René Malaise
René Edmond Malaise (born September 29, 1892 in Stockholm , † July 1, 1978 in Simpnäs (Björkö island in the Stockholm archipelago )) was a Swedish entomologist and travel writer.
Malaise as a scientist
His first expedition took him to Kamchatka from 1920 to 1922 . He was accompanied by Sten Bergman and Eric Hultén , but must have temporarily separated from them on the way and finally came alone to Kamakura in Japan , where he witnessed the great Kanto earthquake on September 1, 1923 . From 1924 to 1930 he stayed in Kamchatka again, apparently living there from sable breeding for a while. From 1925 to 1929 he was married to the journalist Ester Blenda Nordström . In 1933 he married the biology and religion teacher Ebba Söderhellwho accompanied him on his next expedition to Burma . Ebba, after whom he named a species of insect, collected numerous art and everyday objects on this trip, including a canoe . Her collection was later very much appreciated by ethnologists . On this trip, Malaise also had the five prototypes of the malaise trap he had invented sewn. With their help, he collected more than 100,000 insects . The couple also brought back numerous preserved freshwater fish from the expedition. He spent the period of World War II withdrawn in Sweden .
From 1953 to 1958 Malaise headed the entomological department of the Swedish Natural History Museum in Stockholm . From the early 1950s he also wrote a number of essays on the subject of Atlantis . In it he leaned u. a. Alfred Wegener's theory of plate tectonics , and proved to be an advocate of the ideas of malacologists and Paläozoologen Nils Hjalmar Odhner , who took the view that the zirkumatlantische spread of plant and animal species by formerly the Atlantic located land bridges had been promoted. These publications by Malais were largely rejected by specialist scientists .
Art collection
Malaise was also an art collector. He regularly published articles in a collector's magazine about his most recent purchases, which indicated that each time he believed he had acquired an original. The day before his funeral, five paintings were stolen from his home; a sixth, which he attributed to Michelangelo , has disappeared in an unexplained manner. In 2004, one of the stolen paintings - a copy of a Rembrandt forgery - reappeared at an art auction . The art historian Hans Dackenberg compiled a catalog of the works of art that Malaise collected and bequeathed to Umeå University .
Malaise in literature
His life is the theme of Fredrik Sjöberg's story The Fly Trap.
literature
- Fredrik Sjöberg: The fly trap. About the happiness of immersion. Eichborn Verlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-8218-5816-6
Individual evidence
- ^ Hege Vårdal & Andreas Taeger (2011): The life of René Malaise: from the wild east to a sunken island. Zootaxa 3127: 38-52. http://mapress.com/zootaxa/2011/f/zt03127p052.pdf
- ↑ See e.g. For example: "Atlantis, en geologisk verklighet: jordskorpans rörelser, deras orsaker och verkningar. Nya rön och åsikter ...", Stockholm (Nordiska bokhandeln) 1951; "Sjunket land i Atlanten", in: Ymer, Stockholm, 1956; "Land-bridges or continental drift", Lidingo (Sweden), 1972
- ↑ See: Nils Hj. Odhner, "The Construction Hypothesis - A Research on the Causes of Crustal Movements", in: Geografiska Annaler (Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography), Vol. 16, 1934
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Malaise, René |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Malaise, René Edmond (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swedish entomologist and travel writer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 29, 1892 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Stockholm |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 1, 1978 |
| Place of death | Simpnäs |