Little Sparrow: A Portrait of Sophia Kovalevsky

by Don H. Kennedy

Little Sparrow is the first complete biography in any language of Sophia Kovalevsky, the nineteenth-century Russian mathematical genius, champion of equal education for women, and first woman professor of higher mathematics. She pushed the development of analytical mathematics — such as ultraelliptical functions — beyond that of anybody before her. From the French Academy of Science she won an award as important as the later Nobel prize. Sophia Kovalevsky was born January 15, 1850, into the Russian nobility, daughter of a general, descendant on the paternal side from a Hungarian king and on the maternal side from German astronomers. She joined the nihilist movement at age 16. At age 18, in order to escape Russia and study abroad, she obtained parental permission to enter a marriage, which for five years remained platonic. Though a woman, she obtained special permission to study at Heidelberg. When rejected for higher study at Berlin University, she was accepted as a special pupil by the foremost mathematics teacher of the age, Professor Karl Theodore William Weierstrass. After receiving a Gottingen doctorate magnacum laude, in abstentia, she returned to Russia to enter the intellectual life of St. Petersburg, to consummate her marriage, and to bear a daughter. She was a friend of Dostoevsky, Turgenev, George Eliot, and other literary lights of the period, and she wrote an account of her Russian childhood that was considered on a par with Tolstoy’s book on his youth. Kennedy’s work focuses less on the professional mathematician than on the unusual woman whose life reflects the plight of the female intellectual and scientist in Russia and Europe late in the century.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography

341 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1982

Reviews

[Laura Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not long ago while browsing in a used bookstore in Madison, Wis., I came across "Little Sparrow" and pulled it from the shelf with great excitement. Having already read "Nihilist Girl" by Sofia Kovalevskaya, I became interested in the author's life when reading an introduction which was just as intriguing as the novel. Unfortunately, I discovered her autobiography is out of print, thus out of my price range, and feared never getting the chance to delve into her life story. Hence my enthusiasm with my find.

"Little Sparrow" is a well-written and thorough biography of a pioneering woman in the field of mathematics, an author and an early feminist. Several excerpts from "Recollections of a Russian Childhood" (her autobiography) are also interspersed in the narrative, giving me a taste of what I am missing. Maybe some day I will scrape together the funds to procure a copy.

I did have one question with this biography, however, regarding the elusive identity of Mr. H. If excerpts were included from letters Sofia wrote to him, how can his identity be a mystery? Wouldn't his name be on the letters or the envelope? And wouldn't the person in possession of the letters know to whom they once belonged? Seemed kind of strange.

I really think the author captured Sofia's brilliance and complex personality very well. I thoroughly enjoyed the read.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Too much happiness" does describe her life. She was a very intense person , very smart, and very demanding on those whom she chose to have a personal relationship with.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kovalevsky was a complex woman, brought up in the Russian aristocracy in mid-19th c. She received the first doctorate ever awarded to a woman in mathematics in Europe, after overcoming the strong objections of the academic establishment throughout Europe. Good descriptions of a Russian childhood on a huge estate and early socialism and communism directions and nihilism phosophy .

[Rita]

1982
Highly recommended by Alice Munro, who used this bio to write her wonderful story 'Too Much Happiness'