La Fundamenta Krestomatio still serves as a model for all aspiring Esperanto authors, just as it did ninety-five years ago.
The existence of this treasury of classical Esperanto texts is the main reason why, when I listen to one of my cassette tapes of folk tales read by Esperanto speakers from different countries, I still cannot tell which is the Italian, which the Englishman, which the French lady, and so on. And because all teachers of Esperanto use textbooks which are firmly based on both the grammatical and stylistic "Foundation" created by Zamenhof, any reasonably competent Esperanto speaker is able to be understood by other Esperantist anywhere in the world.
By comparison, Australians, Englishmen and North Americans have much greater problems understanding people from other countries who, in some cases, may have spent many years trying to learn English and who, nevertheless still have major problems with pronunciation, with correct usage and, with just making themselves understood.
The FK itself contains 16 pages of Exercises; 17 pages of Fables and Legends; 28 pages of Anecdotes; 58 pages of short stories; 58 pages of "popular science" articles; 70 pages of articles about Esperanto; and 146 pages of poetry. Thirty-one Esperanto writers (including Zamenhof's brother Leon) are represented but, as Zamenhof wrote in his Foreword:
"All articles in the FK are either written by myself or, if they are written other people, they have been corrected by me in such a degree, that their style does not differ from the style which I myself use."
The production of the FK was a heroic task and is a pleasure to read. A poem called "The three Sons of Budrys," by the Polish poet Mickiewicz, has become one of my favourite pieces of poetry and I would never have been able to access it without Grabowski's superb Esperanto translation. (Next week I will write some more about Antoni Grabowski, who was possibly the first of a long line of interesting personalities who have been attracted to the Esperanto movement.)
The very fact that 31 authors are represented in the FK is evidence in itself that an authoritative style guide was long overdue. There was a slight problem in that Zamenhof himself was an author, and a developing one at that. Although Esperanto was his own creation, and although he had certainly achieved a very high level of fluency in the language, his own literary style was in a state of progressive development, just as is the case with many other writers. Therefore, only four years after the FK was published, Zamenhof admitted that, here and there, the text no longer represented what, in his opinion, was best usage. Later editors have left the text of the 1903 edition intact but added footnotes to show where better options, or even, in a few cases, more accurate usage, should be substituted.
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