August Hermann und Anna Theodora Francke

Abstract

The following lines try to shed light on the scholarly cooperation between A. H. Francke (1870–1930) and his wife Anna Theodora, née Weiz (1875–1945), who both served in the Ladakh Mission. It was taken for granted that the wives of missionaries would be actively engaged in pastoral work, and we find regular references to this fact in the annual reports, articles and notes in the mission journals. The case of scholarly co-operation is different, as this requires not only a solid educational background but also talent and motivation. Maria Heyde (1837–1917) was an outstanding example of such co-operation, as she proofread her husband’s Tibetan Bible translations and also wrote many of the lithographic plates for printing. Anna Theodora Francke was less well known as a supporter of her husband’s scholarly work, in spite of her valuable contributions. She became quite proficient in Tibetan, and edited the unfinished work of Dr Karl Marx (her late brother-in-law) on the rgyal-rabs (royal genealogies of Ladakh) and translated it into English. She also proofread the Tibetan Bible translations. She translated the Lower Ladakhi version of the Kesar Saga as told by the bard Konchok Tashi into German (published only in 1992), and also the reminiscences of the Dogra war as told by Tshe-bstan of Khalatse, and helped her husband to finalize the descriptive list of artefacts collected on his 1914 Central Asian expedition. These really outstanding achievements remained widely unknown in the scholarly community, partly because of difficult times that did not allow adequate dissemination of these works, but also because of Dora’s modesty.