Angela Piskernik

Angela Piskernik

Angela Piskernik (27 August 1886 – 23 December 1967) was an Austro-Yugoslav botanist and conservationist.

Biography

Piskernik was born in Bad Eisenkappel in Southern Carinthia, which remained with Austria after the First World War, and held a Ph.D. in botany from the University of Vienna.[1] Among her teachers was Hans Molisch. She worked for the provincial museum in Ljubljana and taught in various secondary schools.

As a nationally conscious Slovene woman, she was active in the Carinthian plebiscite and in a club of migrants.[2] In 1943 she was imprisoned and detained in the Nazi concentration camp Ravensbrück.[3] She is mentioned in the autobiographic novel "Angel of Oblivion" by the Austrian author Maja Haderlap.[4]

After 1945 she became director of the Museum of Natural History in Ljubljana and worked in the conservation service.[5] In particular, she made efforts to renew and protect the Juliana Alpine Botanical Garden and Triglav National Park.[6][7] She was inspired by the Italian conservationist Renzo Videsott.

In the 1960s she headed the Yugoslav delegation of the International Commission for the Protection of the Alps (CIPRA) and proposed a transnational nature park with Austria in the Savinja Alps and Karawanks. The bilateral park was, however, never realized.[8] Today, this area is part of the European Green Belt. She died in 1967 in Ljubljana.

In 2019, Piskernik was honoured with a commemorative stamp issued in Slovenia.[9]

Writings

References

  1. ^ Tina Bahovec (2010): Engendering Borders: The Austro-Yugoslav Border Conflict Following the First World War, in: Agatha Schwartz (Ed.), Gender and Modernity in Central Europe: The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and its Legacy, University of Ottawa Press, ISBN 978-0-7766-0726-9, pp. 219–234.
  2. ^ Danijel Grafenauer (2009): Carinthian Slovenes´ Clubs and the Contacts between Carinthian Slovenes and Slovene-American Politicians Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine, in: Matjaž Klemenčič, Mary N. Harris (Eds.) European migrants, diasporas and indigenous ethnic minorities, Edizioni Plus-Pisa University Press, ISBN 978-88-8492-653-1, pp. 83–103
  3. ^ Janez Stergar (2004): Dr. Angela Piskernik (1886–1967), Natural Scientist, Environmentalist, and Nationally Conscious Activist from Carinthia (Abstract in English), Institute of Ethnic Studies, Ljubljana. Retrieved October 31, 2013.
  4. ^ Maja Haderlap (2016): Angel of Oblivion (Translated from German by Tess Lewis), Archipelago Books, Brooklyn, New York
  5. ^ Mateja Tominšek Perovšek (2012): Slovene Women in the Modern Era (Exhibition Catalogue), National Museum of Contemporary History, Ljubljana, pp. 63–64
  6. ^ Juliana after 1945 Archived December 29, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Slovenian Museum of Natural History, Ljubljana. Retrieved November 19, 2013.
  7. ^ Vito Hazler (2010): Protection and Presentation of Cultural Heritage in the Triglav National Park and in Regional and Landscape Parks in Slovenia, Etnološka istraživanja (Ethnological Researches), Vol. 1 No. 15, pp. 53–67
  8. ^ Carolin Firouzeh Roeder (2012), Slovenia's Triglav National Park: From Imperial Borderland to National Ethnoscape, in: Bernhard Gissibl, Sabine Höhler, Patrick Kupper (Eds.), Civilizing Nature: National Parks in Global Historical Perspective, Berghahn Books, New York and Oxford, ISBN 978-0-85745-525-3, pp. 240–255.
  9. ^ Angela Piskernik, Scientist, Honoured with New Stamp Total Slovenia News. Retrieved January 20, 2020