Page 26 - Наукові записки Державного природознавчого музею, 2024 Вип. 40

Wilhelm Friedberg and his scientific legacy … 25

W. Friedberg was appointed as a professor of geology and paleontology at the University of
Poznań, where he worked during 10 years and established the first paleontological institute
at the university with well-organized collections and a library. Additionally, for a some
period of time, he held the position of a dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural
Sciences and vice-rector.
In 1929, the researcher relocated to Kraków and assumed leadership of the Department
of Paleontology at the Jagiellonian University, succeeding Jan Nowak. In 1930, he was
appointed as a corresponding member of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 1933, he retired and returned to Lviv, the city to which he felt a deep connection.
Following the death of his wife, he relocated back to Kraków in 1938, where he organized a
workshop at the natural history museum. According to contemporaries, the outbreak of the
Second World War greatly affected Friedberg. Unable to pursue his scientific research, which
had been the meaning of his life, his health began to deteriorate. Wilhelm Friedberg passed
away on June 10, 1941, and was laid to rest at the Rakowicki Cemetery in Krakow.

Collaboration with the State Natural History Museum in Lviv

Wilhelm Friedberg’s scientific endeavours were intricately linked to the Dzieduszycki
Family Natural History Museum in Lviv (now the State Museum of Natural History of
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine). This connection is substantiated by numerous
entries in the museum’s records and letters. These documents reveal that the scientist delved
in the literature from the museum’s extensive library, which, during that era, ranked as one
of the largest natural literature collections in Europe. W. Friedberg extensively studied the
museum’s collections and also enriched them with specimens from his own materials what
is documented in the museum’s chronicle. In the annual report for 1906, the museum curator
Marian Łomnicki made a notes about Friedberg’s donations in the section listing the
proceedings of the museum’s mineralogical-geological division, such as an erratic stone from
the vicinity of Rzeszów, and prehistoric division, such as a deer horn axe from Drabinianka
(Rzeszów) (Fig. 3). In the annual report for 1911 there is a record of a donation of a collection
of foraminifera from Galicia to the geological division of the Museum (Fig. 4).
An archive preserved in the museum’s library contains Friedberg’s correspondence with
the museum’s publishing committee, primarily regarding the publication of his two-volume
monograph. The archive comprises approximately twenty letters, revealing the various
challenges the author faced during the preparation of the monograph, predominantly of
organizational and financial nature. In one of them (Fig. 5) it reads (translation from Polish):

To the Honorable Committee of the Dzieduszycki Museum Publishing House
(to the Deputy Chairman of the Committee, Honorable Sir M. Łomnicki) in Lviv

In response to the letter from the Honorable Committee dated December 30, 1909, I have
the honor to inform, that the first issue of my publication entitled “Miocene molluscs of
Poland” will include the following genera: Conus, Terebra, Columbella, Buccinum, Nassa
and Ancillaria. Concurrently, I am submitting the manuscript, which will undergo review
following verification of identifications at the Imperial Court Museum in Vienna. The first
issue will include, in addition to the descriptions, 4 tables.

Lviv January 14, 1910
Dr. Wilhelm Friedberg