Rafał Taubenschlag (Raphael Taubenschlag; 8 May 1881, in

Przemyśl Przemyśl (; yi, פשעמישל, Pshemishl; uk, Перемишль, Peremyshl; german: Premissel) is a city in southeastern Poland with 58,721 inhabitants, as of December 2021. In 1999, it became part of the Subcarpathian Voivodeship; it was pr ...

– 25 June 1958, in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

) was a

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

historian of law, a specialist in

Roman law Roman law is the law, legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (c. 449 BC), to the ''Corpus Juris Civilis'' (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor J ...

and

papyrology Papyrology is the study of manuscripts of ancient literature, correspondence, legal archives, etc., preserved on portable media from antiquity, the most common form of which is papyrus, the principal writing material in the ancient civilizations ...

Life

Taubenschlag was born in

to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family which ran a

brewery A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant. The commercial brewing of be ...

for the

Sanguszko family 150px, Paweł Karol Sanguszko 150px, Dymitr Sanguszko 150px, Roman Sanguszko 150px, Janusz Sanguszko 150px, Hieronim Sanguszko 150px, Barbara Sanguszko née Dunin 150px, Eustachy Erazm Sanguszko 150px, Władysław Hieronim Sanguszko 150p ...

. His father's name was Baruch and his mother was Cecylia Cyrli née Goldhart. He finished high school in Przemyśl. In 1899 he began his studies in the Law School of the

Jagiellonian University The Jagiellonian University (Polish: ''Uniwersytet Jagielloński'', UJ) is a public research university in Kraków, Poland. Founded in 1364 by King Casimir III the Great, it is the oldest university in Poland and the 13th oldest university in ...

(UJ) in

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

. In 1904 he was awarded a

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

and in 1913 he was

habilitated Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

. In 1919 he became an assistant professor at the UJ and two years later a full professor. In 1927 he became a member of the

Polish Academy of Learning The Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences or Polish Academy of Learning ( pl, Polska Akademia Umiejętności), headquartered in Kraków and founded in 1872, is one of two institutions in contemporary Poland having the nature of an academy of scien ...

and in 1929 he was made

dean Dean may refer to: People * Dean (given name) * Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin * Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk * Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean Titles * ...

of the Law School at UJ. Taubenschlag's son, Stanisław Taubenschlag was born in Kraków on January 30, 1920. He would move to the USA after World War II, where he assumed the name of Stanley Townsend. He published his memoirs under the title "To Be a Jew in Occupied Poland" (1996). When

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

broke out Rafał managed to escape, thanks to help from his former students, to

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

. From there he made his way to

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

where he became dean of

Roman Law Roman law is the law, legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (c. 449 BC), to the ''Corpus Juris Civilis'' (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor J ...

at the

Aix-Marseille University Aix-Marseille University (AMU; french: Aix-Marseille Université; formally incorporated as ''Université d'Aix-Marseille'') is a public research university located in the Provence region of southern France. It was founded in 1409 when Louis II o ...

Aix-en-Provence Aix-en-Provence (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Ais de Provença in classical norm, or in Mistralian norm, ; la, Aquae Sextiae), or simply Aix ( medieval Occitan: ''Aics''), is a city and commune in southern France, about north of Marseille. ...

until the surrender of France to

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

in 1940. Subsequently he made his way to the United States where with help from the

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carneg ...

he obtained positions at the

New School of Social Research The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...

(between 1940 and 1942) and Columbia (until 1947). While in United States where he was a co-founder of the

Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America The Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America (PIASA) is a Polish-American scholarly institution headquartered in Manhattan (New York City), at 208 East 30th Street. History The Institute was founded during the height of World War II, in 1 ...

. In 1947 he returned to Poland where he became the Chair of the Department of Ancient Law at the University of Warsaw (UW), as well, together with Jerzy Manteuffel (one of the first Polish Papyrologists) of the Papyrology Program in the History Department of UW. In 1954 he was awarded the Commander's Cross with Star. In 1958, due to advanced

glaucoma Glaucoma is a group of eye diseases that result in damage to the optic nerve (or retina) and cause vision loss. The most common type is open-angle (wide angle, chronic simple) glaucoma, in which the drainage angle for fluid within the eye rem ...

he began to suddenly lose his eyesight. He died the same year and was buried at

Rakowicki Cemetery Rakowicki Cemetery (English: ; pl, Cmentarz Rakowicki) is a historic necropolis and a cultural heritage monument located on 26 Rakowicka Street in the centre of Kraków, Poland. It lies within the Administrative District No. 1 ''Stare Miasto'' ...

. According to some former students, toward the end of his life Taubenschlag became quite eccentric, often talking to himself as if carrying on academic debates with imaginary scholars and opponents. At the same time, his reputation as a weird old eccentric enabled him to publicly express political opinions which, in communist Poland during the Stalinist 1950s, would have gotten anyone else fired from his academic position or arrested.Antoni Libera, ed., "Janusz Szpotański, Fragmenty nienapisanej biografii"

/ref>

Notes

References

*Biography a

{{DEFAULTSORT:Taubenschlag, Rafal 20th-century Polish historians Polish male non-fiction writers Jagiellonian University alumni 1881 births 1958 deaths People from Przemyśl 19th-century Polish Jews Burials at Rakowicki Cemetery Recipients of the Order of Polonia Restituta Members of the German Academy of Sciences at Berlin Recipients of the State Award Badge (Poland)

Life

See also

Notes

References