Vojtěch Šafařík (26 October 1829 in

Újvidék Novi Sad ( sr-Cyrl, Нови Сад, ; hu, Újvidék, ; german: Neusatz; see below for other names) is the second largest city in Serbia and the capital of the autonomous province of Vojvodina. It is located in the southern portion of the Pan ...

, Bács-Bodrog County,

Vojvodina Vojvodina ( sr-Cyrl, Војводина}), officially the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, is an autonomous province that occupies the northernmost part of Serbia. It lies within the Pannonian Basin, bordered to the south by the national capital ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

(today

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Bas ...

) – 2 July 1902 in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...

) was a Czech

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe th ...

, specialising in

inorganic chemistry Inorganic chemistry deals with synthesis and behavior of inorganic and organometallic compounds. This field covers chemical compounds that are not carbon-based, which are the subjects of organic chemistry. The distinction between the two disci ...

. Šafařík was the son of

Pavel Jozef Šafárik Pavel Jozef Šafárik ( sk, Pavol Jozef Šafárik; 13 May 1795 – 26 June 1861) was an ethnic Slovak philologist, poet, literary historian, historian and ethnographer in the Kingdom of Hungary. He was one of the first scientific Slavists. Famil ...

, a Slovak

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...

and historian. The crater Šafařík on the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

is named after him, and so is the minor planet 8336 Šafařík (in conjunction with his wife).

Work

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...

, he was involved in the investigation of the reaction of metals with alkyl iodides and produced diethylmagnesium. He also worked on the chemical composition of platinum and vanadium catalysts, and on

organometallic Organometallic chemistry is the study of organometallic compounds, chemical compounds containing at least one chemical bond between a carbon atom of an organic molecule and a metal, including alkali, alkaline earth, and transition metals, and so ...

compounds ( Grignard compounds). At the

Vienna Academy The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (german: link=no, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien) is a public art school in Vienna, Austria. History The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna was founded in 1692 as a private academy modelled on the Accademia di Sa ...

he published a work on physical chemistry. He also studied mineralogy. In 1859, together with fellow chemist

Antonín Bělohoubek Antonin, Antonín, and Antoñín are masculine given names. Antonín, a Czech name in use in the Czech Republic, and Antonin, a French name in use in France, and French-speaking countries, are both considered alternate forms of Antonino. Antoñí ...

, he participated in a detailed chemical and microscopic analysis of the authenticity of the notorious Queen's Court (Dvůr Králové) and Green Mountain (''Zelená Hora'') manuscripts. Finding

Prussian Blue Prussian blue (also known as Berlin blue, Brandenburg blue or, in painting, Parisian or Paris blue) is a dark blue pigment produced by oxidation of ferrous ferrocyanide salts. It has the chemical formula Fe CN)">Cyanide.html" ;"title="e(Cyani ...

(unknown until the 18th century) in the initialling of the manuscripts, which were purported to date from the 1200s, they came to the conclusion that the manuscripts were forgeries and literary hoaxes. In 1860, Šafařík published the first introductory university textbook of chemistry in Czech (''Základové chemie čili lučby''). He worked to improve Czech chemical terminology, building on and improving over the nomenclature of Czech chemist

Jan Svatopluk Presl Jan Svatopluk Presl (4 September 1791 – 6 April 1849) was a Czech natural scientist. He was the brother of botanist Carl Borivoj Presl (1794–1852). The Czech Botanical Society commemorated the two brothers by naming its principal publicatio ...

and the linguist

Josef Jungmann Josef Jungmann (16 July 1773 in Hudlice, near Beroun – 14 November 1847 in Prague) was a Czech poet and linguist, and a leading figure of the Czech National Revival. Together with Josef Dobrovský, he is considered to be a creator of the moder ...

. In 1882 he was appointed as the first professor of chemistry at

Charles-Ferdinand University ) , image_name = Carolinum_Logo.svg , image_size = 200px , established = , type = Public, Ancient , budget = 8.9 billion CZK , rector = Milena Králíčková , faculty = 4,057 , administrative_staff = 4,026 , students = 51,438 , underg ...

in Prague. In later life, he wrote many popular textbooks as well as making over 20,000 observations of

variable star A variable star is a star whose brightness as seen from Earth (its apparent magnitude) changes with time. This variation may be caused by a change in emitted light or by something partly blocking the light, so variable stars are classified as ...

s. His wife and co-worker Paulína ŠafaříkováBiography: http://www.astro.cz/clanky/ostatni/o-pauline-safarikove-zene-slavneho-astronoma.html (Czech) was interested in the history and popularisation of astronomy.

Note

Vojtěch Šafařík's name has often been incorrectly recorded as Adalbert Šafařík. It is thought that the confusion arose because of misguided translation attempts. St. Adalbert of Prague is known in Czech by his birth name of

Vojtěch Vojtěch (Czech pronunciation: ) or Vojtech is a, respectively, Czech and Slovak given name of Slavic origin. It is composed of two parts: ''voj'' – "troops"/"war(rior)" and ''těch'' – "consolator"/"rejoicing man". So, the name could be interp ...

; however, that Vojtěch took the name Adalbert for his

Confirmation In Christian denominations that practice infant baptism, confirmation is seen as the sealing of the covenant created in baptism. Those being confirmed are known as confirmands. For adults, it is an affirmation of belief. It involves laying on ...

, in honour of his tutor

Adalbert of Magdeburg Adalbert of Magdeburg (c. 91020 June 981), sometimes incorrectly shortened to "Albert", known as the Apostle of the Slavs, was the first Archbishop of Magdeburg (from 968) and a successful missionary to the Polabian Slavs to the east of what is ...

. Thus, the two names (Vojtěch and Adalbert) have no linguistic relationship with each other.

References

External links

* Biography: http://www.vscht.cz/skola/historie/safarik (Czech) {{DEFAULTSORT:Safarik, Vojtech 1829 births 1902 deaths 19th-century Czech people 19th-century chemists Czech chemists Scientists from Novi Sad Czech people of Slovak descent Serbian people of Slovak descent Slovak chemists

Work

Note

See also

References

External links