Ural owls in the correspondence of the State Zoological Museum in Warsaw and the Zoological Museum of Moscow State University - unknown documents illuminating the history of European zoological museums

• Main Authors: Zabłocki, Wojciech, Daszkiewicz, Piotr, Iwan, Dariusz
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Zenodo 2021
• Subjects: State Zoological Museum, PMZ, recovery, Salzburg, Haus der Natur, Museum and Institute of Zoology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Zoological Museum of Moscow State University, Andrzej Dunajewski, Georgi Petrovich Dementiev; Georgi; Strix uralensis; Ural Owl
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5243206; https://zenodo.org/record/5243206

In the interwar period, the State Zoological Museum in Warsaw (PMZ) was a leading Polish natural history institution with a significant zoological collection and a team of scientists with broad international contacts. As part of their work, researchers from the PMZ often loaned specimens of various animals for their research from many other domestic and foreign institutions. The outbreak of World War II caused enormous losses in the community of Polish zoologists and abruptly interrupted any types of external cooperation. Furthermore, the scientific collections themselves were largely destroyed or robbed. In the case of the PMZ collection, the looting took place in November 1939, when a special unit of the SS Sonderkommando Paulsen transported four trucks filled with zoological specimens from Warsaw to the Haus der Natur museum in Salzburg. After the war, most of the stolen collections were recovered, which, as it turns out, included not only the specimens originally owned by the PMZ, but also objects loaned from other institutions. As the majority of the World's zoological museums do not possess detailed inventories of their specimens, this created complicated, almost unsolvable, property issues that can potentially involve several national and international facilities. One of such cases concerns the loan of Ural owl specimens ( Strix uralensis Pallas, 1771) required by Andrzej Dunajewski from the Zoological Museum of Moscow State University before World War II. The present paper investigates hitherto unpublished documentsilluminating this case and provides context for future research on the war losses in European zoological museography. : {"references": ["Andrzejewska L., Cissowska I., D\u0105browska-Prot E., Hill bricht-Ilkowska A. 1990. Kazimierz Tarwid (9 IX 1909- 24 XII 1988). Wiadomo\u015bci Ekologiczne 36(1/2): 67\u201376.", "Brz\u0119k G. 1995. Prof. dr hab. Stanis\u0142aw Feliksiak (1906-1992). Obituary, Przegl\u0105d Zoologiczny 39(1/2): 3\u201317.", "Brz\u0119k G. 1997. Straty w\u015br\u00f3d zoolog\u00f3w polskich w nast\u0119pstwie II wojny \u015bwiatowej. Analecta 6/2(12): 173\u2013197.", "Daszkiewicz P., Iwan D. 2016. Straty wojenne Pa\u0144stwowego Muzeum Zoologicznego \u2013 raport Stanis\u0142awa Feliksiaka (1906\u20131992). Pami\u0119\u0107 i Sprawiedliwo\u015b\u0107 27: 431\u2013439.", "Dunajewski A. 1940. Beitr\u00e4gezursystematischen Stellung der Karpatischen Habichtseule. Annales Musei Nationalis Hungarici. Pars Zoologica 33: 98\u2013100.", "Kajtoch \u0141., Musia\u0142ek R. 2003. Puszczyk uralski Strix uralensis Pall . w Polsce. Wszech\u015bwiat 104(7-9): 132\u2013136.", "Kalyakin V.M., Tomkovich P.S. 2003. History of bird collections at the Zoological Museum of Moscow University and their Role for Russian Ornithology. Bonner zoologische Be\u00eftrage 51(2/3): 167\u2013172.", "Me\u031c\u017cy\u0144ski A. 2000. Kommando Paulsen. Organisierter Kunstraub in Polen 1942-45. Dittrich-Verlag, K\u00f6ln: 178 pp.", "Shaposhnikov L.K. 1970. Professor Georgi Petrovich Demetiev (1898-1969). Biological Conservation 2(2): 124.", "Szczepski J.B. 1964. Pami\u0119ci Andrzeja Dunajewskiego. Przegl\u0105d Zoologiczny 8(1): 9\u201316.", "Szczepski J.B. 1987. Dunajewski Andrzej Stanis\u0142aw Julian (1908-1944), pp. 140\u2013141, In: S\u0142ownik biolog\u00f3w polskich, S. Feliksiak (Ed.), PAN, PWN Warszawa."]}