Jan Vážný 1891 - 1942

Born 1.1.1891 in Praha
Died 18.4.1942 in Mauthausen

Biography

Jan Vážný attended the grammar school in Truhlářská Street in Prague, gaining his school leaving certificate in 1909 with distinction. From 1909 to 1913 he studied law at the Charles University in Prague, where he graduated on 12 December 1914 with the title Dr. jur. On 7 May 1919 Jan Vážný was appointed judge for the Supreme Court district in Prague. He spent the years 1919 and 1920 on a study visit at the University of Rome and 1922 at the University of Palermo. He completed his habilitation as early as December 1920 with the thesis Actiones poenales (On the change of the concept and structure of private criminal complaints over the course of history). From 1919 to 1920 he also briefly worked as a teacher at the Faculty of Law at the Charles University and on 20 May 1921 he was appointed senior lecturer in Roman law at the Komenský University in Bratislava. In 1927 he moved, as a tenured professor in this subject (having been appointed on 23 December of that year), to the Masaryk University in Brno and headed the Department of Roman Law there. In the 1932/33 academic year he held the position of dean of the Faculty of Law.

Professor Vážný wrote a series of specialist papers. The most important was his two-part study Římské právo obligační (Roman law of obligations), which was published in Bratislava in 1924 and 1927. He also dealt with this field after moving to Brno in the paper Naturali obligatio (1929), which won him international recognition. During the 1930s Vážný worked on Roman legal ideas in the Civil Code and in particular with Roman civil proceedings. Thanks to the aid of Prof. Hynek Bulíns (1869–1950), Važný’s work Soustava práva římského (The system of Roman law) was published posthumously. This went on to become a highly-regarded textbook in universities. He was also a member of the National Research Council, the Šafařík Scholars Society, the Moravian Lawyers Association and the Institutio di Studi Legislativi in Rome.

On 10 June 1918 Jan Vážný married Pavla, née Bulínová. On 8 January 1926 the couple had a son, Jan.

After the occupation of the Bohemian lands by National Socialist Germany and the establishment of the ‘Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia’, he joined the illegal movement of university lecturers of the Masaryk University. On 23 December 1941 he was arrested by the Gestapo and held in a cell in the police prison in the Kounice hall of residence. On 4 February 1942 the National Socialists transported him from Brno to Mauthausen, where he died on 18 April of the same year of the inhuman torture he had sustained. Today a street in the Brno district of Řečkovice bears his name.

Vladimír Černý

 

Sources:

Archiv Masarykovy univerzity, Brno, fonds A1 Rector of the Masaryk University, box 231/4313, personal files of Jan Vážný.

References:

František X. Halas: Nacistická perzekuce na brněnské univerzitě v letech 1939–1945 [Nazi persecution at the University of Brno 1939–1945]. In: Sborník prací Filozofické fakulty brněnské univerzity. C, Řada historická, vols. 27-28 (1978–1979), no. C 25–26, pp. 41–70.

 

Marta Kadlecová/Michaela Židlická/Karel Schelle: Život a dílo prof. JUDr. Jana Vážného [Life and work of Prof. Dr. jur. Jan Vážný] (Brno 1993).

Translation into English: Joanna White

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