20.12.2022

The Vienna School of Ethnology and the Vatican, 1923-1945: selected chapters (in Russian language)

Peter Rohrbacher


Peter Rohrbacher

The Vienna School of Ethnology and the Vatican, 1923-1945: selected chapters (in Russian language)

Антропологии/Anthropologies 2, 2022, 42–86 (Histories of Anthropologies in Europe and Beyond)

ABSTRACT
This study deals with the question of what position the main representatives of the Vienna School of Ethnology held in the Vatican. On the basis of source material from Vatican archives, the networks are shown in which areas and to what extent Father Wilhelm Schmidt and his circle exerted influence on the Roman Curia. Selected chapters deal with the Vatican Mission Exhibition of 1925, which gave rise to the Pontifico Museo Missionario-Etnologico in the Lateran Palace. Pius XI and Schmidt are identified as early exponents of “urgent anthropology.” Of central importance is the question of whether Schmidt actually initiated action against Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis in the Holy Office. Furthermore, Schmidt's typescript “Oldest Mankind” (Älteste Menschheit), discovered in 2013, is contextualized, shedding new light on the genesis of the planned encyclical against racism. The final section discusses a notebook from the archives of the Steyl Missionary Order in Rome. It proves that at the end of World War II, Schmidt, with the help of the Vatican, covertly supported a resistance group fighting for Austrian independence during his time in exile in Switzerland.

https://anthropologies.ru/anthropologies/article/view/989/1182