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August von Jilek

Austro-Hungarian Navy Admiral and physician (1819-1898)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 3, 2026
Entity authorityQ4820863
Source-derived summary

August von Jilek (28 August 1819 – 8 November 1898), otherwise August Jilek or Jileck, was a naval doctor, lecturer, administrator and aristocrat (knight) from Austrian Empire.

Early life and education

He was born at Litomyšl in Bohemia, Austrian Empire (now in the Czech Republic). He studied medicine at Vienna and after qualifying as a doctor he joined the Austrian Imperial-Royal Navy on 23 October 1845.

Naval career

Nothing is known about Jilek's early years in the navy. He first came to prominence when he was chosen to fill the post of personal physician to the Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian (1832–1867). The occasion may have been Maximilian’s entry into the navy and service aboard SMS Novara in 1851.

In October 1852, Jilek was appointed senior doctor at the newly renamed Imperial and Royal Naval Academy (former Cadet College) at Trieste and Pola in Istria, now in Croatia, where he also lectured on oceanography. In March 1856 the Archduke Maximilian, by then Commander in Chief of the Navy, laid the foundation stones for a new Arsenal and a new Academy building at Fiume, and in July 1857 Jilek completed the textbook on oceanography for Academy students, for which he is best known today.

Jilek was not an original scientist in this field. He was probably commissioned by the Archduke to prepare a survey of the newly emerging science and that is what, within his limitations, he achieved.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “August von Jilek” is austro-Hungarian Navy Admiral and physician (1819-1898). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through August, Jilek and Austro-Hungarian, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1819, 1898, 1845, 1832—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1819-08-28. For this dossier, August, Jilek and Austro-Hungarian is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “austro-Hungarian Navy Admiral and physician (1819-1898)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4820863. VIAF identifies the subject as 84829081. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1819, 1898, 1845 and 1832.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from August von Jilek” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.