Esperantist of the Year
The Esperantist of the Year is an honorary designation bestowed each year by the editors of the Esperanto-language monthly La Ondo de Esperanto. The award recipient is selected by an international jury led by Halina Gorecka, the Russian publisher of the magazine.
Unlike in previous years, the award in 2025 was given based on an online vote among ordinary Esperantists.
The Esperantist of the Year award was created in 1998.
Laureates
- 1998: William Auld, a Scottish poet and translator who wrote chiefly in Esperanto
- 1999: Kep Enderby, former president of World Esperanto Association
- 2000: three candidates received an equal number of votes and shared the award:
- * Hans Bakker
- * Maŭro La Torre
- * Jouko Lindstedt, a Finnish professor of Slavonic studies
- 2001: Osmo Buller, president of World Esperanto Association
- 2002: Michel Duc-Goninaz, for his editorship of a comprehensive Esperanto dictionary, the Nova Plena Ilustrita Vortaro de Esperanto
- 2003: Dafydd ab Iago
- 2004: Helmar Frank
- 2005: Povilas Jegorovas for his activism in Lithuania on the occasion of that year's World Congress of Esperanto in Vilnius
- 2006: Bertilo Wennergren for his masterwork, the Plena Manlibro de Esperanta Gramatiko, an exhaustive treatment of Esperanto grammar
- 2007: Peter Zilvar, a German living in Herzberg am Harz
- 2008: Ilona Koutny for her continuing competent and successful guidance of the Interlinguistic Studies department at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań
- 2009: Aleksander Korzhenkov, a Russian living in Kaliningrad
- 2010: Katalin Kováts, a Hungarian living in the Netherlands
- 2011: Dennis Keefe
- 2012: Peter Baláž, a Slovak living in Partizánske
- 2013: Mark Fettes, president of World Esperanto Association
- 2014: Mireille Grosjean
- 2015: Chuck Smith, founder of Esperanto Wikipedia, creator of Esperanto course on Duolingo
- 2016: Stefan MacGill, retired New Zealand educator and magazine editor, now living in Hungary
- 2017: Huang Yinbao
- 2018: Hori Jasuo
- 2019: Anna Löwenstein, a writer living in the United Kingdom, well-known for her literary and educational contributions for decades. This honor is a special recognition of her work creating and contributing to the new website uea.facila.org.
- 2020: Fernando Maia Jr., the vice president of the Universal Esperanto Association who oversaw the virtual congress during the Covid-19 pandemic, from Brazil
- 2021: Halina Gorecka, a writer and the publisher of the magazine La Ondo de Esperanto, from Russia
- 2022: Edmund Grimley Evans, a mathematician and computer scientist from United Kingdom
- 2023: Sun Mingxiao, a former Esperanto lecturer at the Zaozhuang University and the founder of the Esperanto museum in the same city, from China.
- 2024: Stela Besenyei-Merger
- 2025: Ranja Zafinifotsy