Talk:Sofya Kovalevskaya

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 10 March 2020 and 4 May 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Rduncan123.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 09:44, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

German article
It would be useful to translate de:Sonja Kowalewski (which is about 4 times longer) and merge it into this article. Pyrop 04:45, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)

Hi, I am a German native and would be happy to assist. However I just joined Wikipedia yesterday, so I am now very sure on how to merge articles. I could try though, if you wanted to. TheFibonacciEffect (talk) 10:45, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

First female professor
The first female professor in Europe? We have som contradicting pages here... Maria Gaetana Agnesi in 1750 or Sofia in 1881? I did a small search and there are sources claiming Sofia as the first, others say she was the third, naming Maria Gaetana Agnesi and Laura Bassi as earlier female professors. Ellipse 23:43, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It seems she was in fact the third. Laura Bassi was the first in 1732, Maria Gaetana Agnesi the second in 1750. Changed in text. Ellipse 00:13, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Category Swedish scientists
The user Muriel Gottrop removed the category Category:Swedish scientists on the premis that "she was not swedish". I think any professor of Stocholm University can be includend in the category. The removal is highly POV. -- Petri Krohn 23:25, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Mathematics professor should be more precise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.222.85.17 (talk) 21:33, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Possible vandalism
This article was modified on 11 October 2005 by 24.22.177.7. The anonymous user seems to be on a vandalization spree. The changes seem plausible, so I am not reverting. Please check the facts! -- Petri Krohn 23:25, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Marriage and child
Sofia had a husband and child, too. I found the story of her marriage to a liberal geology student named "Vladimir Kovalevsky" to be quite relevant to her development as hhe travelled with her initially to Heidelberg, and later she travelled back to Moscow to be with him for a few years. Initially this was a marriage "on paper" to ally herself with somebody who would let her make more of her own decisions than her family did, but during the Moscow years (in 1878) they had a daughter, Sofia. Vladimir entered business and then killed himself.

Not sure how to work this content in so I leave it to somebody else. 67.161.46.163 15:52, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Can this article be cleaned up?
Much of the material here seems poorly presented. As someone observed above, the German article would be a good model to follow.

To examples of problems with content:

(1) On her mother: "...had more education and 'appreciation of the finer things' than her husband." This could be at best a quote (of Sofia??) but in any case is POV by essence.

(2) The whole thing about the wallpaper. This is probably lifted straight from a biography by someone who forgot to present it as a musing (by whom?).

I think this article is worth the work. Kovalevskaya is an important figure in the history of gender in mathematics.


 * I agree: This article needs some grammar-checking, e.g. "Some came from her father, accidentally;" among others.  In response to the above comment, I do recall point #2 (re. wallpaper anecdote) very clearly from my research for a brief biography I wrote in high school.  I'll try to find some reliable sources.  In addition, I think it should be mentioned that there is a crater named after her ("Kovaleskaya") on the far side of the moon.  It seems the Russians got there first. :-) Eccl.7.12


 * As an addendum, I seem to recall that Kovalevskaya made some significant contributions to mathematical series. Again, I'll try to do some research in this area. Eccl.7.12 02:46, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi there, I have completed a major copyedit of this article. I did not address any issues of fact or missing citations. --killing sparrows 00:04, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

movies and books about Sofia kovalevskaya
I think it could be added the following information about S.K.

there is a swedish film called:

> "Berget på månens baksida (1983)" (something like: "the mountain in the backside of the moon") about the years of Sofia Kovalevskaya in sweden and her love relation with Maxim Kovalevksy. (It has an entry the IMDB)

Besides there is a good biography of her written by

> Don H. Kennedy: Little Sparrow: A Portrait of Sophia Kovalevsky. Ohio University Press 1983.

Bye

Juan —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.42.60.221 (talk) 03:09, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Usage of surname
"There are many alternative spellings used for her names; she herself used Sophie Kowalevski (or occasionally Kowalevsky), the family name of her husband, paleontologist Vladimir Kowalevski. She used it in her publications without indication of her gender, perhaps to hide her gender from other Russians." I think she used it that way to adapt her surname for Western European langauages. She could not hide her gender that way because of female first name Sophie, and there was no point of hiding her geneder from Russians solely, prejudices against women were common in Western Europe as well. 85.249.167.223 (talk) 13:31, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Tributes portion
In keeping with other articles on mathematicians, I don't think the partial listing of past award winners is apropo.--Billymac00 (talk) 04:59, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Prize rigged?
I removed this statement from the page:


 * It is believed that the topic chosen for the prize was intended to favor her, as she was known to be preparing a significant paper in that field.

as it is uncited and defamatory, who believes? the people who lost?

The statement was added by User:KarlJacobi. Cheers, — sligocki (talk) 07:27, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Her grandmother
"Her grandmother was Romani" seems to mean Sofia's grand-mother, not Velizaveta's grand-mother. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.171.194 (talk) 11:30, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Several different Versions of Kovalevskaya's Autobiography
There are atleast 3 different versions of her autobiography available as free PDFs on Archive.org, (Search- Kovalevskaia). The Macmillan and T. Fisher Unwin versions are in the form of an autobigraphical novel, while the Century Co version is a straight first-person autobiography.

I'd like to mention 1 of them in the article, but which? -- I NEVER CRY'' 09:29, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Died of Influenza
According to the Swedish Wiki article, Sofia died of Influenza and "complications from pneumonia". Perhaps worth mentioning. Fred26 (talk) 18:06, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

List of Biographies
I removed the work by von Adelung from the list, because it's an article, not a book-length biography; it's no more significant than several other memoirs by friends and relatives; and it's not available in English. I also added a reference to the English translation of Polubarinova-Kochina's book. NightHeron (talk) 15:04, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
 * What are the "several other memoirs" you mention? Sophie von Adelung's was surely one of the first to be published after her death? Deb (talk) 08:57, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Works by Elizaveta Litvinova, F. V. Korvin-Krukovskaia, I. I. Malevich, Maria Jankowska-Mendelson, Ellen Key, and Anna Carlotta Leffler. Most are, like the work of von Adelung, personal reminiscences that do not seem to be available in English. NightHeron (talk) 11:02, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Sentence about Dress Reform
I removed the sentence about dress reform for two reasons. First, the source is a conference talk rather than a peer-reviewed journal, and it doesn't seem to comply with WP:RS. In the case of Kovalevskaia it's particularly important to have RS, since there were many rumors circulating about her, especially in the years following her death. Secondly, even if she did join with her friends who supported dress reform in Sweden, as far as I'm aware she never wrote about it or gave evidence that it was a major issue for her, in which case it's not significant enough to appear in a short biographical article, per WP:NPOV. In contrast, she wrote widely-read articles about Swedish peasant education, French medical practice regarding women, and Russian literature, but those interests of hers, which seem to have been more significant than the dress reform, are not in the article. NightHeron (talk) 01:48, 5 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Ok for me; I just wanted to indicate that some source for the statement could be provided. I'm not even fully sure that the Swedish text supports the sentence in the Wikipedia article (however, I guess it does). - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 09:44, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Translation of the titles of the publications
Hi, I can speak German (native). Should I translate the titles of her publications? TheFibonacciEffect (talk) 10:42, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Lack of evidence for "romantic" claim
There's no evidence that SK had a lesbian relationship with Leffler or any other woman. Concerning her relationship with Lefler, this is what one of the full-length biographies says: "Although her teaching was successful, Sofia was finding life in Stockholm more lonely and humdrum than she had thought it would be. She found no Swedish equivalent of Maria Jankowska-Mendelson or Iulia Lermontova or her sister Aniuta; no friend to whom she could express her thoughts. Her relationship with Anna Carlotta [Leffler] did not satisfy the need for a confidante, although it came the closest. Leffler was too aloof, too afraid of submerging her own weaker personality in that of her friend, to be a completely congenial companion to Sofia." NightHeron (talk) 20:03, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I do take your point, the cited source was the only one I could find referencing the relationship in this way as well (the reason I put that it was McFadden's phrasing in particular in my edit). I had a look at McFadden's article, which was the citation given for the original sentence, to find a more specific page number and made the change after finding that she characterised the relationship a bit differently from how it was stated on SK's page. I think, by the sounds of it, the Koblitz biography might make a better citation for that sentence and it would make sense to either include both or to use it instead of McFadden.
 * I didn't mean to suggest that the citation to McFadden has to change (although the books by Koblitz, Cooke, and Polubarinova-Kochina are more authoritative). I don't think it's necessary to give more details about the relationship between the two women. They did collaborate on two plays, and this is mentioned a little later in the article. It would probably be undue emphasis to say more about their relationship, especially because some women whom Kovalevskaia regarded as confidantes (Lermontova, Jankowska-Mendelson, and Anna Evreinova) are not mentioned in the article. NightHeron (talk) 23:18, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

First woman to have been awarded a doctorate at a European university
I don't think this claim is true - there are examples here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_women_who_obtained_doctoral_degrees_before_1800 Does it need to be more specific in some way? Kathryn EB (talk) 14:34, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, you're correct. I changed the wording so that it's now accurate. In mathematics, the only women who received comparable recognition earlier were in Renaissance Italy, where an original work of research was not required, so that was not a doctorate in the modern sense. NightHeron (talk) 15:59, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Country of birth
I changed the infobox country of birth from "Russian Empire" to "Russia" with the edit summary Russia is the country; we don't say that T. H. Huxley was born in "London, British Empire". This was reverted by an editor who claims that "Russian Empire" is the name of the country. First of all, that's wrong. The Russian Empire was an empire that existed from 1721 until the February revolution of 1917. It's not the name of a country. In the second place, identifying her birth place as being in the Russian Empire is misleading, because that would normally be done only if it was in a country other than Russia that was under the control of Russia at the time (such as Finland or Poland). But Kovalevskaia was born in Moscow, and you can't be more in Russia than that. NightHeron (talk) 01:15, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Removed incorrect categories
First, Kovalevskaya was not Swedish, although she worked in Sweden. She remained a Russian citizen and always regarded herself and was regarded by others as Russian. Second, she was never a student (and hence not an alumna) of Stockholm University. Third, she could not have died from the 1889-90 flu pandemic, since she died the following year. Fourth, she was not a 20-th century writer, since she died before the 20th century. So I removed those 6 categories. NightHeron (talk) 17:12, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Lesbian
At my school when I attended it (though this may be biased due to the school's strong support of LGBT), I have seen a fact file about her on a wall with other "LGBT people who changed the world", that mentions her as an open lesbian. Is there any truth to this or is it just from the *rse of the f*cking sodomic propaganda machine? 2A00:23C7:5882:8201:A116:4C34:EF8:5947 (talk) 21:54, 12 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Please see the earlier thread on this page "Lack of evidence for "romantic" claim". NightHeron (talk) 23:24, 12 October 2023 (UTC)