Sofya kovalevskaya biography

    

Portions of this entry contributed by Roger Cooke

Portions of this entry contributed by Margherita Barile

Sofya Korvin-Krukoskaya, whose nickname was Sonja, was born in Moscow in 1850 the daughter of a general.

She started studying mathematics books as a girl, encouraged by her paternal uncle Pyotr, but against the will of her father who, however, soon became aware of her remarkable talent and finally allowed her to take private lessons.

Born in a strictly patriarchal society, she had to undergo a fictitious marriage to gain the freedom to travel, so in 1868 she married Vladimir Kovalevsky, a paleontologist and supporter of Darwinism, who had a troubled professional life and later committed suicide.

In Heidelberg, Kovalevskaya received a special authorization to attend the lectures without being officially a student, since matriculation was not permitted for women. When she decided to move to Berlin to make the acquaintance of Weierstrass, sh