J. M. González

102

ANARTIA

Publicación del Museo de Biología de la Universidad del Zulia

ISSN 1315-642X (impresa) / ISSN 2665-0347 (digital)

Anartia, 34 (junio 2022): 102-105

Isrun Engelhardt (1941-2022). In Memoriam

Jorge M. González

Austin Achieve Public Schools, Austin, Texas

(Research Associate, McGuire Center for Lepidoptera & Biodiversity), USA.

Correspondence: gonzalez.jorge.m@gmail.com

(Received: 12-06-2022 / Accepted: 30-06-2022 / Online: 30-09-2022)

It was around 2009 when I met Isrun. I was research-

ing about Ernst Schäfer’s times in Venezuela, when I was

suggested to contact her. Isrun (Fig. 1) was a worldwide

recognized Tibetan historian, who had thoroughly re-

searched the 1938-1939 Schäfer-Tibet expedition prob-

ing that contrary to myth and misinterpretations, it was

truly a scientic endeavor, “in intention and execution”

(Anonymous 2022). I discussed with her all the informa-

tion I had already gathered from my investigation sources

and she, without hesitation, shared articles and informa-

tion she had obtained on the bright and complex explorer

and naturalist.

Isrun Engelhardt (née Schwartz) was born in Septem-

ber 30, 1941, in the occupied German village of Arnsdorf

(now Milków, Poland). e family had moved there hop-

ing to be safe from the war. is was partially fullled un-

Figure 1. Isrun (on the right) arguing a point with Enzo Gualtiero Bargiacchi at the 2017 conference on Ippolito Desideri (1684-1733)

in Pistoia, Italy. Photo: John Bray.

Isrun Engelhardt (1941-2022). In Memoriam

103

til the area ended up controlled by the Russians at the end

of WWII. By 1953, the family was able to move to Icking,

near Munich, aer Isrun’s father was oered a position at

the Institute of Contemporary History. Isrun would spend

the rest of her life in Icking. She would marry Hans Diet-

rich Engelhardt, who became Professor of Sociology and

Social Work at the Munich University of Applied Scienc-

es. By 1974, she obtained a doctoral degree from the Lud-

wig Maximilian University, Munich, aer her research on

the politics of Byzantine Christian missionaries during the

6th Century (Anonymous 2022, Horleman & Bray 2022).

Aer graduation she would work as careers advisor for

high school and university students, but once her son Em-

manuel was born, in 1979, she would join the sta of a

children’s library. Later, she will seek training as a Profes-

sional Librarian.

Isrun and her husband, enthusiastic mountaineers, went

on a trekking trip to Nepal in 1973. Impressed with the

friendliness and religious devotion of their porters “hired

from a Tibetan refugee camp near Pokhara”, they decided

to visit other regions bordering Tibet and inuenced by

Tibetan Buddhism (Anonymous 2022). ese trips and

encounters led her to study Tibetan at the Friedriech-Wil-

helms-University in Bonn. She also decided to resume her

academic endeavors and started several research projects

(Anonymous 2022, Horlemann & Bray 2022). She then

carried out her research based at the Institute for Cen-

tral Asian Studies at the University of Bonn, focusing on

Tibetan-European encounters and relations. Her research

has been widely recognized by the scientic community

for its insightfulness and quality (Blondeau et al. 2008).

She received a research grant from the Gerda Henkel

Foundation to investigate all things related to the 1938-

1939 German Expedition led by the zoologist, ornitholo-

gist, ethnologist, and naturalist Ernst Schäfer (1910-1992)

(Fig. 2). She was able to study numerous primary sources

including his diary, recordings of his interrogations, les

from the Ahnenerbe, Tibetan and British documents,

condential reports and ocial letters (Engelhard 2003).

A very interesting and brilliant scientist, Schäfer and his

third expedition to Tibet, would be unfortunately caught

between politics and science. e expedition “was not

sponsored by the SS or the Ahnenerbe,” but entirely fund-

ed by Schäfer, his family, and his friends and colleagues

Figure 2. Members of the Schäfer-Tibet Expedition 1938-1939 in Gayokang, Sikkim, sitting with the minister of aring (le). Ernst

Schäfer, mammalogist and ornithologist (le, besides the minister), Bruno Beger, anthropologist (center, back), Ernst Krause, photo-

grapher, entomologist (center, front), Kaiser Bahadur apa, interpreter (standing behind Beger), Karl Wienert, geophysicist (second

from right), Edmund Geer, logistics and transport manager (right). Photo: Ernst Schäfer/Bundesharchiv.

J. M. González

104

(including scientists from USA and England) [only the

last leg from Calcutta to Germany was done in Hein-

rich Himmler’s (1900-1945) plane] (Engelhardt 2003,

González 2010, 2011). Himmler and the Ahnenerbe

provided only political support (Engelhardt 2003, 2004).

Isrun would prove that Schafer’s intentions with his mul-

tidisciplinary approach to the expedition was to create “a

complete biological record of Tibet”, interrelating “natu-

ral sciences with aspects of the humanities” (Engelhardt

2004). Schafer’s intentions were entirely scientic and not

political, esoteric, or occult, as frequently stated by mis-

informed authors (Rogers 2000, Engelhardt 2003, 2004,

González 2010). Not only that but as the assigned director

of the Center for Asian Research and Expeditions, Schäfer

would praise, respect, and unconditionally help academics

(even if they dissented the regime), as well as religious pris-

oners assigned to his research facilities (Heinrich 2007,

Zettler de Vareschi 2011).

Isrun would be frequently asked to talk on issues sur-

rounding Schäfer and his 1938-1939 Tibet expedition. By

2012, Elmar Buchner and colleagues published an article

speculating that they “discovered an ancient Buddhist

statue of extraterrestrial origin… taken by [the Schäfer

expedition] in [the] 1930s” (Buchner et al. 2012). Isrun

convincingly separating fact from ction, argued that such

gure was not brought by Schäfer and his team, but it was

designed and made for the Russian painter, writer, archae-

ologist, theosophist, and eccentric philosopher, Nikolai

Konstantinovich Rerikh (or Roerich) (1874-1947) (Bayer

2012, Engelhardt 2017, Holerman & Bray 2022).

Besides her research on Schafer’s expedition, she was

also engaged in studying the history of the Tibet Mirror

(Melong), a monthly newspaper, and his publisher, Gegen

Dorje archin (1890-1976), a prominent Tibetan public

gure and political activist, who advocated for the mod-

ernization of Tibet and its independence from the Chi-

nese communist regime of Mao Tse-tung (1893-1976).

She kept contact with friends, acquaintances and re-

searchers, always encouraging and supportive. She le us

on March 2, 2022.

She will be sorely missed but remembered for her well

researched and highly insightful academic work, as well as

her warmth, generosity and integrity.

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ISRUN ENGELHARDT’S PUBLICATIONS

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vorwiegend im 18. Jahrhundert. pp. 85−102. In: Kollmar-

Paulenz, K. & P. Christian (eds.). Tractata Tibetica et Mongo-

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Engelhardt, I. 2005. Between tolerance and dogmatism: Tibet-

an reactions to the Capuchin missionaries in Lhasa, 1707-

1745. Zentralasiatische Studien 34: 55−97.

Engelhardt, I. 2005. Ernst Schäfer, Zoologe. pp. 503−504. In:

Historische Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der

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ravens, H. (ed.). e rst Tibetan serial: August Hermann

Francke’s La-dvags-kyi-ag-bâr (1904 – 1907): Facsimile of a

unique set in the Archives of the Evangelische Brüderunität,

Herrnhut. Neuerwerbungen der Ostasienabteilung. Sonderhe

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183−209. In: Vitali, R., Studies on the history and literature

of Tibet and the Himalaya. Kathmandu: Vajra Publications.

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nation for Sven Hedin and Ernst Schäfer. pp. 207−224. In:

Junginger, H. & A. Åkerlund (eds.). Nordic ideology between

religion and scholarship. Frankfurt/M: Peter Lang.

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and philological studies of China’s western regions 6. Beijing:

Science Press.

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ers in Lhasa, 1707-1945. pp. 195−210. In: Ramble, C. & U.

Roesler (eds.). Tibetan and Himalayan healing. An anthology

for Anthony Aris. Kathmandu: Vajra Books.

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liens entre le Tibet et le National-socialisme. Saint-Genis-La-

val: Akbrieia, 120 pp.

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Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines 42: 39−67. http://himalaya.so-

canth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/ret/pdf/ret_42_02.pdf

Engelhardt, I. 2018. e Quip as the Whip: Political cartoons in

the Melong. pp. 41−57. In: Wang-Toutain, F. & M. Preziosi.

Cahiers du Mirror. Paris: Collège de France.

Engelhardt, I. 2019. Lévolution de limage du Tibet dans la

pensée et les écrits de Nicolas Roerich: dune spiritualité

exaltée à un chamanisme dépravé. pp. 201−238. In: Savelli,

D. Autour de Nicolas Roerich : art, ésotérisme, orientalisme

et politique, Slavica Occitania, 48. Retrieved from: https://

revues.univ-tlse2.fr/slavicaoccitania/index.php?id=2181&-

le=1

Engelhardt, I. 2020. An indigenous Tibetan name for Mount

Everest? pp. 245−264. In: Bischo, J., P. Maurer & C. Ram-

ble (eds.). On a day of a month of the Fire Bird Year. Festschri

for Peter Schwieger on the occasion of his 65 birthday. Bhaira-

hawa: Lumbini International Research Institute.