Robert Ritter von Dombrowski – după 100 de ani la Muzeul „Grigore Antipa”
Robert Ritter von Dombrowski – after 100 years at the „Grigore Antipa” Museum

Summary/Abstract: For 21 years, from August 1895 and until the beginningof August 1916, Robert Ritter von Dombrowski had worked and cre‑ated at the Zoology Museum from Bucharest. Dombrowski had beenemployed by Grigore Antipa as a preparator, with excellent work‑ing conditions and mainly numerous facilitations for collecting andfield observations. He is known in the scientific world through hisornithological works and through his remarkable contributions inthis field. In his monumental monography, „Ornis Romaniae”, 47families, 347 bird species and subspecies from Romania are pre‑sented. This is the first study in which the systematics, biology andzoogeography of the bird species from Romania known at begin‑ning of the XXth century. This work comprises detailed descriptions,based on an ample matherial collected or borroughed by the authorfrom other ornithologists from Europe. More than 1000 skins anda few hundred naturalized birds collected, identified and donatedby Robert Ritter von Dombrowski are deposited in the museum’scollections. All species from these collections are from Romania.Dombrowski’s life in Romania had known harder periods. Duringhis life and also afterwards, he was accused that he was more ofa merchant than an ornithologist. Through this study we haveproposed, based on recently found documents extracted from thenewspapers of that time and from the archive of „Grigore Antipa”Museum, to bring a moral restoration of the memory of this dis‑tinguished scientist, to whom „Grigore Antipa” Museum remainedclose to his heart, even in the most difficult moments in life.

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