The article deals with cultural and scientific representations of giant salamanders, mainly in the Czech lands. As an important scientific object, an even more important cultural image, and a powerful and ancient symbol, the giant salamander (or, Salamander, Andrias) is firmly bound – as a fossil, live animal and literary figure – to the Czech lands and to the Faculty of Science of Charles University in Prague in particular. Three different lines form the article. Despite their heterogeneity, they form a unity. First, the authors examine the story of Andrias scheuzeri or homo diluvii testis in the history of paleontology, which ends with the discovery of a fossil Andrias bohemicus, the Czech giant salamander. Second, they show how the story of the “Czech salamander” continues on the pages of Karel Čapek’s War with the Newts. The authors examine the sources that might have inspired Čapek to create his anti-utopian world occupied by myriads of amorphous, nearly omnipotent, inhuman giant newts (genus Andrias). Third, the authors determine the role of these animals in private menageries, museum collections, zoos, and university laboratories. The Salamander is the bearer of a special ambivalent sort of symbolism being a creature of both revolution and evolution (biological and social), change and stability, human and nonhuman. As ambiguous as Czech history in the 20th century, the giant salamander, a somewhat surprising “heraldic animal” and a creature of tradition, lives on as a semi-mythical figure on the Faculty of Science of Charles University.
history of biology; cultural history; Andrias scheuchzeri; Andrias bohemicus; Karel Čapek; animals as symbols
ISSN 0300-4414 (print)
ISSN 2788-3485 (online)
founded 1968
Published by Society for the History of Sciences and Technology http://www.sdvt.cz
Pavel Mervart Publishing http://www.pavelmervart.cz/
