‘[...] the first handsome mathematical lady I’ve ever seen!’ On the role of beauty in portrayals of Sofia Kovalevskaya

Abstract

For more than a century, the life of the Russian mathematician and author Sofia Kovalevskaya¹

¹ Please note, that Kovalevskaya's name has been and still is spelled in various variants. See Audin 2011, 25–28. In quotations, as well as titles of books and articles, the spelling of the respective author will be used.

(1850–91) has fascinated scholars and laymen alike. Among the many aspects discussed, her looks have aroused a significant interest. Hereby, a striking dichotomy becomes apparent, as she has been described both as rather unattractive or a ravishing beauty. Moreover, her beauty (or lack thereof) is often considered a pivotal issue in her vita and for her scientific career in particular. This article aims to present the scope of descriptions of Kovalevskaya's looks from the very first biographical accounts to her portrayal in modern literature, by highlighting some of the most influential examples in their historical context under special consideration of the changing views of the mathematician and women in science in general.

Notes

¹ Please note, that Kovalevskaya's name has been and still is spelled in various variants. See Audin 2011, 25–28. In quotations, as well as titles of books and articles, the spelling of the respective author will be used.

² My translation. Original: ‘Der große ausdrucksvolle Kopf mit glatt rasirtem rundem Gesicht hatte früh stark gelichtetes Haar, wodurch die hochgewölbte Stirn offengelegt war.’

³ ‘Man kennt den prachtvollen, weiß umlockten Schädel, das leuchtend blaue, etwas schiefe verhängte Auge des reinrassigen westfälischen Landkindes.’

⁴ My translation. Original: ‘eine mittelgroße, elegante, fast zierliche Erscheinung, mit regelmäßigen, sehr gewinnenden Gesichtszügen und feinem Lächeln’. In ‘Frau von Kowalewsky’ in Berliner National-Zeitung (5 January 1889). A facsimile can be found in Bölling (1993, 504 ).

⁵ For the history of the history of mathematics, cf. the various entries in Dauben and Scriba (2002).

⁶ The book was published under various titles, among them a pseudo-anonymous version called The Sisters Rajevski. In the following, such a translation will be cited (Leffler and Kovalevsky 1895); please note that Kovalevskaya is called ‘Tanja’ in this version.

⁷ Cf., for example, T P, A book of the week: Sophie Kovalesky in The Weekly Sun, Sunday Edition, 23 and 30 September 1894, or M L W, ‘Sophia Kovalevsky, the Russian new woman. A Cincinnati writer finds proof in her sad life that woman's sphere is home’ in Gazette (Cincinnati), 15 September 1895.

⁸ Laura Marholm, ‘Eine berühmte Frau’, in Berliner Abendblatt (Abend-Ausgabe), Nr 98, XX. Jahrgang, 23 February 1891.

⁹ Marholm is well aware of the fact, that Kovalevskaya was indeed married to Wladimir Kovalevsky until his suicide in 1883. As this marriage was purely fictious in the beginning, only serving the purpose of enabling Kovalevskaya to travel abroad to study, Wladimir does not count as a ‘husband’ in the way Marholm understands the term in the context of her text. The fact, that they later consummated their marriage and even became the parents of a daughter is downplayed by her, as she claims that Kovalevskaya ‘became a mother and also a wife, but she never learnt [sic] what it is to love and be loved again’; cf. Marholm 1896, 26.

¹⁰ According to the protocol, a meeting of the Women's Association in Austria was left by three appalled, elderly ladies, as soon as the topic was brought up; cf. Schlesinger 1895, 7.

¹¹ Title of a newspaper article by an unknown author. Published in the Lewiston Teller on 24 October 1895.

¹² Please note, that not all editions of Kovalevskaya's autobiography are identical in content. This part is missing, for example, in the English, pseudo-anonymous version, cited before.

¹³ Rowold 2010, 81. Also cf. Hausen 1976, 369, also footnote 12.

¹⁴ These two with direct references to Kovalevskaya.

¹⁵ In the German original, the chapter on Kovalevskaya is called ‘Zeitopfer’ [=Victim of the Time], (cf. Marholm 1894). This is changed to ‘Learned Woman’ in the English translation.

¹⁶ My translation. Original: ‘Und gehört sie dazu wie Sonja Kovalevska zu den Frauen, an deren Wiege die Grazien nicht ihre Gaben niederlegten, dann wird das Schicksal einer solchen Frau tragisch.’

¹⁷ In an untitled article on the occasion of a publication of a further part of Marie Bashkirtseff's diary, in The Daily Chronicle (London), 6 May 1901.

¹⁸ As an example from the eighteenth century consider Guiseppe de Cataneos’ Il filosofismo delle belle, published in 1753. Cf. Segler-Messner 1998, 63f.

¹⁹ The Malären, historically called Lake Malar, is he third-largest lake in Sweden and situated near Stockholm, where Kovalevskaya taught at the högskola at the time.

²⁰ Pelageya Kochina, author of one of the major biographies of Kovalevskaya published in Communist countries, included a discussion of her mathematical papers in her biography (cf. Kochina 1985). In the West, the major publication in this context is Roger Cooke's detailed analysis of her mathematical papers (Cooke 1984).

²¹ As an example see the “Gallery of Heroes”-page on Kovalevskaya [https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/g5YZBRFE4LARUJ?domain=thegalleryofheroes.com], where it is claimed, that her ‘groundbreaking work in mathematics greatly influenced the scientific community in the late 1800s’. While her mathematical papers were certainly outstanding, it can not be justified to call them groundbreaking. Moreover, also because she was interested in topics that had already begun to become outdated in the way she treated them, her influence on other mathematicians remained almost negligible during that time.

²² Weierstraß simply says that she asked him so sweetly, that Bunsen could not say no to her. Cf. the letter from Weierstraß to Kovalevskaya, 21 September 1874. Reprinted in Bölling 1993, 154.

²³ Concerning Bell's distorting view on Kovalevskaya in general see Michèle Audin's detailed analysis in Audin 2011, chapter 10.

²⁴ It might be noted, however, that there is a certain possibility, that the ‘sincere Catholic’ Weierstraß fathered a child out of wedlock, with the widow of his best friend Borchhardt; cf. Biermann and Schubring 1996.

²⁵ I would like to thank the librarian of the Institute, Mikael Rågstedt, who devoted much time to finding it for me.

²⁶ Please note that Krantz must have used a different English translation.

Additional information

Funding

This research was partially funded by the Stipendienstiftung Rheinland-Pfalz and through a Wiedereinstiegsstipendium des Landes Rheinland-Pfalz für Wissenschaftlerinnen in der Forschung