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Sunday, May 29, 2011

Theme : Esperanto 03

Having a popular topic to collect, is always easy to find new or even new 'old' things to your collection.
With a rather 'rare' topic to collect as theme, it's hard to obtain new material to add.
So is it with my topic on Esperanto. The constructed language by Dr. Zamenhof.

Before the second world war, Esperanto grew constantly. One of the countries that issued many stamps on this topic, was Brazil.

Let's go back to the late 30's of the 20th century:
In November 1936, the 9th Brazilian Congress on Esperanto took place in Rio de Janeiro (naua brazilia kongreso), a beautiful diamond shape stamp with the 'verda stelo' (green star) in the centre, and all participating countries represented by their flag. Perhaps this is the most beautiful stamp on my topic so far.

One year later, Brazil issued another "Esperanto pos^tmarko" (Esperanto stamp); this on the occasion of the 50 th anniversary of the language. (Ora jubileo de Esperanto = Golden jubilee of Esperanto)

Again, a beautiful design, a globe, with a belt 'ora jubleo de Esperanto' on the equator.

In Januari 1945, Brazil was hosting the 10th (deka) Congress on Esperanto. It was honoured again with a stamp. Now a lady (godess) is next to a globe, from where a green star seems to shine on Brazil.
In 1959, Brazil commemorated the 100th anniversary date of Dr. L. L. Zamenhof. Again a stamp is issued. Zamenhof is depicted, together ith the text : Author of Esperanto. This time, the text is in Portuguese.



For sure one thing you will have noticed. All stamps are green.
This has a reason of course.
"Esperanto" itself is an Esperanto-word. It means, "the one who is hoping"
Zamenhofs pseudonym was Doktoro Esperanto (the hoping doctor), as he was hoping for a better world, through better understanding, through a unifying neutral language.
And "green" is the colour of hope.

Dear Dr. Zamenhof, I hope, one day your dream might come true.

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