- L. L. Zamenhof
Ludvic Lazarus (Ludwik Lejzer, Ludwik Łazarz) Zamenhof was an eye doctor, philologist, and the initiator of Esperanto, the most widely spoken and successful constructed language in the world. According to biographers A. Zakrzewski and E. Wiesenfeld, his native languages were Polish, from the neighborhood where he was raised, and his parents' languages Russian and Yiddish, but his father was a German teacher, … - Renato Corsetti
- Claude Piron
Claude Piron (born 1931), a linguist and a psychologist, was a translator for the United Nations (from Chinese, English, Russian and Spanish into French) from 1956 to 1961. After leaving the UN he worked for the World Health Organization all over the world, as well as being a prolific author of Esperanto works. He has spoken Esperanto since childhood and has used Esperanto in many countries, including Japan, the People's Republic of China, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, … - William Auld
William Auld (6 November, 1924 - 11 September, 2006) was a Scottish author and the deputy director of a grammar school. He began to study Esperanto in 1937, but only became active in the propagation of the language in 1947, and from then on wrote many works in Esperanto. Auld edited various magazines and reviews, including "Esperanto en Skotlando" (1949-1955), "Esperanto" (1955-1958, 1961-1962), of "Monda Kulturo" (1962-1963), … - Humphrey Tonkin
Humphrey R. Tonkin is professor of English, president emeritus of the University of Hartford in Connecticut, and a dedicated Esperantist. Born in Truro, UK, Tonkin is a dual citizen of the U.K. and the U.S. He earned his undergraduate degree from Cambridge University and his PhD from Harvard University. His academic specialities include the English Renaissance and Edmund Spenser, as well as language use and international languages. - Reinhard Selten
Reinhard Selten is a German economist. Selten was born in Breslau (Wrocław) in Lower Silesia, now in Poland. For his work in game theory, Selten won the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics (shared with John Harsanyi and John Nash). He is also well known for his work in bounded rationality, and can be considered as one of the founding fathers of experimental economics. He developed an example of a game called Selten's Horse because of its extensive form representation. - Gaston Waringhien
Gaston Waringhein (1901 - 1991) was a French linguist, lexicographer, and esperantist. He wrote poems as well as essays and books on linguistics. He was chairman of the Akademio de Esperanto. - Marjorie Boulton
Marjorie Boulton (born 7 May 1924) is a British author and poet writing in both English and Esperanto. She is the author of "Zamenhof: Creator of Esperanto", a biography of L. L. Zamenhof published in 1960 by Routledge & Kegan Paul of London. Also "The Anatomy of Poetry", "The Anatomy of Prose", "The Anatomy of Drama", "The Anatomy of the Novel" and "The Anatomy of Language" Marjorie Boulton taught English literature, … - George Soros
George Soros (born August 12, 1930, in Budapest, Hungary, as György Schwartz) is an American financial speculator, stock investor, philanthropist, and political activist. He peacefully promotes democracy in Eastern Europe. Currently, he is the chairman of Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Institute and is also a former member of the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations. His support for the Solidarity labor movement in Poland, … - Louis de Beaufront
Marquis Louis de Beaufront was a major influence in the development of Ido, an international auxiliary language. Beaufront was initially an advocate of Esperanto and was largely responsible for its early diffusion in western Europe as well as one of its first French proponents. Much of Beaufront's life is shrouded in mystery. He pretended to be the descendant of a french king and a doctor of theology. - Julio Baghy
Julio Baghy (13 January 1891, Szeged - 18 March 1967, Budapest) was a Hungarian actor and one of the leading authors of the Esperanto movement. He is the author of several famous novels but it is particularly in the field of poetry that he proved his mastery of Esperanto. - Harry Harrison
Harry Harrison (born Henry Maxwell Dempsey, March 12 1925) is an American science fiction author best known for his character the Stainless Steel Rat and the novel "Make Room! Make Room!" (1966), the basis for the film "Soylent Green" (1973). - Gaston Moch
Gaston Moch (born 1859 in Paris, France) was the secretary of the Esperantist "Centra Oficejo" and a member of the "Lingva Komitato". - Sidney S. Culbert
Sidney Spence Culbert (1913 - October 28, 2003) was a psychologist and Esperantist. Born in Miles City, Montana, Culbert moved to Tacoma, Washington with his family in 1923 and lived in Tacoma and Seattle for most of his life. He extensively researched the number of speakers of various languages throughout the world (by stratified sampling), and contributed to the World Almanac's section on "Principal Languages of the World". - Gerrit Berveling
Gerrit Berveling (* 1944), famous Dutch Esperanto author. He studied Classical Languages (Latin & Greek) at Leiden University, and Theology at Utrecht and Leiden Universities. After 14 years of teaching general history and classical languages, he worked 14 years as a Remonstrant minister in different liberal Christian communities, and now is teaching classical languages again. In Esperanto he is known as an original Esperanto poet, but mostly as a translator from Latin, … - Kálmán Kalocsay
Kálmán Kalocsay, in Hungarian name order Kalocsay Kálmán (pronounced) is one of the foremost figures in the history of Esperanto literature. He left a rich legacy to the language and culture of Esperanto in his original poetry and his translations of literary works from his native Hungarian and other languages of Europe. A surgeon by profession, Kalocsay published his first collection of original poems in 1921, … - J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien CBE (3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English philologist, writer and university professor, best known as the author of "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings". He was an Oxford professor of Anglo-Saxon language (Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon) from 1925 to 1945, and Merton Professor of English language and literature from 1945 to 1959. He was a devout Roman Catholic. - Tibor Sekelj
Tibor Sekelj (born 14 February, 1912 in Spišská Sobota, Poprad, present-day Slovakia; died 23 September, 1988 in Subotica, present day Serbia) was an explorer, Esperantist, writer and lawyer of Jewish descent. Sekelj's father was a veterinarian and the family moved very often. After several months they moved to Cheney (today Romania) and in 1922 they moved to Kikinda (in Vojvodina). - Antoni Grabowski
Antoni Grabowski was a Polish chemical engineer, and an activist of the early Esperanto movement. His translations had an influential impact on the development of Esperanto into a language of literature. - Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy dedicated websites *Leo Tolstoy museum in Yasnaya Polyana *State Leo Tolstoy Museum in Moscow Biographies and critiques *Illustrated Biography online at University of Virginia *Tolstoy and Popular Literature - Several scientific papers from the University of Minnesota *Brief bio *Leo Tolstoy's Life - Tolstoy's personal, professional and world event timeline, and synopsis of his life from Masterpiece Theatre. - Reto Rossetti
Reto Rossetti (born 11 April 1909, died 20 September 1994 in the British Gosport) was an Italian-Swiss, later a British, Esperantist professor. His elder brother was Cezaro Rossetti, author of "Kredu min, sinjorino!" ("Believe me, Ma'am!"). - James Connolly
James Connolly (June 5, 1868 - May 12, 1916) was an Irish socialist leader. He was born in the Cowgate area of Edinburgh, Scotland, to Irish immigrant parents. He left school for working life at the age of 11, but despite this he would become one of the leading Marxist theorists of his day. Though proud of his Irish background he also took a role in Scottish politics. In addition, he studied the neutral international language, Esperanto. - John C. Wells
John Christopher Wells, MA (Cantab), Ph.D. (London) (born March 11, 1939), is a British phonetician and Esperanto teacher at University College London, where until 2006 he held the departmental chair in Phonetics. He is a member of the five-person Academic Advisory committee to Linguaphone. He is best known for his book and cassette "Accents of English", the book and CD "The Sounds of the IPA", "Lingvistikaj Aspektoj de Esperanto", … - Boris Kolker
Boris Kolker (born July 15, 1939) is a language teacher, translator, and advocate of the international language Esperanto. Until 1993 a Soviet and Russian citizen and since then a resident and citizen of the United States. In 1985 he was awarded a Ph.D. in linguistics from the Linguistic Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Dr. Kolker learned the language Esperanto in 1957. - Wilhelm Ostwald
Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald (commonly just Wilhelm Ostwald) (September 2, 1853 - April 4, 1932) was a German chemist. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1909 for his work on catalysis, chemical equilibria and reaction velocities. - Lidia Zamenhof
Lidia Zamenhof (sometimes Lidja in Esperanto) was the youngest daughter of Dr. Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto. She was born on January 29, 1904 in Warsaw, then Russian Empire. She was an active promoter of Esperanto, as well as Homaranismo, a form of religious humanism first defined by her father. Around 1925 she became a member of the Bahá'í Faith. She came to the United States in late 1937 to teach that religion as well as Esperanto. - Petr Ginz
Petr Ginz was a young Jewish boy who was deported to the Terezín concentration camp, during the Holocaust. At age fifteen, Ginz was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp, where he died in a gas chamber. Ginz was a very talented boy. At the age of fourteen, he became the first and only editor-in-chief of the magazine "Vedem", written, edited, and illustrated entirely by young boys at Terezín. He also wrote an Esperanto-Czech dictionary. - Eugène Lanti
Eugène Lanti was a pseudonym of Eugène Adam. Lanti was an Esperantist, socialist and writer. He was a founder of Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda, and a long time editor of the internationalist socialist magazine Sennaciulo. Lanti was a critic of Stalinism. - Martha Root
Martha Louise Root was a prominent traveling teacher of the Bahá'í Faith in the late 19th and early 20th century. Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith called her "the foremost travel teacher in the first Bahá'í Century", and named her a Hand of the Cause posthumously. Known by her numerous visits with Heads of State and other public figures. Of special importance was her efforts with Queen Marie of Romania, … - Forrest J Ackerman
Forrest J Ackerman (born November 24, 1916 in Los Angeles, California) is a legendary science fiction fan and collector of science fiction books and movie memorabilia. Ackerman, known as "Forry" or "4e" or "4SJ", was influential not only in the origination, organization, and spread of science fiction fandom, but he was also a key figure in the wider cultural acceptance of science fiction as a respectable literary, art and film genre. - Franz Jonas
Franz Jonas (October 4, 1899 - April 24, 1974) was an Austrian political figure. He served as the President of Austria between 1965 and 1974. He was a typesetter by profession and a member of the Social Democratic Party of Austria. After World War II he got involved in Viennese communal politics and was mayor of Vienna from 1951 to 1965. Since 1965, he was federal president and was re-elected in 1971. He was a fervent supporter of Esperanto. In 1974 he died in office. - Daniel Bovet
Daniel Bovet (March 23, 1907 - April 8, 1992) was a Swiss-born Italian pharmacologist who won the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of drugs that block the actions of specific neurotransmitters. He is best known for his discovery in 1937 of antihistamines, which block the neurotransmitter histamine and are used in allergy medication. His other research included work on chemotherapy, sulfa drugs, the sympathetic nervous system, … - Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II born (May 18, 1920, Wadowice, Poland – April 2, 2005, Vatican City) reigned as the 264th Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of the State of the Vatican City from October 16, 1978, until his death more than 26 years later, making his the second-longest pontificate in modern times after Pius IX's 31-year reign. He is the only Polish pope, and was the first non-Italian pope since the Dutch Adrian VI in the 1520s. - Lou Harrison
Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 - February 2, 2003) was an American composer. He was a student of Henry Cowell, Arnold Schoenberg, and K.R.T. Wasitodiningrat (Pak Cokro). Harrison is particularly noted for incorporating elements of the music of non-Western cultures into his work, with a number of pieces featuring traditional Indonesian gamelan instruments, and several more featuring versions of them made out of tin cans and other materials. - Kazimierz Bein
Kazimierz Bein (1872 - June 15, 1959), was a Polish ophthalmologist, the founder and sometime director of the Warsaw Ophthalmic Institute ("Warszawski Instytut Oftalmiczny"). He was also, for a time, a prominent Esperanto author, translator and activist, until in 1911 he suddenly, without explanation, abandoned the Esperanto movement. Bein became at least as well known for his involvement with Esperanto as for his medical accomplishments, … - Teodoro Schwartz
Teodoro Ŝvarc was a Hungarian Jewish doctor, lawyer, author and editor. He was the father of George Soros. He fought in World War I and spent years in a prison camp in Siberia before escaping. He founded the Esperanto literary magazine in "Literatura Mondo" (Literary World) in 1922 and edited it until 1924. He wrote the short novel "Modernaj Robinzonoj" (Modern Robinsons) - Edwin de Kock
Edwin de Kock (born March 9, 1930), writer and world traveler, was born in South Africa and became a U.S. citizen in 2000. His publications are in English, Esperanto, and Afrikaans, prose as well as poetry. He lives in Edinburg, Texas. - Alfred Hermann Fried
Alfred Hermann Fried (November 11, 1864 in Vienna, Austria- May 5, 1921 in Vienna), was an Austrian Jewish pacifist, publicist, journalist, co-founder of the German peace movement, and winner (with Tobias Asser) of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1911. - Kep Enderby
Keppel Enderby QC (b 25 June 1926) is an Australian Esperantist and former leading Australian politician. Born in Dubbo, New South Wales and educated at Dubbo High School, Enderby joined the Royal Australian Air Force in 1944, studied law at Sydney University and London University, worked from 1950 as a lawyer and lectured in law at the Australian National University in Canberra. - Bertalan Farkas
Bertalan Farkas was the first Hungarian cosmonaut and the first Esperantist in space. He is currently the president of Airlines Service and Trade. With Charles Simonyi's travel, Farkas is no longer the only Hungarian who has been to space. Born in Gyulaháza, he graduated from the George Kilián Aeronautical College in Szolnok in 1969. He then attended the Krasnodar Military Aviation Institute in the Soviet Union, from where he graduated in 1971.
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