linguist that Grabowski chaired the section grammar of the Academy of Esperanto. It achieves this task with much talent. One owes him the drafting of the Large Pole-Esperanto Dictionary and Esperanto-Pole.

Most important is however its literary work and mainly its translations of poetic works. Its translations of prose are relatively very few.

Its work of translation is much more important in the field of poetry. Its major work is the anthology of international poetry Parnaso de Popoloj and more especially Sinjoro Tadeo , poem epic of Miczkiewscz, whose it made a very faithful translation. The latter is one of the most fascinating works of the literature translated into Esperanto, which made of Grabowski the father of poetry esperantist. By this book, Grabowski is that which made evolve/move the poetic language. Very early it could recognize that a language which claims to have poetry cannot be a language low in words, and it thus did not fear the introduction of new words. Its aptitude to find words new had often happy results: of the 209 neologisms of Sinjoro Tadeo , more half entered the Plena Vortaro of Esperanto (complete Dictionary of Esperanto) of SAT and 25 became officially recognized words.

Some of its inventions were used by the poets esperantists (for example the use of ĉi in the place of ĉi tiu , the direct transformation of nouns or adjectives into verbs, the use of the termination - E to use the names like adverbs, etc). It could find the rhymes with ease and had a perfect command of the technique of versification. (It is of him that the word adasismo comes, which characterizes easy rhymes based on the same suffix).

Perhaps could one say that he was more one artist of the language that a poet, but even the most severe critic can only admire certain passages of Sinjoro Tadeo (the storm, hunting, the concert of Jankjel, the Lithuanian Virgin forest, etc) which will always form part of the most beautiful pages of the poetry translated into Esperanto. Its works written directly in Esperanto are very few. One can however mention “Tagiĝo”, which is almost a second anthem esperantist, and concerning “Reveno of the filo” (the return of the son).

Poems written in Esperanto:

Tagiĝo
Reveno of the filo'
On unu kordo
El Parnaso de Popoloj - collection of poems

Translations:

Mazepa , part of Juliusz Słowacki
Halka , opera of Stanislaw Moniuszko
Sinjoro Tadeo (Mr Tadeusz) of Adam Mickiewicz
the neĝa blovado (the snowstorm) of Alexandre Pouchkine
In Svisujo (In Switzerland) of Juliusz Slowacki

External bonds

On the site Gift Harlow on the literature in Esperanto:

'' El Parnaso de Popoloj ''
original Poems of Grabowski

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