Ada Sara Adler (1878–1946) was a
Danish classical scholar
Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...
and
librarian
A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users.
The role of the librarian has changed much over time ...
.
She is best known for her critical edition of the Byzantine encyclopedia ''
Suda
The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; grc-x-medieval, Σοῦδα, Soûda; la, Suidae Lexicon) is a large 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas (Σούδας) or Souida ...
'' (5 vols., 1928–38), which still provides the standard text.
Biography
Adler was born on 18 February 1878, the daughter of Bertel David Adler and Elise Johanne, née Fraenckel.
[ Her family was of high social standing and well-connected. Her grandfather, David Baruch Adler, was a wealthy banker and politician. Her aunt, Ellen Adler Bohr, was the mother of ]Niels Bohr
Niels Henrik David Bohr (; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922 ...
and Harald Bohr
Harald August Bohr (22 April 1887 – 22 January 1951) was a Danish mathematician and footballer. After receiving his doctorate in 1910, Bohr became an eminent mathematician, founding the field of almost periodic functions. His brother was the ...
.[ Through the Bohrs, she was also related to Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin.][
Adler's early education was at Miss Steenberg's School and then ]N. Zahle's School
N. Zahle's School ( Danish: N. Zahles Skole) is a private school located on Nørre Voldgade in Copenhagen, Denmark. Named after its founder, Natalie Zahle (1827–1913), it now consists of two independently run primary schools and a Gymnasium.
...
, where she studied Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...
under Anders Bjørn Drachmann beginning in 1893.[ She then went to the ]University of Copenhagen
The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in ...
, where she continued to study Greek and comparative religion with Drachmann and also Professor Vilhelm Thomsen
Vilhelm Ludwig Peter Thomsen (25 January 1842 – 12 May 1927) was a Danish linguist and Turkologist. He successfully deciphered the Orkhon inscriptions which were discovered during the expedition of Nikolai Yadrintsev in 1889.
Early life and ...
.[ In 1906, she completed her master's thesis on ancient Greek ]religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatur ...
, as well as receiving an award from the Historical Philological Society for research on the myth of Pandora
In Greek mythology, Pandora (Greek language, Greek: , derived from , ''pān'', i.e. "all" and , ''dōron'', i.e. "gift", thus "the all-endowed", "all-gifted" or "all-giving") was the first human woman created by Hephaestus on the instructions ...
.[ In 1912, after finishing her master's, she traveled to ]Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
to study, during which time she published a few articles on Greek religion and completed research and writing for Pauly-Wissowa.[
In 1901, she married Danish philosopher Anton Thomsen, whom she had met at a dinner on 20 March 1897.][ Thomsen preserved an account of this first meeting in his diary, recalling how struck he was by her.][ They divorced in 1912.][
During World War II, she was evacuated to Sweden with other Danish Jews. She taught Greek in the Danish school in Lund.][
She is buried in Mosaisk Vestre Begravelsesplads near Copenhagen.
]
Scholarly career
She is best known for her critical, standard edition of the ''Suda
The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; grc-x-medieval, Σοῦδα, Soûda; la, Suidae Lexicon) is a large 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas (Σούδας) or Souida ...
'', which she published in 5 volumes (Leipzig, 1928–1938). She also contributed several articles to Pauly–Wissowa's ''Realencyclopädie''. In 2016, Oxford University Press published a collection of essays honouring female classical scholars. The chapter on Adler was written by Catharine Roth, a current managing editor of the ''Suda On Line Project''; Roth contextualizes Adler's seminal contribution to scholarship of the ''Suda'' as the kind of detailed cataloguing work which in the nineteenth century was granted to women while men did the more 'interesting' original research, but which was actually crucial to enabling further research (although the immense majority of scholarly cataloguing was also carried out by men at the time). Classical scholar William Calder, professor emeritus in classics at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Un ...
, called Adler "incontestably the greatest woman philologist who ever lived'. German classical scholar Otto Weinreich
Otto Karl Weinreich (1886–1972) was a German classical philologist. He is noted for his study of the ''Lukan Befreiungswunder'' through his work ''Gebet und Wunder''.
Weinrich's works were focused on the so-called liberation miracles such as t ...
, who lived roughly contemporary to Adler, called her edition of the ''Suda'' "''bewundernswert''" (worthy of admiration) in 1929, shortly after the appearance of the first volume.
In 1916, she published a catalog of Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
manuscripts in the Danish Royal Library. The collection had been compiled by Daniel Gotthilf Moldenhawer
Daniel Gotthilf Moldenhawer (11 December 1753 – 21 November 1823), was a German- Danish philologist, theologian, librarian, bibliophile, palaeographer, diplomat, and Bible translator.
Early life and education
Moldenhawer was born in K� ...
, who was the chief librarian in the eighteenth century.[ Adler was convinced some of the manuscripts in it had been stolen by Moldenhawer from libraries elsewhere in Europe.] In 1931, she was awarded the Tagea Brandt Rejselegat
The Tagea Brandts ''Rejselegat'' (Travel Scholarship) is a Danish award to women who have made a significant contribution in science, literature or art. The grant, which is given without application, was created and endowed by Danish industrialist ...
, a Danish award for women's achievements in art and science. At the time of her death, she had made substantial progress towards a first edition of the '' Etymologicum Genuinum'', a project continued under the direction of Klaus Alpers.
Her work is noted to have been completed in both Rome and Florence in 1913 through the spring of 1914, and later years (1919 and 1920) in Paris, Venice, Oxford, and Florence.[
]
Works
*1914: ''Die Commentare des Asklepiades von Myrlea'', Hermes 49.1: 39–46
*1916: ''Catalogue supplémentaire des manuscrits grecs de la Bibliothèque Royale de Copenhague''.
*1917: '' D. G. Moldenhawer og hans haandskriftsamling''. Copenhagen http://www.kb.dk/permalink/2006/manus/780/dan/
*1920: ''Den græske litteraturs skæbne i oldtid og middelalder''. Copenhagen.
*1928–1938: ''Suidae Lexicon''. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner. 5 vols.
*1932: ''Die Homervita im Codex Vindobonensis Phil. 39'', Hermes 67.3: 363–366
References
External links
''Suda'' On Line
An on-line edition of the Ada Adler edition with ongoing translations and commentary by registered editors.
'Ada Adler'
in the Dansk Kvindebiografisk leksikon. Elaborate biography.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Adler, Ada
1878 births
1946 deaths
Danish classical scholars
Danish librarians
Women librarians
20th-century Danish philologists
Women encyclopedists