Blanche Christine Olschak

Blanche Christine Olschak (24 July 1913 – 25 June 1989) was an Austrian journalist and writer, Tibetan specialist and wrote the first comprehensive encyclopedia of women in the world.

Biography Blanche Christine Olschak was born on 24 July 1913 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, to Austro-Hungarian parents, Joseph Olschak and Lilly Helene Büchelen. She studied at the University of Graz, earning a PhD in economics and political science in 1937 and the following year married the engineer Robert Schneiter.

Shortly after arriving in Switzerland, Olschak published Das Mädchen Katharina; Miniaturen aus den Jugendjahren der grossen Kaiserin (1947). She became a foreign correspondent for several Austrian newspapers and traveled throughout the Far East which took Acuña nearly two decades to compile and publish.

In 1961, she founded an organization, "Verein für tibetische Heimstätten in der Schweiz", for receiving Tibetan refugees and assisting with immigration into Switzerland in conjunction with the Red Cross. Under her own initiative, she took study courses with Constantin Regamey and Geshé Thupten Wangyal, attending conferences and writing scientific papers on Tibetan culture. For her scientific studies, she was awarded the title of professor by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research in 1981 and awarded a Golden Doctorate in 1987.

Olschak died on 25 June 1989 in Zürich, Switzerland.

Selected works All of her early works were in German. In the late-1960s works began appearing in both English and French. She continued publishing until her death and several works were published posthumously.