Talking about the great Russian scientists who have made their invaluable contribution to the development of science, one can not fail to mention Sofia Kovalevskaya. From early childhood, reaching for knowledge, she eventually achieved her goal, becoming one of the first women scientists in the Russian Empire, despite the fact that in those years, doing science was considered inappropriate for the fair sex.
Kovalevskaya’s grandfather and great-grandfather were famous scientists. Obviously, the propensity to exact sciences was inherited by her. After the birth of Sophia, her parents believed that she would live a normal life for a woman of those years — she would marry, give birth to children and limit her concerns to household chores. But fate decreed otherwise. A future scientist in eight years mastered a full course of subjects of a male gymnasium, studying with teachers at home. The teachers admired her mathematical talents and recommended the girl’s parents to further develop this her inclination, comparing her talent with Blaise Pascal’s talent.
In those years in Russia, a woman had no right to study at a university. The way out would be to move to another country, but without the permission of the parents there was no such opportunity, and the father of Sofia Kovalevskaya thought that she should forget “all this scholarly crap,” get married and live as she was told. Then the girl solved the problem in her own way – she entered into a marriage and moved abroad, to Germany. The University of Berlin refused to accept it for the same reasons, but the German mathematician Weierstrass. admiring her talent, agreed to personally teach her. Sham marriage is complicated by the fact that her husband really fell in love with Sophia.
At the age of 24, Sofia Kovalevskaya received a doctorate in mathematics, which was an unheard of achievement for a young lady. Kovalevskaya believed in destiny and its signs, considering that she inherited the gift of foresight from one of her great-grandmothers, a gypsy fortune-teller. In addition to mathematics, she was fond of literature. Most of her stories are about Russia, for which she yearned for while in another country. Sophia Kovalevskaya died at the age of 41, catching a cold during a trip to Europe. Returning to Stockholm, where she lived at the time, she soon passed away due to pneumonia.
