Hector Hodler

Hector Hodler, born in Geneva on 1 October 1887 and dead at Leysin on 31 March 1920, was a Swiss Esperantist and magazine editor who strongly influenced the early Esperanto movement. The son of the painter Ferdinand Hodler, he learned Esperanto at sixteen with his schoolmate Edmond Privat and soon founded a club and the journal Juna Esperantisto. In 1907 he took over the editorship of the magazine Esperanto from its founder Paul Berthelot and, apart from six months in 1914, edited it for thirteen years until his death, making it a significant journal on organizational questions of the language community. He was a co-founder of the Universal Esperanto Association, established on 28 April 1908, served as its General Director and Vice-President, and was elected its president after the First World War. By his will the association received the magazine, his Esperanto library, which now bears his name, and a sum of money to keep it going.