Lusin Part Two

Eroshenko lost a good friend too! After he had accepted the invitation from Cai Yuanpei and Lusin to teach at Peking University, Eroshenko travelled there at the end of February 1922 and became the house guest of Lusin. Another resident was Lusin's brother, Chou Shu-ren (Zhou Zouren) who was also a fluent speaker of the Japanese language and who later wrote in Esperanto.

Eroshenk settled in very well and, in his customary fashion, became very active and productive. He taught esperanto, also lectured about social issues, played music, and of course, wrote literature. Now, his principal language of creative expression was Esperanto. In July1922, he was off on his travels again to Helsinki in order to attend the International Esperanto Congerence held there. He came back to Peking, seemed to be very happy there, and then left in July 1923 for Nuremberg, which was the venue of the 15th Universala Kongreso.

But this time, Eroshenko did not come back. He spent a year with friends in France and Germany, then met up with Cai Yuanpei at the 16th UK in Vienna. Instead of returning to China, however, Eroshenko travelled to Moscow and never returned to the East.

Probably this was what we would describe today as a bad career move! The executions and purges of Stalinist Russia are well enough known and Eroshenko was probably very lucky to survive them. This very public poet slipped into a safely obscure existence doing good work as a teacher of blind children in very remote parts of southern and eastern Russia. In this way, he survived the Stalinist era, lived through the Second World War and died on December 23rd 1952.

Although we may regret that his promotion of the Esperanto movement was, of necessity, curtailed, we can only admire what achievements this talented and courageous individual was able to accomplish. I hope that there still blind people arrrive in Russia who remember with gratitude their inspired teached. And certainly in China and Japan, he is remembered with great respect and affection.

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