Franz Nopcsa von Felső-Szilvás | |
|---|---|
Ferenc Nopcsa | |
 Baron Nopcsa in Albanian uniform, 1915 | |
| Born | May 3, 1877 |
| Died | April 25, 1933(1933-04-25) (aged 55) |
| Citizenship | Hungary |
| Alma mater | University of Vienna (PhD) |
| Known for | Albanology,paleobiology, geology,ethnology |
| Partner | Bajazid Elmaz Doda |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Geology,Paleontology |
| Signature | |
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BaronFranz Nopcsa von Felső-Szilvás (alsoBaron Nopcsa von Felső-Szilvás,Baron Nopcsa,Ferenc Nopcsa,báró felsőszilvási Nopcsa Ferenc,Baron Franz Nopcsa, andFranz Baron Nopcsa; May 3, 1877 – April 25, 1933) was a Hungarianaristocrat, adventurer, scholar, geologist,paleontologist andalbanologist. He is widely regarded as one of the founders ofpaleobiology, and first described the theory ofinsular dwarfism. He was also a specialist onAlbanian studies and completed the firstgeological map ofnorthern Albania.[1][2]
Nopcsa was born in 1877 in Déva,Transylvania,Kingdom of Hungary (todayDeva, Romania), to theHungarianNopcsaaristocratic family. He was the son ofElek Nopcsa [hu] (1848-1918), a member of the Hungarian Parliament and his wife, Matylda Henrietta Żeleński z Żelanki (1852-1938). In 1895 Nopcsa's younger sister Ilona discovered dinosaur bones at the family estate at Szacsal (today part ofSânpetru, Sântămăria-Orlea, Romania).[1][3] He shared the bones with ProfessorEduard Suess, who encouraged him to study them.[4] Following the professor's advice, he started studying geology at theUniversity of Vienna in 1897,[4] where he quickly advanced in his studies. He gave his first academic lecture in 1899 at the age of twenty-two.[5] He acquired a PhD in geology in 1903 from the university; his doctorate focused ongeologically mapping the area surrounding the family estate.
On 20 November 1906 Nopcsa met the then eighteen-year-oldBajazid Elmaz Doda in Bucharest and hired him as his secretary.[6] Nopcsa later recounted this meeting in his memoir:[7][8]
[H]e has been the only person who has truly loved me and in whom I had full confidence, never doubting for a moment that he would misuse my trust.
Additionally, Nopcsa was interested inAlbania, which was a province of theOttoman Empire contending for independence in that time. He was one of the few outsiders who ventured into the mountainous areas in the north of Albania.[9] He soon learned theAlbanian dialects and customs. Eventually, he got on good terms with the leaders of the Albaniannationalist resistance who fought against theTurks in the region. Nopcsa gave passionate speeches and smuggled in weapons.
In 1907 on one of his expeditions into the Albanian mountains, he was held hostage by the bandit Mustafa Lita, together with Bajazid Doda. Lita demanded ten thousand Turkish pounds for his release.[6] In his memoirs Nopcsa described his elaborate plan to get out of this situation, which involved being taken toPrizren as a spy.[10] He was eventually rescued by Doda's father, who had brought 'ten armed retainers'.[11][10]
In 1912 theBalkan states joined forces to drive out theTurks. However, afterwards the newly liberated states immediately plunged into internal conflicts. During these Balkan Wars, Nopcsa spied forAustria-Hungary.[12] Out of these conflicts,Albania arose as an independent state, which needed a king. Nopcsa volunteered, suggesting he would use money he would gain from marrying a rich American girl to fund the war efforts, however, to no avail.[12][13]
Later, during theFirst World War, Nopcsa was on another mission as a spy forAustria-Hungary, working undercover as a shepherd in Transylvania.[9][12] He also led a group ofAlbanian wartime volunteers. Nopcsa was the first tohijack an aircraft. His motive for aircraft hijacking was to flee the nascent and ultimately short-livedHungarian Soviet Republic in 1919 to Vienna.[14] With the defeat of Austria-Hungary at the end of the war, Nopcsa's nativeTransylvania was ceded toRomania. As a consequence, theBaron ofFelső-Szilvás lost his estates and other possessions in 1920.[15] Compelled to find paid employment, he landed a job as the head of theHungarian Geological Institute in 1925.[4][16]
But Nopcsa's tenure in the Geological Institute was short-lived, he soon became bored of the sedentary job. He went to Europe on a motorcycle journey together with his long-standing Albanian secretary and loverBajazid Elmaz Doda to studyfossils.[9][16][17] He later returned to Vienna where he ran into financial difficulties again and was distracted in his work. To cover his debts, he sold his fossil collection to theNatural History Museum in London.[18][19] Nopcsa struggled with illness, to the extent that he had to give a lecture in a wheelchair in 1928.[19] Soon Nopcsa became depressed. Finally, in 1933, he fatally shot first his partner,Bayazid Elmas Doda, after having slipped sleeping powder into his tea.[12][19] He then wrote a suicide note, where he states the reason for his actions was a nervous breakdown, and shot himself.[1][9] He was cremated atFeuerhalle Simmering in Vienna, and his ashes buried there (Section 3, Ring 3, Group 8, No. 44). In his suicide note, he describes his reasons for killing his partner:[1]
The reason that I shot my longtime friend and secretary, Mr Bayazid Elmas Doda, in his sleep without his suspecting at all is that I did not wish to leave him behind sick, in misery and without a penny, because he would have suffered too much.
Nopcsa left behind a considerable quantity of scientific publications and private diaries. The diaries paint a picture of a complex man with great intuition, but without the ability to understand the motives of others. His devotion to the cause of the Albanians was in contrast to his sociopathic insensitivity. In his diaries he nonchalantly wrote about his bid to become king ofAlbania:[20]
Once a reigning European monarch, I would have no difficulty coming up with the further funds needed by marrying a wealthy American heiress aspiring to royalty, a step which under other circumstances I would have been loath to take.'
During his lifetime Nopcsa wrote a memoir based on diaries and notes from 1897 to 1917. Even though he finished the memoir around 1929, it was never published during his lifetime.[7] Only in 2001 was it published in German and it was later translated to English in 2014 asTraveler, Scholar, Political Adventurer: A Transylvanian Baron at the Birth of Albanian Independence, edited byRobert Elsie.[7][11]
Nopcsa's main contribution topaleontology – and hence "paleobiology" – was that he was one of the first researchers who tried to "put flesh onto bones." At a time when paleontologists were mainly interested in assembling bones, he tried to deduce thephysiology andliving behavior of the dinosaurs he was studying. Nopcsa was the first to suggest that thesearchosaurs cared for their young and exhibited complex social behavior, an idea that did not take off until the 1980s.[21] Because he was one of the first people to study the biology of dinosaurs, he is known as the 'father of paleobiology',[21] even though he himself coined the term "paleophysiology" for the study of the evolution of physiology and biology.[22] Some of his works in this field exploitedpaleohistological data.[23]
Another of Nopcsa's theories that was ahead of its time was that birds evolved from ground-dwelling dinosaurs, which is the theory of cursorial origin of flight.[24] He theorized that theProavis, a theorized predecessor of birds, was running animal with forearms lifted off the ground, which they would flap as they made a jump. The scales on its forearms would develop into feathers to aid this, and eventually allowing for flight.[24] This theory found favor in the 1960s and later gained wide acceptance, though later fossil finds of tree-living feathered dinosaurs suggest the development of flight may have been more complex than Nopcsa envisioned. Additionally, Nopcsa's conclusion that at least someMesozoic era reptiles werewarm-blooded[17] is now shared by much of the scientific community.
Nopcsa studiedTransylvanian dinosaurs intensively, even though they were smaller than their "cousins" elsewhere in the world. For example, he unearthed six-meter-longsauropods, a group of dinosaurs which elsewhere commonly grew to 30 meters or more, which he namedMagyarosaurus.[21] Nopcsa deduced that the area where the remains were found was an island,Hațeg Island (now theHaţeg or Hatzeg basin in Romania) during theMesozoic era.[25] He theorized that "limited resources" found on islands commonly have an effect of "reducing the size of animals" over the generations, producing a localized form ofdwarfism. Nopcsa's theory ofinsular dwarfism—also known as theisland rule—is today widely accepted.[26][27] Additionalpygmy sauropods, namedEuropasaurus, were recently discovered in northern Germany.[28][29][30]
Nopcsa also created a theory about the dinosaurs'sexual dimorphism, which he published in 1926.[31] Among others, he thought thathadrosauridspecies with the cranial crests were males and those without them were females. He pairedKritosaurus withParasaurolophus,Prosaurolophus withSaurolophus and others. His examples were not proved to be true, but his opinion that sexual dimorphism was present among hadrosaurid dinosaurs has gained acceptance, see for exampleLambeosaurus.
Nopcsa discovered and named several species in his lifetime. In 1899 he named the speciesMochlodon robustus,[32] which he later renamed toRhabdodon robustum in 1915.[33] He also namedStruthiosaurus transylvanicus, which he described in 1915.[6][34] In 1928 he named theTeinurosaurus (meaning "extended tail lizard").[35][36] He named the turtle speciesKallokibotion bajazidi, which literally means 'beautiful box of Bajazid'. Nopcsa chose the name because, in the words of British palaeontologist Gareth Dyke, "the shape of the shell reminded him of Bajazid's arse".[6]
Nopcsa was also interested in evolutionary theory,[37] especially on macroevolution, on which the fossil record can yield relevant data.[38]
Nopcsa was also an important geologist.[9] Indeed, Nopcsa was one of the first scholars to study the geology of the westernBalkans, particularly northern Albania.[2]
Nopcsa became fascinated with Albania during his lifetime, probably through the tales of Albania's mountain tribesmen, to which he was first introduced by Louis Drašković, a man thought to be his first lover.[9] During his lifetime Nopcsa published more than fifty scientific studies concerning Albania, covering a wide range oflinguistics,folklore,ethnology, history andkanun (that is, Albanian customary law).[39] He was one of the leading experts on Albania in his time.[39]
After Nopcsa's death, several of his important manuscripts were left unpublished. He participated in the work of theAlbanian Congress of Trieste, published his notes on the congress that became of particular historical interest.[1][40] He left theAlbanological part of his estate along with a letter of manuscripts to be published toNorbert Jokl, a renowned specialist in Albanian studies and Nopcsa's former colleague.[7] At that time, Nopcsa's material consisted of thousands of pages of notes, sketches, and finished text. Subsequently, this library came into possession ofMid'hat Bey Frashëri. When Frashëri was forced to flee the country, Nopcsa's materials were confiscated by thecommunist regime ofEnver Hoxha.[1] Eventually, Nopcsa's manuscripts, drawings, and completed writings formed the core of the Albanological section ofAlbania's National Library.[1][41]
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