Editing Eugène Lanti

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'''Eugène Lanti''' was a pseudonym of '''Eugène Aristide Alfred Adam''' (19 July 1879 in [[Normandy]], [[France]] – 17 January 1947 in [[Mexico]]), an [[Esperanto|Esperantist]], [[socialist]] and writer. He was a founder of [[Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda]], and a longtime editor of the internationalist socialist magazine ''[[Sennaciulo]]''. Lanti was a critic of [[Stalinism]] and the theoretician of a new doctrine, [[anationalism]], which aimed to eliminate the very concept of the nation as a guiding idea of social organisation.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Glossary of People: La|url=https://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/l/a.htm#lanti-eugene|access-date=2020-09-15|website=www.marxists.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Eugène Lanti : index|url=https://www.panarchy.org/lanti/lanti.html|access-date=2020-09-15|website=www.panarchy.org}}</ref>

== Biography ==
Lanti's parents were peasant farmers. In his early life he worked as an agricultural labourer, carpenter, furniture maker and designer. He was self-educated, and studied in the evening. In 1914 he was mobilised in the [[First World War]] and served as an ambulance driver. He learnt Esperanto in 1914–15 at the [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]], but in 1919 was almost persuaded to abandon Esperanto in favour of [[Ido (language)|Ido]]. Following the war, he returned to Paris, became acquainted with [[Lucian Banmer]] and [[Ludoviko Glodeau]], and he reaffirmed his support for Esperanto with his editorship of ''[[Liberiga Stelo]]''.

In the 1920s Lanti lived in Paris with [[Ellen Kate Limouzin]], the aunt of [[George Orwell]]. Orwell visited the couple and suffered as a non-speaker of Esperanto, and developed a strong dislike for the language. It has been suggested that Orwell included elements of Esperanto in the "[[Newspeak]]" language he created in his anti-totalitarian novel, ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]''.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wicher |first=Andrzej |title=A comparison between the concept of Newspeak in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel and the way of thinking about language in C.S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength |journal=Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Litteraria Polonica |publication-date=2020 |volume=58 |issue=3 |pages=477-498 |via=CEEOL}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Karp |first=Masha |title=George Orwell and Russia |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |year=2023 |isbn=9781788317160 |location=London, New York |pages=7-8 |language=English}}</ref>

== Lanti's political career ==
In his youth Lanti had been attracted to [[anarchism]], but in 1920 he abandoned [[anarchism]] and became a founding member of the [[French Communist Party]]. In 1921 in [[Prague]] he was the initiator and ''de facto'' leader of [[Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda]] (SAT), a broad-based Esperanto-speaking organisation (containing Communists, Social Democrats and anarchists) which does not organise along national lines.<ref>{{Cite web|title=A Half Hour with Errico Malatesta - Eugene Lanti|url=http://libcom.org/library/half-hour-errico-malatesta-eugene-lanti|access-date=2020-09-15|website=libcom.org|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=The Anationalist Eugène Lanti|url=http://satesperanto.org/spip.php?article3311|access-date=2020-09-15|website=satesperanto.org}}</ref>

In 1933 Lanti, wounded by personal attacks and criticisms of his leadership, left his position of president of the Central Committee of SAT, a position he had occupied since the foundation of the organization. He continued, however, to play a role in the organisation chiefly as a writer. In 1935 Lanti founded the independent magazine ''[[Herezulo]]'' in which he criticised the Soviet regime more forcefully than in Sennaciulo.

== Lanti as lexicographer ==
Lanti was self-taught both in his use of literary French and Esperanto. He worked with ''[[Petit Larousse]]'', and sought to create an Esperanto dictionary of the same type. He was centrally involved in the project run by SAT for the writing and design of the ''[[Plena Vortaro]]'' which later became today's ''[[Plena Ilustrita Vortaro]]''.

==Later years==

After his retirement in 1937, to meet Esperantists, Lanti left France for good and travelled to Spain, [[Portugal]], North Africa, Japan, Australia, [[New Zealand]] and South America. Suffering from an incurable illness, he hanged himself in his flat in Mexico on 17 January 1947.{{Citation needed|date=March 2022}}

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
* [http://marxists.org/archive/lanti/1920/international.htm Eugene Lanti Archive] at [[marxists.org]]
* [http://garymickle.bplaced.net/skk/Manifesto_of_Non-Nationalists_02.pdf Manifesto of Non-Nationalists] by E. Lanti
* [http://garymickle.bplaced.net/skk/92lanti_en.html Lanti, the anationalist] by Tonyo del Barrio

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lanti, Eugene}}
[[Category:1879 births]]
[[Category:1947 suicides]]
[[Category:1947 deaths]]
[[Category:French Esperantists]]
[[Category:Esperanto lexicographers]]
[[Category:Suicides by hanging in Mexico]]
[[Category:French anarchists]]