Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcelos

Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcelos, born Karoline Michaelis (15 March 1851 – 18 November 1925) was a German-Portuguese romanist. She was an important figure for feminism in Portugal and the first woman to lecture at a Portuguese university.

Early life and education Michaëlis was born as the last of five children in Berlin to a prominent protestant family. Her father Gustav Michaelis was a mathematics and physics teacher, who later became a stenography lecturer, while her mother Henriette Louise Lobeck, came from a renowned family of publishers in Berlin. Two of her siblings also gained recognition in the fields of education and literature: her brother, Carl Theodor Michaëlis, became a pedagogue and held high positions in the educational administration during the German Empire, and her sister, Henriette Michaelis, excelled in lexicography, authoring the Michaelis dictionaries in German-Portuguese and Portuguese-German.

Death, honours and commemoration Michaëlis de Vasconcelos died in Porto in 18 November 1925, a day later she was buried in the Agramonte cemetery. A station in Porto Metro nearby this high school has also taken the name Carolina Michaelis. Her name has also been chosen for several streets in Portugal and for a street in Berlin (Caroline-Michaelis-Straße).

In 2001 Portugal issued a postage stamp to commemorate her 150th anniversary.

Works Poesias de Sá de Miranda, (Poetry of Sá de Miranda), 1885 História da Literatura Portuguesa, (History of Portuguese Literature), 1897 A Infanta D. Maria de Portugal e as suas Damas (1521-1577), (The Infanta Maria of Portugal and her Ladies), 1902 Cancioneiro da Ajuda (2 volumes), (Poetry Anthology of Ajuda) 1904 Dicionário Etimológico das Línguas Hispânicas, (Etymological Dictionary of Hispanic Languages) Estudos sobre o Romanceiro Peninsular: Romances Velhos em Portugal, (Studies on the Peninsular Romanceiro: Old Romances in Portugal) As Cem Melhores Poesias Líricas da Língua Portuguesa, (The Hundred Best Lyric Poems of the Portuguese Language ), 1914 A Saudade Portuguesa, (The Portuguese Nostalgia/Melancholy), 1914 Notas Vicentinas: Preliminares de uma Edição Crítica das Obras de Gil Vicente, (Vincentian Notes: Preliminaries of a Critical Edition of the Works of Gil Vicente), 1920-1922 Autos Portugueses de Gil Vicente y de la Escuela Vicentina, 1922 Mil Provérbios Portugueses (A Thousand Portuguese Proverbs)