On the history of the formation of higher education for women in Russia

Abstract

The article analyzes the complex and contradictory process of the formation of higher education for women in Russia on the example of the opening and operation of two non-state higher educational institutions: Women’s Medical Institute (1897) and Moscow City People’s University named after A.L. Shanyavsky (1908). The author reveals the history of the struggle for the organization of the “Higher Women’s Medical Courses”, which graduated the first female doctors in 1877. On the example of the fate of A.N. Shabanova, P.N. Tarnovskaya, N.P. Dragnevich shows a complex way of those who at the end of the courses did not have the legal rights and had many years to prove their own professional male counterparts. After the closure of the courses in 1881, it took sixteen years to defend the right of women to a higher medical education within the walls of the first Women’s Medical Institute in Russia. No less difficult was the history of the three-year struggle for the opening of the Moscow City People’s University, in the charter of which all restrictions on gender, nationality and religion were remove. According to the conditions of A.L. Shanyavsky, women could not only be students, but also participate in the management of the university (L.A. Shanyavskaya, L.B. Khavkina) and be admitted to teaching (L.B. Khavkina, V.N. Shatskaya). Among those people who made an invaluable contribution to the organization and activities of these non-state educational institutions were named: patrons and benefactors A.L. Shanyavsky, L.A. Shanyavskaya, M.V. Sabashnikov; medical professors M.M. Sechenov, I.M. Sklifosovsky, S.P. Botkin, I.I. Mechnikov; Professor M.M. Kovalevsky, S.A. Muromtsev, N.V. Speransky, K.A. Timiryazev. It is concluded that the organization of higher education for women in Russia became possible thanks to the joint efforts of individual representatives of the authorities, the leading circles of the intelligentsia, entrepreneurs,and patrons of the arts, as well as all caring people who have spared no effort and their own funds for this noble cause.