Jan Mrkvička

Jan Mrkvička (* 1884 in Plovdiv ; † August 17, 1916 ) was a Bulgarian scientist.

Life

Mrkvička was born in Plovdiv in 1884, graduated from high school in Sofia and studied at the Czech Technical University in Prague until 1908 . He returned to Bulgaria and served a year as a volunteer in the Bulgarian army. Employment as a chemist in a factory in Cologne followed, then in Moscow. From 1912 he had to participate in the Bulgarian army in the first Balkan War (1912-1913). After the war he became a professor at the economic school in Sadovo.

In 1915 Jan Mrkvička went to Macedonia as an officer with the first Bulgarian army . During the First World War , Bulgarian troops from 1915 lay on the southern border of what is now the Republic of Macedonia against Greece (which was neutral until 1917), from where French, Serbian and British troops tried to advance north and establish a connection from Thessaloniki to Serbia.

For about two years the fronts were largely unchanged. Jan Mrkvička was first in Bitola and Prilep , and later in the positions in the mountains on the Greek border. During this time he collected for his herbarium on all occasions , more extensively from Dobro Pole, Nidže Planina, Bitola and Prilep.

During the first attack by the Serbian army on the Bulgarian positions on August 17, 1916 Mrkvička was killed. He fell on Mount Graždan (Požarevski Rid) and was buried in the cemetery in Gradešnica ( ) village .

The rather large herbarium went to his parents after his death, who, after the loss of their only son Josef Velenovský in Prague, asked to edit the herbarium and publish it in memory of Jan Mrkvička, which was followed by the publication of the "Reliquiae Mrkvičkanae" in 1922 also happened.

In 1922 Velenovsky described 27 new taxa from the material; most of them are now considered synonyms. The herbarium specimens are located with the Herbarium Velenovsky in Prague.

literature

• P. Broucek (ed.): An Austrian general against Hitler . Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 2011.