(Dr. B. Susnik with the current
Director of the Museum, Lic. Adelina Pusineri)
April of 1996, 28 Branislava Susnik, left for not returning, chose this distant earth of Paraguay to rest because it was "the country where she found peace and stillness", according to her words in the last report granted to Miguel Chase Sardi (the Cat) before her last internment.(Extracted of the words pronounced by the current Director of the Ethnographical Museum "Andrés Barbero" in occasion of the ceremony of homage to Dr. Branislava Susnik, Asunción year 2000)She was born in Medvode, Eslovenia, today an independent nation of the ex-Yugoslavia, March 28, 1920 and with her young 27 year-old age, she already arrived in the Port of Buenos Aires with those emigrated after the Second World War with a group of free Eslovenian people.
She followed her superior studies in Europe, obtaining the Doctorate in Prehistory and History in the Philosophy University of Ljublijana and several post-graduate studies: University of Vienna, Austria: Doctorate in Etnohistory and uralo-Baltic Linguistics; University of Rome: laureated in sumerian - Babylonian history and archaeology and post-graduate studies of Cultures and Languages of Asia and Baltic and other languages, etc.
She began her works of field investigation in The Laishi Misión of The Tobas of Formosa, Argentina, writing her first linguistic work in America.
She arrived in the Paraguay at the end of 1951, called by Dr. Andrés Barbero to continue the museum works begun by the ethnologist German Dr. Max Schmidt, who had died, and soon after the own Barbero would continue him, being this way in certain abandonment the Museum and the Library. The sisters Josefa and María Barbero, following the wish of the Dr. Barbero, commended her the reorganization and recovery of the collections and library. She began his field works in 1954 with the Maká and then among the Chulupi, publishing her first linguistic works in Paraguay.
The multiple study trips of Dr. Susnik among almost all the ethnoses survivors from the Paraguay increased the collections of the Museum and the publications, since almost all their investigations were in important materials, books that embraced the linguistic matters, etnohistory, material culture, etc. of the aborigines of the Paraguay and America and the social anthropology of the Paraguay, ending up adding seventy seven works written, mainly books and articles, being some unpublished works, those were published posthumously.
Dr. Susnik organized and dictated courses, seminars and conferences about introduction to the anthropology, social anthropology of the Paraguay and other topics.
She belonged to important centers and investigation institutes like the Suisse Societé des Americanistes of Geneva and The Paraguayan Academy of The History, among others.
The libraries of Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Tarija, Sucre, Santa Cruz de la Sierra and Cochabamba, besides Asunción's National Archive and the own library of the Museum Etnográfico "Andrés Barbero", they were the great investigation source for their extensive works, bringing by the light of the historical - anthropological science so many dark data, specially the related to the conquest and the indigenous-hispanic contact, deepening in the knowledge of the natives from the Paraguay and America, as from the past as the present, writing the etnohistory of the Guarani and chaqueños, these so unknown until then.
The National Government recognized her silent and solitary work and her contribution to the Paraguayan culture rewarding her with the First National Prize of Sciences in the year 1992, instituted by the National Congress to be granted every year to the best scientific - cultural work.
Posthumously, May of 1996, 14 but after her departure, she was honored with the National Order to the Merit in Great Official's Degree", on behalf of the Etnographical Museum "Andrés Barbero" who was the Beneficiary of the distinction; it was received for the President of The Foundation, Dr. Juan Adolfo Cattoni.
The Ethnographical Museum "Andrés Barbero" had the great honor of having her as its Director, indefatigable investigator who made know the Paraguay in the cultural world, with her vast work.
She shared the same building with the Paraguayan Academy of the History for more than 40 years, living and working unfailingly, she dedicated her life and work to the Paraguay, this small homage is a form of thanking her for so fruitful work in her 45 years of life in Paraguay, thank you Dr. Branka.