Press release on the ownership of Mendel’s manuscript from 1865

On 2^nd June 2010, the ČTK (Czech news agency) released information about a disagreement relating to Mendel’s manuscript “Experiments in plant hybridisation” from 1865, a fundamental genetic work written in German.

Gregor Johann Mendel was born in 1822 in Hynčice (in Silesia, now the Czech Republic). He came to the Augustinian monastery in Old Brno in 1843, where he became a member of the order and in 1868 also the Abbot. He conducted his scientific experiments there, wrote his works there and also died there in 1884. Mendel, as a monk, did not have any lineal descendants and that is why the information from the journal Právo (3rd June 2010 p. 12) about Mendel’s great-great-granddaughter is wrong. One of the principles of Augustinian life in the order is that everything that is created by a member of the order belongs to the community of the monastery in which he lives. It is the Abbey in Brno in Mendel’s case. The Augustinians in Germany know about the fact that the possessions of monks belong to the monastery, that is why P. C. Richter’s claims are not understandable.

Mendel’s legacy is in the ownership of the Abbey in Old Brno. Its part is displayed in the Mendel exhibition in the Mendel Museum of Masaryk University, which is taking place in the Augustinian Abbey in Old Brno. The Abbey considers itself as the owner of the manuscript. After the Communist Party confiscated the Abbey in 1950 (without a formal abolishment of the Augustinian Abbey), the manuscript was held by Augustinian monks. Only in 1987 was the manuscript lent to the safekeeping of the Augustinians in Germany, who are subordinated to the Augustinian vicariate in Vienna.

After the downfall of communism the Abbey in Brno was restored and started to gain back its taken away cultural heritage. The Abbey found out that Mendel’s manuscript was held by German monks, and asked for its return for the reason of displaying it in Mendel Museum. The information that the manuscript is claimed by the Augustinian vicariate in Vienna or the Czech Republic is not true, both can only mediate in the returning of the manuscript to the owner, which is the Abbey in Brno. However, on 10^th May 2010, the Baden-Württemberg’s Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts banned the return of the manuscript to Moravia (the Czech Republic). It gave the reason that it was their cultural heritage. We refuse to acknowledge this procedure of Baden-Württemberg’s Offices and we demand the return of this memorable manuscript to the owner – the Augustinian Abbey in Old Brno, the place from which it originates.

3rd June 2010 in Brno, Czech Republic

ThDr. Ing. Lukáš Evžen Martinec, OSA
The Abbot of Old Brno