BUQUOY, Georg von

After the Battle of White Mountain, the French aristocratic family B. de Longueval confiscated estates in Czech lands. Hence, B. grew up in Czech lands with his uncle, Jan, until he was thirteen. B. received his education at the Theresianum in Vienna between 1799 and 1803. Afterwards, in 1804/05, B. set off on a voyage across Italy, France, and Switzerland. In 1806, he married Gabriela von Rottenhahn (1784-1863) and became interested in natural science, mathematics, economy, legal issues, literature, and poetry. In addition, B. set up his own laboratory. With the wealth he received from his uncle, B. was able to publish his own works, and support Lorenz Oken's newspaper Isis, which came out between 1799 and 1815 and in which B. published numerous works.
Between 1811 and 1815, he was engaged mostly in issues of applied mechanics. He succeeded in formulating the problems of the dynamics of variable mass systems for the first time, to which he arrived with appropriate differential calculations. In 1812 and 1814, he issued two books on this subject and presented his findings on 28th August 1815 at the Paris Academy, which he visited upon the return of the Bourbons after Napoleon's defeat. On this occasion, he tried to present the views of Franz Josef→Gerstner (1756-1832), the leading figure of the Prague Polytechnic, to French scientists.
Between 1810 and 1818, B. was also engaged in the theory and practice of steam machines, and promoted their circulation in the Hapsburg Monarchy. After constructing his first steam machine at the Prague Polytechnic Institute (1806), B. worked on a new machine in 1810, in which he introduced new component parts and that could attain 17 HP (12.5 KW).
Furthermore, B. was also engaged in the refraction in the air layer closest to earth, modified the design of the barometer, and strove for a mathematically based interpretation of the theory of heat. He was also interested in the spread of light, and physical and chemical reactions, without taking into account the suppositions on the existence of a hypothetical carrier (phlogiston, ether) of that time. The technical improvements he introduced at his estate, led to an increase in work productivity. In relation to this, B. later on also became involved in political economy, deriving from the works of Adam Smith (1723-1790). B. propagated the use of mathematical methods and attributed a great role to the state. In 1840, he issued the utopian treatise Erste Blätter aus den Reden über den idealen Staat (The First Pages of Speeches on an Ideal State), and during the revolution in 1848, his idea of a constitutional monarchy. Usually, these works were equalled to that of Walt Whitman (1819-1892) and Arno Holz (1863-1929).
B. was one of the first to suggest the construction of a Museum of the Czech Kingdom, and was a member of its management board between 1820-1835. In the 1840s, he promoted the creation of the first European nature reserves in Černa, in the southern part of Czech forests.