Switzerland honours world’s first female professor

Anna Tumarkin became the world's first female professor in Bern Keystone-SDA

Anna Tumarkin was the world's first fully qualified female professor. She taught philosophy with an emphasis on aesthetics in Bern for 45 years. She would have been 150 years old on Sunday.

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Tumarkin climbed the career ladder at the University of Bern until she was appointed associate professor shortly before her 34th birthday. In Bern, she researched and taught, supervised and examined doctoral and post-doctoral theses and, as a faculty member, helped to decide on the university’s business.

This made her the first woman in the world to be awarded a professorship with full rights at a university where both men and women were admitted.

Nevertheless, she did not make it into the history books. Tumarkin was hardly noticed for a long time, said historian and Tumarkin expert Franziska Rogger in an interview with the Keystone-SDA news agency. She is also hardly known among philosophers. She had been negated or forgotten, said Rogger.

Opportunities in Russia exhausted

Tumarkin was born in Dubrovna, then part of the Russian Empire. Her father was a wealthy Orthodox Jewish merchant who was able to provide his children with a good education. As a child, Tumarkin received private tuition, after which she attended a girls grammar school. After graduating, she trained as a teacher.

At this point, she had exhausted the educational opportunities available to women in the Tsarist Empire. Women were not allowed to study at university. Anna Tumarkin therefore left her homeland at the age of 17 to study in Switzerland.

The universities of Zurich, Basel and Bern had been admitting women since the 1870s. In order to enroll at the University of Bern at such a young age, she still had to play a little trick, as Rogger said. You actually had to be 18 years old to be admitted to university.

Kind and exceptionally intelligent

Her professor was the well-known philosopher Ludwig Stein. He saw the young woman’s potential early on. He encouraged her to do a doctorate. At the age of 20, she completed her doctorate with the highest possible grade.

Later, it was also Stein who lobbied both Tumarkin’s father and the university to allow Tumarkin to stay in Bern and to award her the title of professor. She was made titular professor in 1906 and associate professor in 1909.

According to Rogger, the fact that it was Tumarkin who became the first female professor probably had something to do with her personality. “She must have been an incredibly kind and modest woman,” said Rogger. She always managed to get people to stand up for her without being asked. Tumarkin was also exceptionally intelligent. Her “independent thinking” was always emphasised. For example, she often found a different solution to math problems than others, explained Rogger.

However, she was denied the final step on the academic career ladder, that of full professor with a chair. In a document written in 1910, the appointments committee noted that “there are certain reservations about appointing a lady to such an exposed position who has not acquired an authority through exceptional achievements, before which criticism and opposition fall silent.”

Enthusiastic about Switzerland

The philosopher was not only enthusiastic about science, but also about Switzerland. She became a naturalised citizen at the age of 43. In her application, she wrote that she had found a second home in the “freedom and generosity” of Switzerland.

Meanwhile, her family was almost completely destroyed, threatened by two world wars, Russian and Nazi persecution.

During the Second World War, she put herself at the service of the spiritual defense of the country and intensively studied Swiss philosophy.

Tumarkin lived at Hallwylstrasse 44 in Bern for over 30 years with her partner, the first female school doctor in Bern, Ida Hoff. According to Rogger, the two women had a deep human relationship. This lasted until death – the two women shared a grave. Anna Tumarkin died on August 7, 1951.

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Translated from German by DeepL/jdp

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