December 2017

Sofia Kovalevskaya. Dilemmas of the Great Woman

Sofia Kovalevskaya is traditionally considered to be a great Russian female mathematician. However, she has Belarusian origins. Her father, general lieutenant Vasily Korvin-Krukovsky was a representative of an old Lithuanian family; her grandfather was a famous mathematician and her great-grandfather was an even more famous astronomer. Sofia spent her childhood in the family estate of Polybino located in Vitebsk province. She took her first home lessons from the son of a small nobleman, Iosif Ignatievich Malevich, who later published memoirs about his famous pupil in his book “Russian Antiquities” (1890).

The film “Sofia Kovalevskaya. Dilemmas of the Great Woman” was produced by the historical film studio “The Workshop of Vladimir Bokun”. This is the third film about prominent scientists of Belarusian origin.

It took the authors of the film, the script writer Boris Gersten, director Alexei Makarenko, and project manager Vladimir Bokun, more than 7 months of painstaking work to produce it. The filming took place in the Vankovichs’ House in Minsk, in the Korvin-Krukovski family estate in Polybino, and also in the Mittag-Leffler Institute in Stockholm, which is one of the major mathematical research centers of the world founded when Sofia Kovalevskaya was still alive. It was in Sweden that Sofya Kovalevskaya was permitted to teach at a university and was awarded the title of Professor. Director of the Institute Ariy Laptev, Professor at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, and President of the European Mathematical Society took part in the filming. The authors interviewed the historian Olga Gaponenko, the director of the museum in Polybino Valentina Rumyantseva, the Belarusian mathematician Yuri Bykadorov and his foreign colleagues, prominent modern mathematicians Pavel Kurasov, Boris Shapiro, Jan-Eric Bjorkom.

The film was premiered in Velcom Cinema Silver Screen on December 13.

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