Emil Racoviță | |
|---|---|
 Racoviță around 1897 | |
| Born | Emil Gheorghe Racoviță (1868-11-15)15 November 1868 |
| Died | 19 November 1947(1947-11-19) (aged 79) |
| Resting place | Hajongard Cemetery,Cluj-Napoca |
| Nationality | Romanian |
| Alma mater | University of Paris |
| Known for |
|
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Biology,speleology,zoology |
| Institutions | Babeș-Bolyai University |
| Thesis | Le lobe cephalique et l'encéphale des Annélides Polychète (1896) |
| Doctoral advisor | Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers |
Emil Gheorghe Racoviță (Romanian:[eˈmilˈrakovit͡sə]; 15 November 1868 – 19 November 1947) was aRomanianbiologist,zoologist,speleologist, andAntarctic explorer.
Together withGrigore Antipa, he was one of the most noted promoters ofnatural sciences in Romania. Racoviță was the first Romanian to have gone on a scientific research expedition to the Antarctic. He was an influential professor, scholar and researcher, and served asPresident of the Romanian Academy from 1926 to 1929.
Born inIași, he grew up on a family estate, inȘurănești,Vaslui County, he started his education in Iași, where he hadIon Creangă as a teacher, and continued his secondary education at theInstitutele Unite, a private high school for boys in Iași, taking hisbaccalauréat in 1886. He then studied law at theUniversity of Paris, obtaining a law degree in 1889. But he did not pursue a law career, instead turning to the natural sciences.[1]
His mentor was zoologist and biologistHenri de Lacaze-Duthiers, a professor at theSorbonne and at theMuséum national d'histoire naturelle. Racoviță earned aB.S. degree in 1891, and aPh.D. degree in 1896, for a thesis onLe lobe cephalique et l'encéphale des Annélides Polychète ("The cephalous lobe and theencephalon ofpolychaetous annelids").
As a student, Racovița was attracted tosocialism. He was a founding member of theSecond International, as well as a leading member of theSocial Democratic Workers' Party of Romania.[2][3]
As a promising young scientist, Racoviță was selected to be part of an international team that started out on a research expedition to Antarctica, aboard theBelgica. The expedition was led by the Belgian officerAdrien de Gerlache, who was also the ship's owner.
On 16 August 1897, under theaegis of the Royal Society of Geography inBrussels, theBelgica, a former Norwegian woodenwhaler, left the port ofAntwerp, setting sail for the South. It was the ship that gave its name to the whole expedition. The three-mast ship was equipped with a 160 horse-power engine.
The 19 members of the team were of various nationalities. The first mate of the vessel wasRoald Amundsen – who was to conquer theSouth Pole in 1911. Apart from Racoviță, the team was made up of Belgian physicistÉmile Danco, Polish geologist and oceanographerHenryk Arctowski with his assistantAntoni Bolesław Dobrowolski and American physicianFrederick Cook.
The team left the deck of the ship 22 times, in order to collect scientific data, to conduct investigations and experiments. Racoviță was the first researcher to collectbotanical and zoological samples from areas beyond theAntarctic Circle.[5] He found the first flowering plants that were collected in Antarctica, and collected the type specimens of the flightlessmidgeBelgica antarctica, the only insect that can survive year-round in Antarctica.[6][7]
Belgica made the first dailymeteorological recordings and measurements in Antarctica, every hour, for a whole year. The scientists also collected information onoceanic currents andterrestrial magnetism, with as many as 10 volumes of scientific conclusions being published at the end of the expedition, which was considered a success.
The expedition encountered several hardships. Between 10 March 1898 and 14 March 1899,Belgica was caught between ice blocks, making it impossible to sail any further. The crew had to carve a 75-meter-long (250 ft) canal through a six-meter-thick (20 ft) layer of ice, in order to generate a waterway by which to sail to a navigable body of water.Belgica returned to Europe in 1899 without two team-members, who had died during the expedition: Norwegian mariner Carl Wiencke (lost overboard), and Émile Danco {died natural causes}.
Racoviță's diary, published in 1899, makes mention of the difficulties that the team-members had to endure. Photos of the time show that he was hardly recognisable after returning from the expedition. The results of his research were published in 1900, under the titleLa vie des animaux et des plantes dans l'Antarctique ("The life of animals and plants in Antarctica"). A year after his return, Racoviță was appointed director of theBanyuls-sur-Mer resort and editor of the reviewArchives de zoologie expérimentale et générale.
Racoviță continued his research, contributing to speleology and exploring over 1,400 caves in France, Spain, Algeria, Italy, and Slovenia. He is considered to be, together withRené Jeannel, one of the founders ofbiospeleology.[8] He was particularly interested inisopoda, of which he discovered many.
In 1919, Racoviță became head of the biology department at theUpper Dacia University inCluj-Napoca, and served asRector of the University from 1929 to 1930. He founded the world's first speleological institute there on 26 April 1920,[nb 1] first as a section which was, however, to function independently since 1956, with professor Constantin Motas. In 1920, he became a titular member of theRomanian Academy,[9] and served as President of the Academy from 1926 to 1929.[10]
In the aftermath of theSecond Vienna Award of August 1940, the Faculty of Sciences and the Institute of Speleology at the University of Cluj were forced to move out of the city and take refuge inTimișoara. AfterWorld War II, Racoviță made great efforts to reorganize the institute.[11] He died in November 1947 in Cluj-Napoca, and was buried in the city'sHajongard Cemetery.
There are two caves named after him. One is theEmil Racoviță Cave [ro], located inCriva, Briceni; with an area of 50 hectares (120 acres), it is the largest cave inMoldova and the third longest cave in Europe.[12] The other one is theRacoviță Cave [ro], located inIabalcea,Caraș-Severin County.[13]
In 2006, the first Romanian Antarctic exploration station was named the Law-Racoviță Station (known since 2011 as theLaw-Racoviță-Negoiță Station).
Poșta Română issued several stamps in his honor: 55 bani and 1.20 lei stamps in 1958, a 55 bani stamp in 1968, a 4 lei stamp in 1985, a 2 lei stamp in 1986, a 4.50 lei stamp in 1997, and a 1.60 lei stamp in 2007. The last one is part of a series of four stamps (Scott 4911–4914) commemorating 100 years since the foundation by Racoviță of the first biospeleology institute in the world.
In 2018, on the 150th anniversary of Racoviță's birth, theNational Bank of Romania put into circulation a commemorative silver coin with a face value of 10 lei.[14]
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