Angela Piskernik

Angela Piskernik (27 August 1886 – 23 December 1967) was an Austro-Yugoslav botanist and conservationist.

Angela Piskernik

Biography

Piskernik was born in Bad Eisenkappel in Southern Carinthia, which remained with Austria after the First World War, and held a Ph.D. in botany from the University of Vienna.[1] Among her academic teachers was Hans Molisch. She worked for the provincial museum in Ljubljana and taught in various secondary schools.

As a nationally conscious Slovene woman, she was active in the Carinthian plebiscite and in a club of migrants.[2] In 1943 she was imprisoned and detained in the Nazi concentration camp Ravensbrück.[3] She is mentioned in the autobiographic novel "Angel of Oblivion" by the Austrian author Maja Haderlap.[4]

After 1945 she became director of the Museum of Natural History in Ljubljana and worked in the conservation service.[5] In particular, she made efforts to renew and protect the Juliana Alpine Botanical Garden and the Triglav National Park.[6][7] She was inspired by the Italian conservationist Renzo Videsott.

In the 1960s she headed the Yugoslav delegation of the International Commission for the Protection of the Alps (CIPRA) and proposed a transnational nature park with Austria in the Savinja Alps and Karawanks. The bilateral park was, however, never realized.[8] Today, this area is part of the European Green Belt. She died in 1967 in Ljubljana.

In 2019, Piskernik was honoured with a commemorative stamp issued in Slovenia.[9]

Writings

References
  1. Tina Bahovec (2010): Engendering Borders: The Austro-Yugoslav Border Conflict Following the First World War, in: Agatha Schwartz (Ed.), Gender and Modernity in Central Europe: The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and its Legacy, University of Ottawa Press, ISBN 978-0-7766-0726-9, pp. 219–234.
  2. Danijel Grafenauer (2009): Carinthian Slovenes´ Clubs and the Contacts between Carinthian Slovenes and Slovene-American Politicians Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine, in: Matjaž Klemenčič, Mary N. Harris (Eds.) European migrants, diasporas and indigenous ethnic minorities, Edizioni Plus-Pisa University Press, ISBN 978-88-8492-653-1, pp. 83–103
  3. Janez Stergar (2004): Dr. Angela Piskernik (1886–1967), Natural Scientist, Environmentalist, and Nationally Conscious Activist from Carinthia (Abstract in English), Institute of Ethnic Studies, Ljubljana. Retrieved October 31, 2013.
  4. Maja Haderlap (2016): Angel of Oblivion (Translated from German by Tess Lewis), Archipelago Books, Brooklyn, New York
  5. Mateja Tominšek Perovšek (2012): Slovene Women in the Modern Era (Exhibition Catalogue), National Museum of Contemporary History, Ljubljana, pp. 63–64
  6. Juliana after 1945 Archived December 29, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Slovenian Museum of Natural History, Ljubljana. Retrieved November 19, 2013.
  7. Vito Hazler (2010): Protection and Presentation of Cultural Heritage in the Triglav National Park and in Regional and Landscape parks in Slovenia, Etnološka istraživanja (Ethnological Researches), Vol. 1 No. 15, pp. 53–67
  8. Carolin Firouzeh Roeder (2012), Slovenia's Triglav National Park: From Imperial Borderland to National Ethnoscape, in: Bernhard Gissibl, Sabine Höhler, Patrick Kupper (Eds.), Civilizing Nature: National Parks in Global Historical Perspective, Berghahn Books, New York and Oxford, ISBN 978-0-85745-525-3, pp. 240–255.
  9. Angela Piskernik, Scientist, Honoured with New Stamp Total Slovenia News. Retrieved January 20, 2020
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