Anna Tumarkin | The first ever female professor was based in Berne

In late October 1892, 17-year-old Anna Tumarkin arrived at the station in Berne. She came from a Russian-Jewish merchant family in Bessarabian Chișinău, now the capital of Moldova. The young lady travelled abroad to study, as women were not allowed to attend university in Tsarist Russia. In Switzerland, however, women were granted the right to pursue tertiary level education in the 1860s. In fact, Switzerland was an early mover in opening universities to women, in contrast to its subsequent lagging on gender equality.

Hundreds of female Russian Jews chose to study in Berne. They were fleeing not only educational discrimination, but also political repression and anti-Semitism. Liberal lecturers in Berne supported the talented, courageous women. Anna Tumarkin was not as revolutionary-minded as some of her fellow students. She got straight down to business, studying philosophy, history and German literature and language – the start of her unequalled academic career.

“Sensational event”

In 1898, Tumarkin became the first female philosophy lecturer in Europe at the age of 23 and the first regular external lecturer in Switzerland. Newspapers within and outside Switzerland reported on the “sensational event” of her inaugural lecture, but she hardly earned enough to live on. In 1909, the Berne cantonal government nominated her extraordinary professor for philosophy and aesthetics. This made her the first woman ever to progress via the conventional path to professor with full rights in a unisex university. She ended up lecturing in Berne for 45 years.

In 1927, Berne broadsheet “Der Bund” praised her profound thinking. She was greatly affected by the fate of her family, who were wiped out over two world wars, Russian pogroms and Nazi genocide. She was the only survivor.

Tumarkin received Swiss citizenship in 1921. “The freedom and tolerance in Switzerland allowed me to find a second home, the home of my intellectual education and application,” she wrote to the authorities. She spoke of the depths of her affection and gratitude. Rogger also highlighted Tumarkin’s commitment to the Swiss women’s movement. Following some initial hesitation, she actively supported women’s suffrage with her life companion, the medic and first Bernese school doctor Ida Hoff (1880–1952).

In her later years, Tumarkin published a noteworthy paper entitled “Being and Becoming Swiss Philosophy”, in which she attributed a unique thinking culture to Switzerland, defined by objectivity and real life. In August 1951, Anna Tumarkin died aged 77 after a long illness. Obituaries praised her as an “erudite, noble lady” and a “formidable, sensitive personality”.