Anniversary of Sofia Kovalevskaya, Russian mathematician, writer and publicist, the first female corresponding member of St. Petersburg Academy of Science

“As to myself, all my life I could not decide what I am more gifted for: mathematics or literature?”

S. Kovalevskaya

3 (15) January 1850 in Moscow in a noble family was born Sofia V. Kovalevskaya, Russian mathematician, writer and publicist, the first woman - corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1889).

Sophia's father, Lieutenant-General of Artillery Vasiliy Vasilievich Korvin-Krukovsky served as chief of the arsenal; her mother, Elizabeth Schubert, was a talented pianist and spoke four European languages. Kovalevskaya’s grandfather on the maternal side, General of Infantry F. F. Schubert, was a renowned scientist and land surveyor, and his great-grandfather F. I. Schubert - an outstanding astronomer.

Sofia Kovalevskaya was educated at home; having showed great ability in the exact sciences, in 1866 she started to study physics and took lessons in higher mathematics by a famous teacher A. N. Strannolyubski.

In 1868, to be able to go abroad for further education, Sophia Vasilievna fictitiously married Vladimir Onufrievich Kovalevsky, one of the best representatives of the intelligentsia, who was engaged in publishing activities at the time. In 1869 the couple went to Heidelberg.  

For several years, Kovalevskaya had listened math lectures at Heidelberg University, then took lessons with a famous mathematician K. Weierstrass in Berlin. In July 1874 on the basis of three papers by Kovalevskaya, presented by Weierstrass, "To the theory of partial differential equations" (1874), "Additions and comments to the study of Dallas on the form of rings of Saturn" (1885), "On the reduction of a class of Abelian integrals the third rank to elliptic integrals "(1884) - University of Göttingen awarded her Ph.D. degree "with highest praise ".

In 1874, Sophia Vasilievna returned to Russia. Not having the opportunity to do science, Kovalevskaya in 1876 began to contribute to the newspaper of A. S. Suvorin "New Era" as a science journalist and theater critic.

In 1883 Kovalevskaya accepted the invitation to take over as privat-docent of the New University in Stockholm; having immediately excelled, she was appointed full professor. In addition to her teaching activities, Kovalevskaya contributed to the magazine «Acta mathematica».

In 1888, Sophia Vasilievna wrote the work "The problem of solid rotation around a fixed point," for which she won a prize of the Paris Academy of Sciences, and for the study which developed this topic, she became a laureate of the Swedish Academy of Sciences.

7 (19) November 1889 Kovalevskaya became the first female corresponding member of Physics and Mathematics Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

In April 1890 Sofia Vasilievna came to Russia in hopes of being elected as a member of the Academy in place of the deceased mathematician Bunyakovsky. However, after she was refused a request to attend a meeting of the Academy in September, she returned to Stockholm.

January 29 (February 10), 1891 at the age of forty-one years, in the prime of her creative life, Sofia V. Kovalevskaya died.

Besides her scientific activities, Kovalevskaya had also been a writer. Known is her drama "The Struggle for Happiness" (1887), co-written with Swedish author A. S. Leffler Edgren, novels "Nihilist" (1891), "Memories of Childhood" (1890).

Lit.: Полубаринова-Кочина П. Я. Жизнь и деятельность С. В. Ковалевской, М.; Л., 1950; Памяти С. В. Ковалевской. Сб. ст. М., 1951; Леффлер А. Ш. Софья Ковалевская: Воспоминания А. К. Леффлер герцогини ди-Кайянелло. СПб., 1893.

Based on the Presidential Library’s materials:

Ковалевская С. В. Воспоминания детства и автобиографические очерки. М., 1945.