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Kabe: Second Eponym of Esperanto

© David Poulson

"Ho Kabe, Kabe, Kabe, Kabe, droninta vive en la morto!" (Kalocsay)

I first came across the name of Kazimierz Bein in the introduction to a book written by Dr Ferenc Szilagyi called Ellernu! That title means Learn thoroughly! and it is one of my favourite Esperanto textbooks. It's a "progresa," or intermediate-level, textbook (it would probably be regarded as advanced-level for any national language) and it can still be bought in Australia for only $7. (You can also buy a beginners' textbook by the same author called A Practical Course in Esperanto for only $2.) I hope to tell you a lot more about Szilagyi in later articles but I thought that I might as well introduce both him and Kabe ( the name under which Bein wrote) at the same time.

Both of the textbooks were written entirely in Esperanto and I'm sorry that my translation does not do justice to Szilagy's beautiful prose style.

"There is no doubt that Kabe was a skeptical figure within the Esperanto movement and his disappearance, although very regrettable, was expected. It would be interesting, someday, to analyse the reasons for that disappearance, because we, who learned from him, cannot ignore the author of the Vortaro, and the classical translator of the Faraono.

See this link for the first volume. http://www.uni-leipzig.de/esperanto/text...

"In a way, Kabe was typical of the kind of person whose mood alternates between pessimism and optimism. And who can never during his whole life be entirely happy because the pessimistic side of his nature is too strong and always overcomes the optimistic side.

"However, we can learn a lot from these Kabe-characters. From their negativity, we can extract things of positive value. We need to pay close attention to the Kabes of the world so that we don't become blind and self-flattering, but are prompted to look in different directions and further than our own navel."

Szilagyi goes on to describe an Esperanto Conference in the earlier years of this century during which some of the delegates got carried away by their own enthusiasm. When there was general agreement that everybody should learn Esperanto, Kabe stood up an injected a sour (but much-needed) note into the proceedings by reminding the delegates that the first people who ought to learn it were the Esperantists themselves. He knew that too many of the delegates present were satisfied with an elementary or superficial knowledge of the language, and he also saw clearly that it would be difficult, if not impossible to convince others of the value of Zamenhof's International Language if they themselves could not use it fluently.

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