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

botanist Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

and conservationist.

Biography

Piskernik was born in

Bad Eisenkappel Bad Eisenkappel, also known as Eisenkappel (), is a municipality located in the Vellach Valley in the Karawanken mountain range with the nearby peaks: Obir, Peca (mountain), Peca, and Olševa. It is the population center of the market township o ...

in Southern

Carinthia Carinthia ( ; ; ) is the southernmost and least densely populated States of Austria, Austrian state, in the Eastern Alps, and is noted for its mountains and lakes. The Lake Wolayer is a mountain lake on the Carinthian side of the Carnic Main ...

, which remained with

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

after the First World War, and held a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in botany from the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

. Among her teachers was

Hans Molisch Hans Molisch (6 December 1856, Brünn, Habsburg Moravia - 8 December 1937, Wien, Federal State of Austria, Austria) was a Czech people, Czech-Austrians, Austrian botanist. Molisch's test is named after him, it is a sensitive chemical test for th ...

. She worked for the provincial museum in

Ljubljana {{Infobox settlement , name = Ljubljana , official_name = , settlement_type = Capital city , image_skyline = {{multiple image , border = infobox , perrow = 1/2/2/1 , total_widt ...

and taught in various secondary schools. As a nationally conscious Slovene woman, she was active in the

Carinthian plebiscite The Carinthian plebiscite (, ) was held on 10 October 1920 in the area in southern Carinthia predominantly settled by Carinthian Slovenes. It determined the final border between the Republic of Austria and the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croa ...

and in a club of migrants. In 1943 she was imprisoned and detained in the Nazi

concentration camp Ravensbrück In chemistry, concentration is the abundance of a constituent divided by the total volume of a mixture. Several types of mathematical description can be distinguished: '' mass concentration'', ''molar concentration'', ''number concentration'', an ...

. She is mentioned in the autobiographic novel "Angel of Oblivion" by the Austrian author

Maja Haderlap Maja Haderlap (born 8 March 1961 in Eisenkappel-Vellach (, Carinthia)) is a bilingual Slovenian-German Austrian writer, best known for her multiple-award-winning novel, Angel of Oblivion, about the Slovene ethnic minority's transgenerational t ...

. After 1945 she became director of the

Museum of Natural History A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more ...

in Ljubljana and worked in the conservation service. In particular, she made efforts to renew and protect the Juliana Alpine Botanical Garden and

Triglav National Park Triglav National Park (TNP; ) is the only national park in Slovenia. It was established in its modern form in 1981 and is located in the northwestern part of the country, respectively the southeastern part of the Alps, Alpine massif. Mount Trigla ...

. 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 The Savinja () is a river in northeast Slovenia which flows mostly in the Upper and Lower Savinja Valley () and through the cities of Celje and Laško. The Savinja is the main river of the Savinja Alps (Sln. ''Savinjske Alpe''). It flows into t ...

and

Karawanks The Karawanks or Karavankas or Karavanks (; , ) are a mountain range of the Southern Limestone Alps on the border between Slovenia to the south and Austria to the north. With a total length of in an east–west direction, the Karawanks chain is o ...

. The bilateral park was, however, never realized. Today, this area is part of the

European Green Belt The European Green Belt initiative is a grassroots movement for nature conservation and sustainable development along the corridor of the former Iron Curtain. The term refers to an environmental initiative as well as the area it concerns. T ...

. She died in 1967 in Ljubljana. In 2019, Piskernik was honoured with a commemorative stamp issued in Slovenia.''Angela Piskernik, Scientist, Honoured with New Stamp''
Total Slovenia News. Retrieved January 20, 2020

Writings

''Jugoslovansko-Avstrijski visokogorski park (predlog za zavarovanje)''
containing a summary in English: ''Yugoslav-Austrian high mountain park (proposition for protection'') (1965), 4, pp. 7-15

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Piskernik, Angela 1886 births 1967 deaths Slovenian botanists Slovenian women botanists Carinthian Slovenes Ravensbrück concentration camp survivors 20th-century women scientists Austrian emigrants Immigrants to Yugoslavia