As a Russian subject, Minkowski went on to practice medicine in
Kazan to obtain Russian certification, and while there met his future wife,
Franciszka Brokman, also a doctor and later known as 'Françoise'. They married in 1913. The couple settled in Munich, where Françoise pursued further work in psychiatry while Eugène took up the study of mathematics and philosophy, attending lectures by
Alexander Pfänder and
Moritz Geiger, pupils of
Edmund Husserl. In Munich, Minkowski became acquainted with
Germanic philosophy. The outbreak of World War I forced them to seek refuge in
Zürich with Minkowski's brother, Mieczysław (Michel). There, Minkowski and his wife both became assistants to
Eugen Bleuler at the
Burghölzli, a university clinic where
Carl Gustav Jung and
Ludwig Binswanger had practised earlier. In 1914 he finished a work entitled
"Les éléments essentiels du temps-qualité" – "The Essential Elements of Time-Quality". At the beginning of the
World War I Minkowski volunteered in the
French Army in 1915 as a military medic. In 1915, the couple had a son,
Alexandre Minkowski, later a pioneer of French
neonatology and father of the noted orchestra conductor,
Marc Minkowski, followed in 1918 by a daughter, Jeannine, a lawyer. In the war he saw action at the
Battle of the Somme and the
Battle of Verdun, where his bravery earned him several citations and military decorations, including the
Croix de Guerre. He became an officer of the
Legion of Honour and obtained French nationality. In France Minkowski came under the influence of the famous French philosopher
Henri Bergson, who critiqued standard scientific views of time and of life. Minkowski was convinced that
psychopathology should be closer to
philosophy and closer to individual philosophers' views. After World War I, when his enlistment came to an end, Minkowski adopted French nationality. The family moved again to Paris permanently and Minkowski returned to
medicine and partially abandoned his philosophical pursuits. He worked on the
perception of time as a vector in psychopathology, drawing heavily on his unpublished work on
Bergson, whom he had known personally. In 1925 he became one of the co-founders of a movement and a French journal in psychiatry, known as ''"L'Évolution psychiatrique"
– "Psychiatric Evolution". "L'Évolution psychiatrique"
, which introduced the work of Eugen Bleuler and several other psychiatrists, such as Karl Jaspers and Ludwig Binswanger. Directors of "l'Ėvolution psychiatrique"'' were
A. Hesnard and
R. Laforgue. Original works and critical studies in the journal have been made by messieurs
R. Allendy,
A. Borel,
A. Ceillier,
H. Claude,
H. Codet,
J. Damourette,
A. Hesnard,
R. Laforgue, Mme
F. Minkowska, E. Minkowski,
É Pichon,
Robin,
R. de Saussure,
Schiff and
J. Vinchon. But Minkowski disagreed with Bleuler on several points. First, he did not believe that the necessary component of autism is "the predominance of inner
fantasy life". In truth, he claimed that a typical schizophrenic patient has the "poor autism", which he characterized by the poverty of affective and cognitive processes. On that subject, he also criticized Bleuler's description of schizophrenic autism together with
Emil Kraepelin. Minkowski claimed that "rich autism" happened only when a schizophrenic patient was equipped with an autism-independent inclination toward affective and cognitive expressivity. Just as important, Minkowski considered autism as a both fundamental and primary disorder of schizophrenia. Other psychopathological features of schizophrenia could be comprehended in terms of it. In 1927 he published
"La Schizophrénie" on schizophrenia, followed in 1933, by
"Le Temps vécu. Études phénoménologique et psychopathologiques" – "Lived Time. Phenomenological and Psychopathological Studies". In this, his only book so far translated into English, Minkowski sought to use phenomenology as an approach to psychopathology. He proposed that the pathology of patients should always be interpreted in light of their subjective experience of time. Unable initially to find a publisher he funded a thousand copies himself. It was eventually published by J.L.L. d'Artrey to whom Minkowski dedicated the new edition of the work. Minkowski was in the
Resistance during World War II and directed the work of a charity to protect children from the
Shoah that saved thousands of Jewish children. In 1946 he gave one of the first Basel lectures on psychological suffering during Nazi persecution and went on to testify as an expert witness in numerous subsequent lawsuits. He was the author of some 250 clinical papers and publications. Minkowski died in 1972. His funeral was attended by a large crowd, including his psychiatrist friend and collaborator,
Henri Ey. ==Philosophy and psychopathology==