Dominik Bilimek

Dominik Bilimek OCist (born February 25, 1813 in Neutitschein , Moravia ; † August 4, 1884 in Heiligenkreuzerhof in Vienna ) was a priest , zoologist and botanist .

P. Dominik Bilimek OCist

Bilimek, who joined the Neukloster Abbey in Wiener Neustadt in 1832 and was ordained a priest in 1837, came to German-West Hungary as a pastor . From 1854 to 1864 he was professor of natural history at the military academies of the Austrian Empire; later he followed Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian to Mexico , where he worked as a natural scientist in his service from 1865, after he was crowned Emperor of Mexico as Maximilian I.

Since research trips were difficult because of the civil war raging in Mexico at the time , Bilimek initially devoted himself to the area around Chapultepec Castle and the highlands. The emperor and his wife Charlotte are said to have often accompanied him on his exploratory trips .

After Maximilian's death in 1867, Bilimek managed to bring the extensive imperial zoological and botanical collections to safety. He himself returned to Europe. He was buried in Heiligenkreuz, as his professed monastery in Wiener Neustadt was united with the Heiligenkreuz Abbey in 1881 .

Today the name of a cave beetle species , Typhlotrechus bilimeki , reminds of the Austrian zoologist and researcher. Objects from his collections are now in many museums around the world, from New York to Copenhagen, and of course Mexico.

literature

• Hermann Josef Roth :  Dominik Bilimek. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 29, Bautz, Nordhausen 2008, ISBN 978-3-88309-452-6 , Sp. 172-177.
• Hermann Josef Roth: In the service of two emperors: The Cistercian P. Dominik Bilimek from the new monastery in Wiener Neustadt. Naturalists in Europe and Mexico. In: Cistercian Chronicle . 111, H. 1. 2004, ISSN  0379-8291 , pp. 67-78, (with illustrations).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Werner Richter, Historia Sanctae Crucis, Heiligenkreuz 2011, pp. 442–443.