Vladimír von Szmurlo was a Russian Esperantist and railway engineer.

He studied in Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

. Before learning Esperanto, he spoke the earlier auxiliary language of Volapük

Volapük

Volapük is a constructed language, created in 1879–1880 by Johann Martin Schleyer, a Roman Catholic priest in Baden, Germany. Schleyer felt that God had told him in a dream to create an international language. Volapük conventions took place in 1884 , 1887 and 1889 . The first two conventions used...

, but was nonetheless very quick to adopt Esperanto. He launched the first Esperanto literature competition in Saint Petersburg in 1896. In 1905, following the Russian Revolution he moved to Stuttgart

Stuttgart

Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....

 until 1908, when he moved to Riga

Riga

Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...

, where he lived until his death. In 1910 he founded the Esperanto association La Riga Stelo and became its first president. From 1910 to 1915 he was a UEA delegate in Riga.

He published:

• Bibioteko de Lingvo Internacia Esperanto, ("Library of the International Language Esperanto") (1895)
• Jarlibro Esperantista ("Esperantist's Yearbook") (1897)
• Esperanta Universalbiblioteko ("Esperanto Universal Library") (1910-1914)
• a collection of original works in Esperanto Verda Radio (1911)

He worked with others on publications such as La Esperantisto, Internacia Scienca Revuo, Lingvo Internacia and Scienca Gazeto. He edited and published the magazine Riga Stelo, from 1910 to 1911. He wrote ANA (Alfabeta Nomaro-Adresaro), also known as Ariadna fadeno ("Ariadne's Thread"), a first attempt at an Esperanto encyclopedia, in 1916/1917. However, because of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, publication was forced to cease after the initial letter 'E', and the content of the whole was somewhat lacking.

Szmurlo also compiled a Complete Russian-Esperanto Dictionary in 1916. In his last years, he was interested principally in the various systems and institutions of the Lingvo Internacia (Esperanto, as it is most commonly known today).

In 1920 he created a derivative auxiliary language called Arlingo, based on Esperanto, which was never published.