Emile Boirac
1851–1917
Biography
Émile Boirac was born in Guelma, in French Algeria, in 1851 and died in Dijon in 1917. He was a French philosopher, writer and campaigner for Esperanto. He led two French universities in turn, first the University of Grenoble from 1898 and then the University of Dijon from 1902. His interests ran from philosophy and education to the study of the mind, and he is remembered both for that academic work and for his support of an international language.
Boirac was one of the most prominent early backers of Esperanto. He presided over the first Universal Esperanto Congress, held at Boulogne-sur-Mer in 1905, and he directed the Academy of Esperanto. His Esperanto work included a translation of Leibniz's Monadology and the 1906 book Qu'est-ce que l'espéranto?, whose title asks 'What is Esperanto?'.
He also studied the odder corners of the mind. He is among the first writers known to have used the term déjà vu, in a letter printed in 1876, and he proposed the word 'metagnomy' for knowledge of things beyond ordinary reach. He joined a group that tested the Italian medium Eusapia Palladino, and he investigated hypnosis and animal magnetism. The site holds Perdita kaj retrovita, an Esperanto work from 1905 whose title means 'lost and found', so readers can meet his writing in the language he championed.
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Books
Perdita kaj retrovita: originala rakonto
by Emile Boirac
An original Esperanto fairy tale by Émile Boirac, published in 1904. Diskareso, a proud and ill-tempered king, crosses a sorceress while out hunting, and the harm that follows falls on his gentle queen and their two children, Rozlilio and Orludviko. Nine short chapters in…
Summary written by Claude Opus 5.5.