REGAMEY, Constantin (Konstanty). Kiev (now Kyiv in Ukraina) 15.(28.)1.1907 — Lausanne 27.12.1982. Polish/Swiss Indologist, Tibetan and Buddhist Scholar and Componist. Professor in Lausanne and Fribourg. Born in Ukraina (then part of Russia) in a Polish-Swiss family. Father, Konstanty Kasimierz Regamey (1879–1938) was pianist, componist and music teacher, mother, Lydia Slavitsch, also a pianist. Father’s family had moved to Poland in the middle of the 19th century, but kept Swiss citizenship which was also conferred to the son. His mother was Polish. Parents divorced when he was 13 and with his mother he moved to Warsaw, where he went to gymnasium. He studied music and soon also classics and Indology at Warsaw (under Schayer,M.A. 1931) and Paris (Przyluski, Lalou). Ph.D.1935 Warsaw. From 1935 taught at Warsaw University, in 1937-39 PD there. The WW II made an end to his career in Poland, he worked as pianist and participated in resistance movement. In 1944 he succeeded moving to Switzerland with his wife and mother. Married 1937 Anna Janina Kucharska.
From 1945 Regamey taught at University of Lausanne, from 1948 as Professor “des civilisations slaves et orientales”. From 1944 lectured on linguistics at Fribourg University, from 1946 as Professor of General Linguistics, from 1965 as Professor “des langues et cultures orientales”. Retired in 1977 from both universities and soon was struck by partial paralysis.
As a scholar Regamey was a Tibetologist and a specialist of Buddhist Sanskrit. As a student of Przyluski he was originally also interested in Austro-Asiatic. At the same time he was well noted as musician and componist and an important pioneer of dodecaphonic music. Among his students was Horsch.
Publications: “Abregement ïambique en Latin”, Charisteria G. Przychocki 1934, 312-334.
– “Bibliographie analytique des travaux relatifs aux éléments anaryens”, BEFEO 34, 1935, 429-566; Buddhistische Philosophie. 86 p. Bibliographische Einführungen in das Studium der Philosophie 20/21. Bern 1950.
– Diss. Three chapters from the Samādhirājasūtra. Ed. in Skr. and Tibetan, transl. 113 p. Publ. of the Or. Comm. 1. Warsaw 1938; The Bhadramāyākāravyākaraṇa. Ed. in Tib. and transl. 2+136 p. Warsaw 1938.
– “Manuscrits sur feuilles de palmier: les manuscrits indiens et indochinois de la section ethnographique de Musée historique”, Jahrbuch des Bernischen historischen Museum 28, 1948, 40-61.
– “Die Religionen Indiens”, “Der Buddhismus Indiens”, and “Die Religionen Tibets”, in Christus und die Religionen der Erde. Freiburg 1951, 73-317.
– “Le problème du bouddhisme primitif et les derniers travaux de Stanisław Schayer”, RO 21, 1957, 37-58.
– More than 30 articles and 50 reviews, e.g. on the Kāraṇḍavyūha in Asiatica. Fs. F. Weller 1954, 514-427, IL 16, 1955, 1-10, As.St./Ét.as. 18-19, 1965, 175-206, and Études à M. Lalou 1971, 411-432; “Indien”, As.St./Ét.as. 13, 1960, 55-81; “Encore à propos du Lalita Vistara et de l’episode d’Asita”, As.St./Ét.as. 27, 1973, 1-34; reviews in Anthropos.
Sources: As.St./Ét.as. 35:2, 1981 (C.R. Volue, with photo, life and bibliography); *N. Loutan-Charbon, C.R., compositeur. Yverdon 1978; *J. May, “La carrière universitaire de C.R.”, As.St./Ét. as. 55, 2001, 349-379; H. Riggenbach, Hist. Lexikon der Schweiz (online); Who’s Who in Switzerland 1986/87; Wikipedia (more details in French version, including lists of both his writings and compositions).
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