Jan Kaftan

Jan Kaftan (1896)

Jan Kaftan (born September 11, 1841 in Prague , † April 22, 1909 there ) was a Czech politician and technician. He was a member of the Austrian House of Representatives and member of the Bohemian Landtag for the Young Czechs .

Life

Jan Kaftan was born in Prague as the son of a master tailor. He graduated from the Prague Technical University in 1863 and joined the Bohemian Western Railway as a technical officer in 1865 . In 1867 he worked as a route engineer for the Austrian Northwest Railway on the route Jungbunzlau – Kolin – Znojmo. Between 1869 and 1870 Kaftan was employed as a section engineer in the construction of the Chrudim – Hlinsko railway line, then from 1871 to 1877 as chief engineer and authorized representative of the general contractor, he was responsible for managing the construction of the Prague – Duxer and Rakonitz – Protivin railway. As a result, he also became a civil engineer. He was the authorized representative of the general construction company of the Austrian Local Railway Company and was involved in the construction of numerous local railways in Bohemia and Moravia. In particular, he worked on the so-called “Bohemian Semmering Railway” Klostergrab-Mulde across the Ore Mountains. He was also in charge of the construction of numerous bridges, tunnels, waterways and canals in Bohemia and Moravia. In addition to railway construction, his interests primarily included sewerage and river regulation, for which he also undertook long-term trips abroad. In lectures in Prague in 1878 he suggested the necessary renovation work and investments in the sewerage and water supply in Prague, in 180 he also wrote a work on the systematic cleaning and drainage of cities, for which he received recognition from the Duke of Bavaria, the German Reich Health Office and learned from the Austrian Ministry of the Interior. In 1886 Kaftan wrote a project study for the flood protection of Prague as well as the expansion of the Prague port and the making the Vltava navigable in the interior of Prague. The government used the study as a basis for drawing up detailed plans. In 1891, together with the Berlin building councilor Hobrecht, he submitted a project study for the sewerage system in Prague, which was subsequently tackled by the Prague city council.

Kaftan was a member of the State Railways Council and the Water and Road Advisory Board as well as a member of the State Examination Commission for Civil Engineering and Cultural Technology and a member of the National Debt Control Commission. He also worked as the Vice President of the Chamber of Engineers. He was elected to the Bohemian Landtag in 1889, where he worked as a member of the budget committee and advisor for hydraulic engineering. In 1891 he was elected to the House of Representatives of the Reichsrat by the Prague electoral district of Lesser Town - Hradschin . After the introduction of the Reichsrat election rules in 1907, he held the mandate in the electoral district of Bohemia 5 (Prague). He was also a city councilor for Prague for a time.

Kaftan died in 1909 after several weeks of kidney disease in his apartment in the “Bellevue” house on Franzens-Kai in Prague. His funeral took place in Prague on April 25, 1909.

Awards

• Dr. techn. hc from the Technical University in Prague (1906)
• Honorary citizen of eleven cities in Bohemia
• Order of the Iron Crown , 3rd class
• Commander of the Franz Joseph Order

Fonts

• The systematic cleaning and drainage of cities , 1880
• Current status of the Danube-Moldau-Elbe-Canal project. In: Association publications of the German-Austrian-Hungarian. Association for Inland Shipping, No. 12, 1897
• The Vienna-Korneuburg-Budweis waterway , 1903

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Abg. Dr. Johann Kaftan †. In:  Prager Abendblatt. Supplement to the Prager Zeitung / Prager Abendblatt , April 22, 1909, p. 3 (online at ANNO ).

literature

• Fritz Freund: The Austrian House of Representatives. A Biographical-Statistical Handbook, 1907-1913, XI. Legislative period (XVIII session). Wiener Verlag, Vienna, Leipzig 1907, p. 315
• Sigmund Hahn (Ed.): Reichsraths-Almanach for the session 1891-1892 . Vienna 1891, p. 186 f.
• Caftan Johann. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 3, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1965, p. 172.