Pośmiertne życie zielnika Róży Luksemburg
The afterlife of Rosa Luxemburg’s herbarium

Summary/Abstract: Rosa Luxemburg (1870 or 1871–1919) was also active as a botanist in addition to her intense political activities. A nature lover since childhood, she studied natural sciences at the University of Zurich, eventually changing her field of study to law and economics and defending her doctorate on the development of industry in Poland. She returned to her passion in 1913, when she started her first herbarium notebook. She also collected plants while in successive prisons in Berlin, Wronki and Wrocław. The last notebook is dated October 1918, weeks before the day Luxemburg was murdered. Rosa’s herbarium, held in the Central Archives of Modern Records, is not a scientific herbarium, although the author did use an expert source to identify plants. However, like the author’s strong personality, the herbarium itself continues to inspire artists and researchers in various ways, creating further contexts for herbarium use due to the complex interpretations of the botanical activities of the famous revolutionary. Additional aspects that stimulate the interest of researchers are the speculations about the herbarium’s secretive nature and the attempt to extract the author’s DNA from the herbarium’s pages in 2009, after an unnamed corpse was found in Berlin, which, it was suspected, could have been the real body of the murdered activist.

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