Shmurlo, Vladimir Frantsevich

Born in Chelyabinsk, in the family of a small nobleman , he studied in St. Petersburg , by education - a railway engineer. He participated in the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway , in particular in the area of ​​the village of Yurgamysh ^[1] (now in the Kurgan region ). In the 1890s, he mastered the language of volapuk , and soon after that he joined the nascent movement of Russian Esperantists , in 1896 held the first Esperanto literary contest in the Russian Empire in St. Petersburg. After the revolution of 1905, from 1905 to 1908 he lived in Stuttgart , from 1908 - in Riga . In 1910, he founded the Riga Star Society of Esperantists in Riga ( Esper. Riga Stelo ) and became its first president, from 1910 to 1911 he edited and published the magazine of the same name. From 1910 to 1915 he was a representative of the World Esperanto Association (UEA) in Riga.

Published in many Esperanto publications: La Esperantisto , Internacia Scienca Revuo , Lingvo Internacia and Scienca Gazeto . In 1916 he compiled a Russian-Esperanto dictionary. In 1917 he published in Petrograd the “World Alphabetical Address Book“ The Thread of Ariadne ””, about which he wrote that this was “the first attempt [of creating] an encyclopedia of Esperantism”; its original version, however, consisted of links only ^[2] . The first 88 pages were published in Riga; the revolution prevented the full-fledged publication of the following pages. In 1920 he created “Arlingo” - one of the options for Esperantido , which was a “correction” of Esperanto that was not published. In the last years of his life, he showed interest in various projects for creating planned international languages .

• Poems by V. Shmurlo at http://www.onb.ac.at/eo/esperantomuzeo/index.htm Kolekto por Planlingvoj kaj Esperantomuzeo (esp.)