Rafał dovecote

Rafał dovecote

Rafał Taubenschlag (also Rafael or Raphael , born May 8, 1881 in Przemyśl , † June 25, 1958 in Warsaw ) was a Polish legal historian . He worked as a lecturer and professor at the Jagiellonian University (1913-1939), Columbia University (1942-1947) and the University of Warsaw (1947-1958). As a specialist in the field of papyrology , he wrote fundamental studies on ancient Egyptian law .

life and work

Rafał Taubenschlag came from a Jewish family. His parents were the master brewer Baruch Taubenschlag and Cecylia ("Cyrli") Taubenschlag, née Goldhart. The family lived in the district town of Przemyśl in Galicia , which was then a crown land of the Danube Monarchy . Rafał Taubenschlag attended high school in his hometown and from 1899 studied law at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków , where both Polish and German were the languages ​​of instruction at that time. After graduating as Dr. iur. In 1904 Taubenschlag deepened his studies at the University of Leipzig , where he took part in the legal history seminar under Ludwig Mitteis . Mitteis introduced his students to papyrology and encouraged them to study independently in the field of ancient legal history. At that time Taubenschlag wrote his first papyrological study ( The Ptolemaic Arbitrators and their significance for the reception of Greek law in Egypt ).

In 1907 Taubenschlag returned to the Jagiellonian University, completed his habilitation there in 1913 in Roman law and papyrology and was appointed associate professor in 1918, and full professor in 1921. In 1927 he was elected a member of the Polish Academy of Scholarship . In 1929 he served as the dean of the Jagiellonian University Faculty of Law. In 1937 he received the Commander's Cross of the Order Polonia Restituta .

After the outbreak of the Second World War , Taubenschlag fled via Romania to France in 1939 , where he received a position at the University of Aix-en-Provence with the support of his former students ; there he represented the chair for pandect law . After the occupation of France, he emigrated to the USA in 1940 and, through the intermediation of the Rockefeller Foundation, received a teaching position at the New School of Social Research . In 1942 he was a founding member of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America . In the same year he moved to Columbia University , where he worked with the papyrologist William Linn Westermann . In 1946 Taubenschlag founded the Journal of Juristic Papyrology , an international specialist journal, of which he remained editor until his death.

After the end of the war, Taubenschlag accepted a call to the University of Warsaw for a chair in ancient law in 1947 . There he set up an institute for papyrology and, together with Jerzy Manteuffel, designed a course in legal papyrology. The University of Warsaw awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1950 . In 1954 Taubenschlag received the order Polonia Restituta (Commander's Cross with Star) for his services . The trade journal Eos dedicated a three-volume commemorative publication to him on his 65th birthday (1956) ( Symbolae Raphaeli Taubenschlag dedicatae ). On May 17, 1956, the German Academy of Sciences elected him a corresponding member.

In 1958, Taubenschlag lost his eyesight in a short time due to glaucoma . He died that same year.

Dovecote's research was primarily concerned with the law of ancient Egypt , as evidenced in the papyrus documents that have been preserved. He devoted his life's work to the interpretation and classification of these works and was widely recognized for his publications. His monograph The Criminal Law in the Rights of the Papyri (1916, reprinted 1972) and his handbook The Law of Greco-Roman Egypt in the light of the papyri (1944–1948, second edition 1955) are considered standard works.

Fonts (selection)

• The Ptolemaic Arbitrators and their Significance for the Reception of Greek Law in Egypt . In: Archives for Papyrus Research . Volume 4, 1908, pp. 1-46.
• Guardianship law studies. Contributions to the history of Roman and Greek guardianship law . Teubner, Leipzig / Berlin 1913.
• The criminal law in the rights of the papyri . Teubner, Leipzig / Berlin 1916. Reprint, Scientia-Verlag, Aalen 1972, ISBN 3-511-10072-0 .
• The Law of Greco-Roman Egypt in the light of the papyri . 2 volumes, Herald Square Press, New York 1944–1948. Second, improved and expanded edition, Warsaw 1955. Reprint Milan 1972.
• Opera minora . 2 volumes, Panstwowe wydawnictwo naukowe, Warsaw 1959.

literature

• Wacław Osuchowski: In memoriam Raphael Taubenschlag . In: The Journal of Juristic Papyrology . Volume 13, 1961, pp. 7-15.
• Johannes Herrmann : Rafael Taubenschlag † . In: Journal of the Savigny Foundation for Legal History. Romance Department . Volume 79, 1963, pp. 682-684.
• Henryk Kupiszewski: Raphael Taubenschlag (1881-1958) . In: Bulletino dell'istituto di diritto romano . 88, 1985 (1987) pp. 103-157; Reprinted in: Henryk Kupiszewski: Scripta minora . Napoli 2000, pp. 405-459.
• Henryk Kupiszewski: Rafał dovecote . In: Index . Volume 21, 1993, pp. 17-33.

Web links

• Literature by Rafał Taubenschlag in the catalog of the German National Library