The incredible fate of Switzerland’s first female students
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A female student society at the University of Bern, c.1900 Bern University -
Anna Tumarkin (1875-1951). A native of Dubrowna (now Belarus, formerly part of the Russian Empire), Anna came to Bern at the age of 17 and became a Swiss philosopher. She “steadily climbed the university career ladder, never shying away from her ambition,” according to the University of Bern newspaper at the time. Bern University -
Ida Hoff (1880-1952) also came from the former Russian Empire. Hoff studied medicine and became a doctor. She was one of the first people in Bern to purchase a car, which she drove herself. When Hoff opened her own practice in 1911, there were 132 general practitioners in Bern but only four of them women. She and Tumarkin moved into the same house. The nature of their relationship has been described as "friendship and lifelong partnership". bezg -
Frieda Imboden-Keiser studied medicine in Bern and Geneva. She later became a paediatrician at St Gallen and a successful campaigner against the high levels of infant mortality. She and Ida Hoff first met at a student hostel and were part of the same women’s activist circle. Ostschweizer Kinderspital St. Gallen, zVg -
Nadezhda Suslova officially became the first female student at the University of Zurich in 1854, supported by her father. In the former Russian Empire, women were not allowed to have their own passports so had to depend on their father’s or husband’s documents. Many female students entered into hasty or sham marriages in order to go abroad and study. Bern University / Wikimedia Commons -
Scotland’s first female doctor and a campaigner for equal rights for women, Sophia Jex-Blake was refused admission to study in the United Kingdom, so she went to Bern with two other British female students. Despite the fact that all the exams and lectures were delivered in German, they all became doctors of medicine in 1877. Science Photo Library -
Lina Stern, a Jew from what is now Lithuania, specialised in neuroscience. In 1918, she became an extraordinary professor at the University of Geneva (the first woman professor at the university). Lack of employment opportunities in Geneva forced her to move to Moscow in 1925, where she created and led a new Institute of Physiology in the USSR Academy of Sciences. In the years of Stalin's terror, she was arrested and sent to a labour camp. After her release, she was able to work as a scientist again. She died age 92. Wikimedia Commons -
Mileva Marić came from a wealthy Austro-Hungarian family. A brilliant student, she completed one semester at the Faculty of Medicine in Zurich and continued her studies at the Zurich Polytechnic (now the federal technology institute ETH Zürich). She married her fellow student Albert Einstein, but her scientific career did not take off: she devoted several years to her husband’s research and then cared for a son who needed psychiatric treatment. The question of whether she helped the famous scientist with the theory of relativity remains unanswered. Eth-bibliothek Zürich, Bildarchiv -
Vera Figner came to Switzerland from Russia to study medicine in 1872. In Bern she joined a revolutionary movement and returned to her native Russia to work as a paramedic. She was later involved in a terrorist attack against Czar Alexander I. Sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment, she spent 20 years in prison. She died in Moscow in 1942 at the age of 89. Wikimedia commons -
A politician and diplomat, Alexandra Kollontrai studied at the University of Zurich from 1898-99. She became one of the most prominent women after the Soviet Revolution and the first woman in history to become an official member of a governing cabinet. Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images -
Lou Andreas-Salomé, or Lioulia as she was known to her family, came to Zurich from St Petersburg in 1879. She attended lectures in philosophy and psychology as a “guest student” before moving to Rome with her mother. The charismatic intellectual made her mark in history as a friend and a muse of Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud and Rainer Maria Rilke. Wikimedia /commons
Swiss universities took on a pioneering role in women’s education in the late 19th century, attracting women from near and far. Some of these students went on to illustrious careers, but others had more tragic destinies.
This content was published on May 7, 2022 - 09:00
The opening up of higher education to women from the 1870s had a positive influence on gender equality. Women’s intellectual abilities and aptitudes were no longer questioned, and the Swiss example contributed to the development of a more inclusive higher education system in other countries.
For the first female students in Switzerland, however, studying was not an easy step. It required exceptional character and determination. Most of them were foreigners from upper class families of the former Russian Empire - which included, among others, the Baltic countries, Moldovia, Ukraine and Belorussia.
Later, they were joined by Swiss female students, who had to overcome many obstacles. The universities, while formally stating gender equality, for a while only enrolled local young men.
Many of these women went on to lead extraordinary lives and careers, as politicians, doctors and scientists, but for others, a job and academic recognition remained elusive. The gallery above depicts what happened to some of them.
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