Women shaped University of Tartu long before they could enroll
Long before women could officially enroll, thousands were already auditing classes or taking exams and earning degrees at the University of Tartu, Estonia's oldest university.
A new research project led by Janet Laidla, Estonian history lecturer at the University of Tartu, set out to answer a simple question: how many women were connected to the university before Estonia's independence in 1918?
"We know women weren't admitted as students in the 19th century — or even in the early 20th," Laidla said. In the Russian Empire, it took longer than in some parts of Europe for women to gain formal access to higher education.
That changed in 1917, when women could finally enroll at the school as full-fledged students. But long before that, they were already part of the system, just in less visible ways.
The University of Tartu often served as an examiner rather than an educator. Women came to qualify as midwives, private tutors, dentists or pharmacy assistants, even if they had studied elsewhere or on their own.
The university kept records for some professions, but the overall picture remained unclear. "I've given tours in Tartu and mentioned 'thousands of women,'" Laidla said. "But did that mean 2,000 or 10,000? That's a pretty big difference."
Her team's answer: at least 5,700.
The database they compiled includes roughly 1,700 midwives, 1,400 private tutors, nearly 1,200 women somehow connected to higher education — including students, auditing students and examinees — about 800 dentists, and more than 500 pharmacy assistants and pharmacists. The real number is likely higher.
Laidla set 1919 as the cutoff for the study, when the Estonian-language University of Tartu was opened and Estonia's education system underwent significant changes.
Education without the university
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the role of Estonia's oldest university extended far beyond teaching. Laidla explained that it also "acted as a kind of quality control" for certain professions, issuing diplomas to those who had learned their trade elsewhere.
The system applied to men as well, though they far outnumbered women in some fields. Still, barriers for women were steep. Pharmacy certification, for example, required up to two years of study.
Women who earned such qualifications before being formally admitted or even allowed to audit classes "had to master an impressive amount of material," Laidla said.
As a result, female pharmacists were rare in Tartu before the 20th century.
Elsewhere in the Russian Empire, options existed but were limited. The Women's Medical Institute and other courses for women in St. Petersburg offered education that some later referred to in their autobiographies as a "women's university," though these were not considered equal to traditional universities.
Many women chose another path: leaving.
From the 1860s on, increasing numbers went abroad to get an education, especially to Switzerland. By the late 19th century, studying in Western Europe had become common, even for women.
Even when Tartu began admitting women as auditors in the early 1900s, their status was uncertain. "For years, they didn't know if they'd be allowed to take final exams or earn a diploma," Laidla said.
Meanwhile, women educated abroad could return to the Russian Empire to take final exams for official recognition. Even in Tartu, the university's first medical diplomas went to women who had studied elsewhere.
Breakthroughs and contradictions
The system created stark contrasts. Women auditing classes locally were barred from graduating, while those trained abroad could take exams and earn degrees alongside men.
The research also uncovered striking early milestones. For example, the first known diploma awarded to a woman by the University of Tartu went to physician Anna (Esfir) Rusakova in 1898.
But many stories remain only partially known. "Each of them has a story," Laidla said. "The question is how much we can recover from these sources."
Some are clearer. Dentist Marie Puhk, from a prominent merchant family, studied in Riga and earned her diploma in 1906. Within a year, she was advertising her practice in the Estonian newspaper Postimees. She and her family were also tied to the Russian Revolution of 1905.
Others ended in tragedy. Anna Sossi, who might have become the university's first female medical doctor, died before completing her dissertation.
Many of these women later played key roles in independent Estonia. Several became doctors and teachers, including Emma Asson, an acclaimed educator who also served in the Constituent Assembly, Estonia's first parliament.
Another trailblazer was Ida Ertel-Rekk, who in 1913 became the first Estonian woman to graduate from the University of Tartu's Faculty of Law. Two years later, she went on to work as a lawyer in St. Petersburg, a role then considered unusual for women.
Building a new country
After Estonia gained independence in 1918, demand for trained professionals surged. The nascent state needed teachers, doctors and other officials.
In hopes of staffing key roles with Estonians, it increasingly relied on women to help fill the gaps while also awaiting the return of scholars from Russia who had opted for Estonian citizenship.
The shortage of educated Estonian professionals impacted society as a whole. Even so, academic careers weren't always attractive or accessible to Estonian scholars.
"Their career opportunities in the Russian Empire were limited," Laidla said. Even in Tartu, the first Estonian professors weren't appointed until shortly before the school was reopened as an Estonian-language university in 1919.
That began to change as new opportunities opened up for women in Estonia, where practical workforce needs coincided with the fledgling country presenting itself as a democratic state embracing gender equality.
By the 1920s and 30s, women were entering schools, ministries and healthcare in growing numbers. In some fields, including dentistry, they soon outnumbered men.
Women also became more active in Estonian politics and public life. Despite ongoing economic and practical barriers to higher education, several were elected to parliament, and many founded and helped build societies and organizations that shaped Estonia's public sphere, journalism and civic life.
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Editor: Aili Vahtla
