Franz (Ferenc) Nopcha von Felshö-Silvas ( German: Franz Nopcsa von Felső-Szilvás , Hungarian. Nopcsa Ferenc ; May 3, 1877 , near Sachala, Austria-Hungary - April 25, 1933 , Vienna , Austria ) - Austro-Hungarian , and later Hungarian scientist. Nopcha is known for his work in the field of paleontology and geology of Central Europe, as well as albanistics . He described a number of new dinosaur taxa , developed the theory of island dwarfism of the Central European dinosaur species, he was one of the first proponents of the theory of continental drift and headed the Royal Hungarian Geological Institute. Nopcha was also a secret agent of the Austrian government, in the years leading up to World War I , preparing for an Albanian uprising against Ottoman rule and proclaiming independent Albania with him as king, and during the war engaged in espionage in favor of Austria-Hungary.
| Franz Nopcha | |
|---|---|
| him. Franz Nopcsa von Felső-Szilvás | |
| Date of Birth | |
| Place of Birth | Transylvania , Austria-Hungary |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
| A country |  Austria-Hungary →  Hungary |
| Scientific field | paleontology , geology , albanistics |
| Alma mater | University of Vienna |
Biography
Franz Nopcha was born in 1877 near Sachal ( Transylvania , now part of the commune of Sinteméry-Orel, Hunedoara, Romania) [3] in the estate of Baron Alexius Nopchi. His father, a former hussar who participated in the Franco-Mexican War , later became vice-director of the Royal Hungarian Opera ; Franz’s mother, Matilda, was from an aristocratic family from Arad . Franz was the first of their three children [4] . Uncle Franz, who bore the same name, was close to the imperial court in Vienna [3] .
The Nopchi family was prosperous, and thanks to her uncle's means and connections, the boy was educated in Vienna, graduating from Theresianum [5] . At home, he learned the Hungarian language, and then mastered Romanian, English, German and French [4] . In 1895, when he was 18 years old, the younger sister of Franz Ilon showed him a badly damaged skull of an unusual shape, which she found on the bank of the river in their Szentpeterfalva estate. When Franz showed the skull in Vienna to the famous geologist Edward Suess , he recognized him as a dinosaur skull (it was a previously undescribed duckbill dinosaur [4] ), but did not express a desire to explore it, suggesting Nopche to study it himself [3] .
In Nopcha, a passionate interest in paleontology and related sciences really awoke. In his home library, he independently studied geology, physiology, anatomy and neurology and corresponded with European scientists in search of additional materials [4] . In 1897, he entered the geological department of the University of Vienna [3] and only two years later, on July 22, 1899, gave his first lecture at the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna. The theme of the lecture was dinosaur fossils in his native Transylvania [5] . Already in this first lecture, he simultaneously demonstrated his talent as a scientist and his disdain for authorities, criticizing the dinosaur classification system developed by Georg Baur [4] . He also made a dubious compliment to the “father” of iguanodon Louis Dollo , stating that Dollo’s work is particularly significant given his age [3] (Dollo was 41 years old by this time).
After graduating from the University of Vienna in 1903, Nopcha did not look for a place in academic organizations, but instead engaged in paleontology and geology privately. He traveled around Europe in search of fossils [6] . In particular, he was attracted to Albania, where he first visited a geological expedition in the same year. Preparing for the next trip, in 1906, Nopcha hired Bayazid Elmaz Doda as secretary of the Albanian, with whom they became not only close friends, but also, apparently, lovers [4] .
While staying in Albania, Nopcha deeply familiarized himself with local culture and customs, studied the dialects of the Albanian and made friends among the Albanian highlanders, whose admiration for honor was admired [4] . From 1907 to 1912 four monographs of Nopchi saw the light, devoted to geography, history, ethnology and the law of Albania [7] . At a certain stage, he began to act in Albania, not only as a scientist, but also as an Austro-Hungarian government agent. The results of his topographical and cultural studies were used by Austrian intelligence in preparation for the war [4] , and he himself planned to supply arms to the northern Albanian tribes and lead a guerrilla war in the mountains against the Ottoman authorities . If the uprising was successful, it was planned to create a sovereign Albanian state under the protectorate of Austria-Hungary, and Nopcha himself was considered as a real candidate for the role of the king of Albania [6] . However, during the 1913 conference in Trieste, he was chosen by the German aristocrat - Prince Wilhelm Weed . After this, Nopcha pathetically wrote to Arthur Smith Woodward : “My Albania is dead” [4] . However, he continued to cooperate with Austro-Hungarian intelligence, after the outbreak of World War I, collecting information for her in western Romania [6] .
After the end of the war and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Nopcha lost his family income and was forced to sell his collection of fossils [4] . In 1925, he was appointed director of the Royal Hungarian Geological Museum [3] , but did not agree with his colleagues in character. He spent the last years of his life in Vienna, where he lived with Doda in house number 12 on Ringstrasse. Depression, from which Nopcha suffered from youth, intensified [4] , and on April 25 (or early in the morning on April 26 [4] ) he drank tea with sleeping pills when he fell asleep, shot him, and then committed suicide [6] . The cremation of the body of Nopchi and the funeral of Doda at the Muslim cemetery of Vienna took place simultaneously; the burial place of the ashes of Nopchi was not noted [4] .
Scientific work
Franz Nopchu as a scientist was distinguished by non-standard thinking and readiness for bold conclusions. American paleontologist David Weishampel wrote: “Nopcha asked questions that no one else asked” [4] . He was always ready to pick up a new idea and apply a new methodology and did not take into account the means in solving the problem. Nopcha generously shared the results of his research with colleagues, even allowing them to publish them under their own name [3] . At the same time, he was extremely self-confident, convinced of his own intellectual superiority in scientific disputes, in which he did not spare his opponents and behaved “like in Albanian tribal wars” [4] .
In the course of his paleontological research, Nopcha described 25 new genera of reptiles (including a fossil tortoise, whose type species was named after Bayazid Doda Kallakobotion bajazidi ) and five new dinosaurs - Telmatosaurus transsylvanicus , Zalmoxes robustus , Struthiosaurus transylvanicus,. The four fossils described by him became typical specimens of their species [4] . In 1912, he put forward the theory that the small size of Central European dinosaurs was a manifestation of island dwarfism - a phenomenon in which animals living on islands for a long time are inferior in size to their mainland relatives. In 1914, this theory was presented in his article, and later received general recognition. Another theory of Nopchi, set forth in three interconnected articles, linked the gigantic sizes of dinosaurs as a whole and their subsequent extinction - the cause of both, he considered the pituitary dysfunction; in general, he worked hard at the intersection of paleontology and physiology, trying to understand how the body of fossil animals functioned, and later became one of the first paleobiologists [3] . Already in our time, theories put forward by Nopcha about fast-running “prepts” ( lat. Proavis ) and the warm-blooded dinosaurs became popular again [5] . However, in the 1920s, after the attention of the paleontological community shifted to North America with its richest fossils, Nopcha, who had never been to the USA and Canada and no longer had the funds for independent research work, gradually lost popularity as a paleontologist [4] .
Nopcha also shared advanced views in geology. His work in Albania (in particular, the study of the tectonic structure of the Western Balkans [5] ) helped him collect material that reinforces the then new theory of drift of the continents Alfred Wegener [6] . In his first publication on this subject, he did not mention the name Wegener, but later in a personal letter recognized his priority and announced that he was proud to be one of his first followers [3] .
Nopcha is considered one of the founders of albanism . In addition to the four monographs about Albania published by him before the First World War (Catholic North Albania, Shala and Kelmendi, House and Housewares in Catholic Northern Albania, and Reports on the Prehistoric Era and Ethnology of Northern Albania), he also published two important studies in the post-war period - “Buildings, Costumes, and Tools of Northern Albania” in 1925 and the 620-page “Geography and Geology of Northern Albania” in 1932. The latter work is considered his most important work in the field of albanism. Two more Nopchi books were published more than half a century after his death - “Mountain Tribes of Northern Albania and Their Customary Law ” in 1993 and memoirs “Traveling in the Balkans” in 2001. 54 of his 186 scientific publications are devoted to Albania [7] .
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 German National Library , Berlin State Library , Bavarian State Library , etc. Record # 118786407 // General regulatory control (GND) - 2012—2016.
- ↑ 1 2 BNF identifier : Open Data Platform 2011.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Bressan, D. Baron Nopcsa: More than just Transylvanian dinosaurs . Scientific American (September 29, 2011). Date of appeal April 21, 2017.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Veselka, V. History Forgot This Rogue Aristocrat Who Discovered Dinosaurs and Died Penniless // Smithsonian. - July-August 2016.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 Elsie, 2010 , p. 332.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 Weishampel, D., and Jianu, C.-M. Ahead of his time: Franz Baron Nopcsa and the dinosaurs of Transylvania . Johns Hopkins University Press (August 8, 2012). Date of appeal April 21, 2017.
- ↑ 1 2 Elsie, 2010 , p. 333.
Literature
- Robert Elsie. Nopcsa, Franz Baron // Historical Dictionary of Albania. - 2nd Ed .. - The Scarecrow Press, 2010 .-- P. 332—333. - ISBN 978-0-8108-6188-6 .