Georg von Charasoff 9
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Berlin, but then travelled to Zurich again, this time in the company of Senna Hoy.
From Zurich he moved on to Ascona, where he stayed in the Monte verità
community, the bohemian commune and artists’ colony that had been founded by
the brothers Karl and Gustav Gräser. Around the turn of the century, the Monte
verità (Mountain of truth) was a well-known meeting place for anarchists and
freethinkers, but also for the artistic and intellectual élite (amongst others, men like
Hermann Hesse, Ernst Bloch, C.G. Jung, James Joyce, Rainer Maria Rilke and Paul
Klee visited the Monte verità). Buek returned to the Monte verità again in the
spring and summer of 1906, first for a few weeks (in April) and then again for a full
two months (in May and June). At this time there was an international meeting of
anarchists and freethinkers on the Monte verità, which was meant to explore ‘the
possibilities for the foundation of a higher school for the liberation of mankind’. In
June and July 1907 Buek returned to Switzerland again and spent a few weeks in a
cure resort at Schloss Marbach am Untersee, together with Georg von Charasoff.
From his student days in Heidelberg Buek entertained a lifelong friendship with
Nicolai, who later taught at the Charité in Berlin. In October 1914 Buek was one of
the three signees, together with Albert Einstein and the astronomer Friedrich
Wilhelm Förster, of Nicolai’s anti-war pamphlet ‘Aufruf an die Europäer’ (Call to
the Europeans), which was an antipode to the pamphlet ‘An die Kulturwelt!’ (To
the cultured world!). The latter pamphlet, which the German government used to
justify the military invasion of neutral Belgium, was signed by more than two-
hundred natural and social scientists from the German Reich. Nicolai’s counter-
pamphlet was signed by only four men: Nicolai, Buek, Förster and Einstein. Its
publication was prohibited by the authorities in the German Reich. (It was only
published in 1917 in Switzerland, as an introduction to Nicolai’s anti-war book
Biologie des Krieges.) Of particular interest in the present context is Otto Buek’s
friendship with Albert Einstein, which is well-documented for the period from 1914
to 1931, when both lived in Berlin. The philosopher Don Howard, who has worked
extensively on Einstein’s philosophy of science, stated:
Paul Natorp was the first major neo-Kantian to publish his thoughts on
relativity, these concerning special relativity, in his influential
Die logischen
Grundlagen der exakten Wissenschaften (1910). … We have no direct
evidence of Einstein’s having read Natorp, and certainly no record of his
reaction to Natorp. He is likely to have been familiar with Natorp’s views on
relativity, though, if only through the intermediary of Otto Buek, one of the
favorite students of Natorp and Cohen, who struck up something of a
friendship with Einstein during the latter’s first couple of years in Berlin,
1914–1915. … Discussions with Buek may have awakened Einstein’s interest
in thinking about Kant and relativity. (Howard 1994: 50)
According to Howard, Buek and Einstein met regularly in 1914 and 1915, often in
Nicolai’s house, in order to discuss philosophical issues and to play music
together:
12
‘By late 1914 he [Buek] had developed a fairly close and regular
relationship with Einstein, who had moved to Berlin … in April of that year’
(Howard 1993: 191).
13
In the early 1920s Buek was also involved, together with
Nicolai and Professor Otto Fanta from Prague, in the making of the first science
film, which was shown under the title ‘Die Grundlagen der Einsteinschen
Relativitätstheorie’ (The foundations of Einstein’s relativity theory) (see Goenner
2005: 160-1) Although Einstein distanced himself from this film, his friendship
with Buek remained intact. After his return from a lecture series in Argentina in
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1923, Einstein discussed his travel impressions with Buek and they also met in
various scientific societies in order to discuss possible philosophical interpretations
of quantum mechanics (Goenner 2005: 161-2).
In a short ‘Tableau chronologique sur ma vie’, which he composed in 1963 at
the age of 90, Buek noted: ‘1931-33: Avènement de Hitler, Einstein et moi passons
le même an 1933 à l’étranger, moi – en France, lui en Amérique’ (1931-33: Rise of
Hitler, Einstein and I move abroad in the same year 1933, I – to France, he – to
America) (Nachlass Szittya, DLA Marbach). But while Einstein’s fame rose to new
heights with his move to Princeton, Buek’s forced move into French exile led to
loneliness and material deprivation. In 1953, when Buek was seriously in need of
help, his friend Emil Szittya, an artist and writer, wrote to Einstein for financial
support, who was immediately willing to help: ‘I remember Mr Buek very well
from the time of the First World War. He is a fine character and a reliable man with
a social conscience.’
14
5
Charasoff’s Stay in Zurich as a Private Scholar, 1902–1909
It is unclear where Charasoff spent the next six months after he had obtained his
doctorate in Heidelberg in February 1902 and before he moved to Zurich, where he
was registered from 24 October 1902 onwards (Meldekarte ‘Charasoff’, Stadtarchiv
Zürich). In the interim period he married his first wife, Marie Seldovic, who came
from a Jewish family in Odessa. The date and place of their marriage could not be
ascertained, but their son Andreas Arthenius (‘Arthur’) was born in Zurich on
5 November 1902. In the following year, their daughter Barbara Lydia Helene
(‘Lily’) was also born in Zurich, on 11 December 1903. A further member of the
Charasoff family was Alexander (‘Alex’) von Charasoff, who was born on
17 March 1900 in Strasbourg. According to the birth entry in the municipal archive
in Strasbourg, Alexander was the illegitimate child of Anna Magdalena Seldovic
(in some documents: Anna Hanela Seldowitsch or Zeltowitsch) from Odessa, who
was born on 31 July 1878 in Beresino, Russia. The child was subsequently
‘legitimised’ by Anna Seldovic’s marriage with Ladislaus von Studnicki-Gisbert,
on 22 September 1900, in Zurich. It is unclear how Alexander came into Georg
Charasoff’s family. One possibility is that he was adopted by Anna Seldovic’s
sister Marie and her husband, Georg von Charasoff. Another possibility, which also
cannot be excluded, is that Alexander’s mother, ‘Anna’, and Charasoff’s wife
‘Marie’ Seldovic are one and the same person.
At the time of his marriage, in September 1900, Ladislaus von Studnicki-
Gisbert was a law student of Polish descent at the University of Zurich. Ten years
before, as a law student in Warsaw, he had been ostracised to Siberia for socialist
propaganda, where he stayed from 1890 to 1896. In 1899–1900 he was enrolled at
the
Law
Faculty
of
the
University
of
Heidelberg
(Matrikeleintrag,
Universitätsarchiv Heidelberg); thereafter he continued his studies at the University
of Zurich, where he was officially enrolled from the summer term 1900 to the end
of the summer term 1901 (Matrikeledition der Universität Zürich). However, in
spring 1901 he appears to have returned to Warsaw without de-registering at the
University of Zurich. Anna Magdalena Studnicki-Gisbert, neé Seldovic, was
enrolled as a student of mathematics at the University of Zurich in the winter term
1900-01 (Matrikeledition der Universität Zürich). According to the matriculation
documents in Zurich, she had previously studied mathematics at the Universities of
Bonn and Heidelberg as a so-called ‘Hospitantin’, which means that she was
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