Leading women - Lis Jacobsen

The story only exists if it is told. That is why it is also crucially important to tell, communicate and debate. One of the figures who has really left his mark on Danish language history and historiography was Lis Jacobsen (1882-1961).

By Janus Møller Jensen

She herself came from a Jewish intellectual background strongly inspired by Georg Brandes, with whom she developed a friendship later in life. She was the daughter of national bank director Marcus Rubin and Kaja Davidsen. She attended Zahle's School and was trained as a teacher at Zahle's Seminary in 1903. In the same year, she married the philologist and farm owner's son JP Jacobsen. She then began studying Nordic philology at the University of Copenhagen. It was the starting point for a long and glorious research career within the history of the Danish language.

As early as 1907, she received the university's gold medal for a thesis on the development of the Nordic languages ​​from a common Nordic stock, and in 1910 she wrote a large and significant doctoral dissertation on the history of the Danish language in the late Middle Ages until the Reformation. She was the first woman to receive a doctorate in Nordic philology – and only the seventh woman to be awarded the degree. The first was the historian Anna Hude in 1893.

Lis Jacobsen was tireless in her field. She was behind the establishment of the Danish Language and Literature Society, and helped to write, edit, publish and promote a number of large and important source collections, reference works and theses. Eg. the enormous Dictionary of the Danish Language, the all-important source collection Diplomatarium Danicum, the large collaborative project Cultural History Lexicon for the Nordic Middle Ages. In addition, there was the publication of Denmark's Runic Inscriptions in addition to a number of others.

In 1912, she published the book Kvinde og Mand, which showed how the woman in the Middle Ages was defined as gender only in relation to the man. She had 2 children herself and became a widow and single mother early on. She interfered significantly in the women's struggle of the time, but appeared with different – ​​but always significant and determined – attitudes and opinions at different times. On the one hand, she stated in some famous lectures that it was impossible to reconcile the duty or role of woman and mother with making a career or having a profession both in the 1910s and 1930s. On the other hand, she also stated in the 1920s that, unlike before, she probably also believed that if you suppressed either one or the other, you would not become a full and complete human being. "You have to take the fight for life", as she said.

In many ways, it sounds like a very modern consideration for both women and men in a modern family: How do you make family life and career work out? Perhaps that was the reason for the duplicity of Lis Jacobsen, who otherwise mostly spoke positively about women's role and primary work in the home. This is in sharp contrast to her own enormous work on the research and work front, where she has left a gigantic imprint of lasting importance for the exploration of Danish language and history. She, if anyone, took on the life struggle with her work as a language historian, the upbringing and support of her two daughters, one of whom was born deaf, and her family and love life.

Lis Jacobsen was known in the media for her sharp opinions and ability to make her field and her work accessible and interesting to a wider public. She was strong-willed and brave, insisting on being both a woman and a researcher. She could also be both combative and polemical when she entered into the debates of the time and the eternal internal research intrigues, groupings and divisions in the university and research world. She created a career for herself and put herself at the head of the table in an otherwise male-dominated world, while simultaneously advocating that women's primary role was in the home. She was a multifaceted personality and her importance and influence are indisputable. Her colleague and editor of the Cultural History Lexicon for the Nordic Middle Ages, Georg Rona, stated on the basis of her great work that she was the greatest initiator of Danish intellectual life in the 1900th century.

In 2011, Kristian Hvidt wrote a biography of Lis Jacobsen on behalf of the Danish Language and Literature Society. Precisely the treatment of the gender political aspect (or the lack of it) the book was heavily criticized by some - especially by Anette Dina Sørensen in a review in Politiken (January 7, 2012) - while for others it was, despite the challenges, a fine introduction to Lis Jacobsen's life and work. At least that's a place to start. Then you have to take on the struggle of life with history and the problem from there.