Rudolf Poch

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Rudolf Poch

Rudolf Pöch (born April 17, 1870 in Tarnopol , Galicia , Austria-Hungary , † March 4, 1921 in Innsbruck ) was an Austrian physician, ethnographer , anthropologist , explorer and pioneer of photography , cinematography and sound documentation . He is considered to be the founder of the Institute for Anthropology and Ethnography at the University of Vienna .

Live and act

Rudolf (occasionally also written as Rudolph) Pöch graduated from high school in 1888 at the Vienna Piarist High School and studied medicine at the University of Vienna up to the Dr. med. 1895, afterwards he was an assistant doctor in Vienna. He was part of the commission under Hermann Franz Müller , which investigated the plague in Indian Bombay in 1896/97 . With his courage he was able to prevent the outbreak of the pneumonic plague in Vienna in 1898 . He then studied anthropology in Berlin with Felix von Luschan in 1900/1901 .

Inspired by his work in the African - Oceanic department of the Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin , Pöch first undertook a trip to West Africa in 1902 to study malaria and from 1904 to 1906 a research trip to New Guinea , where he first received scientific evidence of a small ethnic group on the Island succeeded, as well as Australia. What is particularly remarkable about Pöch's expedition is its technical equipment. So he carried a heavy plate camera and a film camera with which he could get cinematographic recordings of the indigenous population of New Guinea, which was a sensation for the time and made Pöch a pioneer of documentary film . He also had a so-called archival phonograph with which he made 72 sound recordings of the predominantly vocal music of New Guinea in Papuan languages and of slit drums (pidgin garamut , local ongar ).

From 1907 to 1909 he made a second major research trip to South Africa , where he studied the culture of the San . In 1910 he completed his habilitation with a report on the trip to New Guinea and became an assistant at the Institute of Physiology.

In 1913 he was associate professor of Anthropology and Ethnography at the University of Vienna , in 1915 he graduated from the University of Munich the academic degree Dr. phil. with a skull study on New South Wales , in 1919 he became a full professor at the newly established chair of anthropology and ethnography. His focus was on physical ethnography. In 1919 he was appointed to the Austrian Academy of Sciences .

In the First World War he was conscripted as a military doctor. His institute examined mainly Russian prisoners of war for their morphological "racial characteristics".

He died unexpectedly in 1921 and was buried in an honorary grave in the Vienna Central Cemetery, where he was followed in 1976 by his wife Hella Pöch (1893–1976). In 1933 a memorial was placed in the arcade courtyard of the University of Vienna.

His successor in 1924 was the racist Otto Reche . This was followed in 1929 by Pöch's student Josef Weninger for anthropology.

Although Pöch's anthropological interpretation of the ethnic group he studied, the Kai in New Guinea and the South African San - he saw in them remnants of an older population in human history - has now turned out to be wrong, the European museums and scholars owe him, his passion for collecting and his accurate records to valuable Findings about the cultures he studied.

From today's perspective, however, Pöch's acquisition methods (he had Australian and Melanesian lower jaws) are viewed critically. Parts of the Pöch collection, which is managed by the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) and the Natural History Museum in Vienna , have already been returned three times . In 31 restitution cases of the remains of indigenous Australians in 2011, 30 cases related to the Pöchs collection. In 2012 the remains of Klaas and Trooi Pienaar were transferred to South Africa after the bodies were brought to Vienna in 1909 despite protests by relatives and under threat of violence on behalf of the OeAW. Although this procedure was illegal in South Africa and also led to police investigations, a total of 150 bodies were transported to Vienna by Pöch's research team for the purposes of “race research”. The return of the first two bodies mentioned was accompanied by an official apology from the Republic of Austria and a state funeral of the remains in South Africa in 2013.

Pöch's technical equipment, which was revolutionary for the time, is now in the Natural History Museum, his sound recordings in the Vienna Phonogram Archive , and his film recordings in the Filmarchiv Austria .

Honors

His grave of honor is located in the Vienna Central Cemetery (group 0, row 1, number 89). In 1931, Rudolf-Pöch-Gasse in Vienna- Penzing (14th district) was named after him.

literature

  • M. Weninger:  Poch Rudolf. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 8, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1983, ISBN 3-7001-0187-2 , p. 138 f. (Direct links on p. 138 , p. 139 ).
  • Martin Legassick, Ciraj Rassool: Disturbed dead calm . Dr. Pöch's activities in South Africa and Austria's moral obligation to repatriate. Indaba 58, 2008, pp. 20-23
  • Burkhard Stangl: Ethnology in the ear: the history of the impact of the phonograph , Vienna 2000.
  • Sophie Schasiepen: The "teaching material collection" from Dr. Rudolf Pöch at the University of Vienna. Anthropology, Forensics and Provenance. In: Journal for Cultural Studies. Issue 1, 2019.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Walter Graf: Rudolf Pöch and the phonographic field research .
  2. ^ Rudolf Pöch: Studies on natives of New South Wales and on Australian skulls . Self-published by the Anthropological Society, Vienna 1915. (At the same time: dissertation, University of Munich, Munich 1915), OBV .
  3. ↑ Dr. P. St .:  The great plague researcher - the brown plague guard. In:  Arbeiter-Zeitung , No. 64/1933 (XLVI. Volume), March 5, 1933, p. 8 middle. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / aze.
  4. ↑ Margit Berner u. a .: Viennese anthropologies. In: Karl A. Fröschl u. a. (Ed.): Reflexive insights from the university: Disciplinary histories between science, society and politics. Göttingen 2015, p. 41 ff.
  5. ↑ Friedrich Keiter : Studies on Australian and Melanesian lower jaws from the estate of Prof. Pöchs. Philosophical dissertation Vienna 1929.
  6. ^ Street names in Vienna since 1860 as "Political Places of Remembrance" (PDF; 4.4 MB), p. 223f, final research project report, Vienna, July 2013
  7. ↑ Return of remains of Khoisan couple a milestone: Mashatile ( Memento of February 1, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), article of the South African Broadcasting Corporation of April 20, 2012
personal data
SURNAME Poch, Rudolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian ethnographer, anthropologist and researcher
DATE OF BIRTH April 17, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Tarnopoly
DATE OF DEATH March 4, 1921
Place of death innsbruck