Béla Jenő Cholnoky

Béla Jenő Cholnoky (27 June 1899 – 5 February 1972) was a Hungarian hydrobiologist, botanist and phycologist (algologist) best known for his research on diatoms (microscopic algae with silica cell walls), particularly in southern Africa. After moving to South Africa in the early 1950s, he became a leading figure in regional diatom studies and was described by colleagues as a major authority on freshwater diatom ecology and taxonomy.

Early life and education

Cholnoky was born in Budapest and spent part of his school years in Kolozsvár (now Cluj-Napoca). He studied biology at the Franz Joseph University in Kolozsvár (later relocated to Szeged) and later at the University of Szeged, focusing on the biological sciences, and completed doctoral work with high academic distinction (summa cum laude). According to an obituary by the South African diatomist R. E. M. Archibald, Cholnoky later continued postgraduate study in Berlin (1924–1925) under E. Bauer and R. Kolkwitz and earned an additional doctorate, again with the highest honours.

Cholnoky was the son of the Hungarian geographer Jenő Cholnoky (1870–1950).

Career

Early posts and work outside academia

While still a student, Cholnoky worked at the botanical institute of the Franz Joseph University, beginning a career that combined laboratory work with field-based freshwater research. Cholnoky resigned from his early academic post in the mid-1920s for political reasons.

For much of the interwar period he was employed in the seed trade, first in Hungary and later in the Netherlands with the firm N. V. Sluis en Groot. During these years he maintained an intense private research programme on diatoms, assembling his own laboratory facilities and building a specialist library.