MINSK, 8 April (BelTA) - In a new episode of the V Teme. Nashi [On Point. The Nation’s Pride] project on BelTA’s video channel we explore the question whether Sofya Kovalevskaya could balance normal life and her academic interests, and what she finally chose: to be loved or to devote herself to mathematics?
After her husband’s tragic death, Sofya Kovalevskaya devoted herself completely to science, without giving a thought to the idea of simple family happiness.Then she met Maksim Kovalevsky, a man she fell in love with. However, not everyone supported her choice. “I suppose she got lost in him. I believe he distracted her from studies. He was against it. I even read somewhere that he said: ‘Give up your teaching, give up your mathematics, come to me and we will live as a normal family,’” Academic Secretary of the National academy of Science of Belarus Tatiana Busel said.
But was such a life acceptable for the renowned scientist, the woman who had overcome so much to earn the right to do what she loved? “He asked her to be an ordinary wife, but for Sofya, that would have meant losing herself as a personality. He asked her to abandon her professorship, leave with him, and be a simple wife in the shadow of a great, famous husband,” cognitive behavioral therapist, psychologist Alena Petrovskayaemphasized, adding that by that time Sofya Kovalevskaya had earned a name and recognition. “Therefore, she rejected him. I mean, she spent a long time deciding, they had a passionate romance, but in the end she chose science.”
The psychologist also explained that Sofya’s relationship with her daughter was not as it might have appeared, even considering that the child was raised mostly by nannies. “We have some documentary historical evidence, but in any case, we’ll never truly know what it was like to be in someone’s shoes, how she felt, what she thought; we can’t get inside her head. Perhaps her behavior was simply external actions that concealed her deep personal conflict as she tried to balance the roles of mother and scientist. And in those times, there were neither social institutions nor domestic conditions for combining these roles. Considering how she behaved, we can only guess why it was that: whether she loved her daughter, whether she cherished her, and why other people raised Sofya’s daughter,” the psychologist explained.
But was such a life acceptable for the renowned scientist, the woman who had overcome so much to earn the right to do what she loved? “He asked her to be an ordinary wife, but for Sofya, that would have meant losing herself as a personality. He asked her to abandon her professorship, leave with him, and be a simple wife in the shadow of a great, famous husband,” cognitive behavioral therapist, psychologist Alena Petrovskayaemphasized, adding that by that time Sofya Kovalevskaya had earned a name and recognition. “Therefore, she rejected him. I mean, she spent a long time deciding, they had a passionate romance, but in the end she chose science.”
The psychologist also explained that Sofya’s relationship with her daughter was not as it might have appeared, even considering that the child was raised mostly by nannies. “We have some documentary historical evidence, but in any case, we’ll never truly know what it was like to be in someone’s shoes, how she felt, what she thought; we can’t get inside her head. Perhaps her behavior was simply external actions that concealed her deep personal conflict as she tried to balance the roles of mother and scientist. And in those times, there were neither social institutions nor domestic conditions for combining these roles. Considering how she behaved, we can only guess why it was that: whether she loved her daughter, whether she cherished her, and why other people raised Sofya’s daughter,” the psychologist explained.
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