Bestuzhev Courses

{{Short description|Imperial Russian women's education institution}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2025}}{{Use British English|date=January 2025}}

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The Bestuzhev Courses ({{langx|ru|Бестужевские курсы}}) in Saint Petersburg were the largest and most prominent women's higher education institution in Imperial Russia.Rochelle Goldberg Ruthchild. Equality and Revolution: Women's Rights in the Russian Empire, 1905-1917. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010. {{ISBN|978-0-8229-6066-9}}. Page 56.

The institute opened its doors in 1878. It was named after Konstantin Bestuzhev-Ryumin, the first director. However, the actual lead organizing force was provided by women: Nadezhda Stasova, Anna Filosofova, and several others.{{Cite book |title=A Biographical Dictionary of Women's Movements and Feminisms: Central, Eastern, and South Eastern Europe, 19th and 20th Centuries |publisher=Central European University Press |year=2006 |isbn=9786155053726 |editor-last=de Haan |editor-first=Francisca |editor-link=Francisca de Haan |pages=526–9 |editor-last2=Daskalova |editor-first2=Krassimira |editor-link2=Krassimira Daskalova |editor-last3=Loutfi |editor-first3=Anna }}{{Cite book |last=Rappaport |first=Helen |title=Encyclopedia of women social reformers |date=2001 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-57607-101-4 |volume=2 |location=Santa Barbara, Calif. |pages=671–2 }}

Other professors included Baudouin de Courtenay, Alexander Borodin, Faddei Zielinski, Dmitry Mendeleyev, Ivan Sechenov, and Sergey Platonov. An assistant professor there was Vera Bogdanovskaya, the first female chemist to die as a result of her own research.{{cite journal |last=Elder |first=Eleanor S |title=The Deadly Outcome of Chance-Vera Estaf'evna Bogdanovskaia |journal=Journal of Chemical Education |date=April 1979 |volume=56 |issue=4 |pages=251–2 |doi=10.1021/ed056p251 |bibcode=1979JChEd..56..251E |display-authors=etal }} Nadezhda Krupskaya and Maria Piłsudska were among the graduates. The courses occupied a purpose-built edifice on Vasilievsky Island.{{fact|date=June 2023}}

After the Russian Revolution, they were reorganized as the Third University of Petrograd, which was merged into the Petrograd University in September 1919.[http://www.encspb.ru/article.php?kod=2804011750 The encyclopaedia of St. Petersburg] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101214203241/http://www.encspb.ru/article.php?kod=2804011750 |date=14 December 2010 }}