Acta Musealia

Emil Holub is one of the most prominent, as well as best known Czech globetrotters. He was born on 7th October 1847 in Holice in Bohemia in the family of the local doctor. He followed in his father' footsteps and, having finished the Secondary Grammar School, he graduated from the Medical School. The knowledge and skills he had gained there helped him during his stays in Africa. While still studying, he engaged in archaeological collections in Bohemia. In 1872, several months after he had finished the Medical School, having been inspired by the example of David Livingstone, he travelled to South Africa in a spirit of Czech and Austrian patriotism, and in an attempt to gain for his mother land ethnographic and natural science African collections. He undertook two journeys to South Africa during his life (1872 - 1879 and 1883 - 1887). He longed to discover parts of the country unknown to Europeans, which he, at least partially, managed to do during his second journey, when, from the so far undiscovered area, he researched a small part of what is today known as Zambia. Instead of discovering Africa, he became a documentalist of life in the visited territories from ethnographic, zoological, botanical, geological and cartographic point of view. During his journeys he collected tens of thousands of natural materials and ethnographic objects, which he introduced to the public in several big exhibitions, mainly in Prague and Vienna. These exhibitions were not financially successful and ended up in deficit. He gave hundreds of lectures about his visits to Africa and aspects thereof, which also meant a considerable source of income. Apart from giving the talks and lectures, he also wrote many texts based on his expeditions to Africa, both popular and professional. Exceptional among these are his travel books mapping the first as well as the second expeditions to Africa. His plans to found a Museum of South Africa exhibiting his own collections were cancelled and so he donated the collections on the one hand to distinguished Museums and Universities both in Europe and the USA but on the other hand also to small towns, schools and societies in places where he lectured. In the course of series of his lectures in 1890, Emil Holub gave two lectures on the second of his expedition to Africa on 27.4.1890 also in Kroměříž. Unknowingly, the globetrotter became a part of the local political clash of opinion trends in the National Party in Moravia. As far as his talk was concerned, the clash was resolved in a compromise supporting the idea. Emil Holub sent in summer 1895, as he always did, to the places where he had lectured, 3 crates of his African collections addressed to the Municipal Council in Kroměříž. The collections were given to the local Czech Grammar School. It took a long time for the inhabitants of Kroměříž to thank him for this gift. At that time his health took turn for worse, many of his ailments stemmed from his travels in Africa. He died, devastated by illnesses and after months of financial hardship, in Vienna on 21st February 1902.

Keywords: traveller Emil Holub, Kroměříž, lecture, donations, African natural collections