Ignotas Domeika: a Scientist in Chile

A Worldwide Lithuania: Our Migration Story / compiled by Giedrė Milerytė-Japertienė. Vilnius: Lietuvos nacionalinis muziejus, 2023

Take a good look at the names of these different objects: Cordillera Domeyko, a ridge in the Andean highlands; the mineral Domeykite; the town of Pueblo Domeyko; the harbour of Puerto de Domeyko; the fossils Nautilus Domeykus and Ammonites Domeykanus; the Andean fox Canis Domeykanu; the flower Viola Domeykiana; and the dinosaur Domeykodactylus. What do they all have in common? It’s not hard to notice that the names of all of these things contain a reference to their discoverer, the scientist Ignotas Domeika. The memory of this Vilnius University alumnus is commemorated by over one hundred different objects, even a meteorite and a glacier!

Ignotas Domeika, born in 1802 in Nesvizh in present-day Belarus, was a patriot and could never have imagined that he would spend the greater part of his life in faraway Chile, studying its nature and contributing to the creation of the country’s education system. What drove him to travel there?

It all began while he was studying at Vilnius University, which at the time was the oldest and largest academic institution in the entire Russian Empire. There, Domeika enrolled in the Philomath Society and, alongside Adam Mickiewicz and other students, he helped foster ideas of independence from the Russian Empire. Domeika was interrogated and imprisoned for his participation in the society’s work. Not surprisingly, the ideals of freedom also drove Domeika to take part in the uprising of 1831. After the rebellion’s suppression, he was forced to flee his homeland and, like Mickiewicz, seek refuge in France. While studying mining there and seeking to somehow still contribute to his homeland’s well-being, Domeika drafted a set of geological and geographic maps of Central Europe (including Poland and Lithuania). He completed his studies in mining in 1837 with commendations.

In an effort to improve the local mining industry, the Chilean government invited Ignotas Domeika to teach chemistry, geology, and mineralogy at the Men’s Lyceum in La Serena. Only planning to stay for a short while, always hoping to return to his homeland, and referring to himself as an “exile” in his memoirs, Domeika lived and worked in the Andean country until his death in 1889.