Stefania Wolicka

Stefania Wolicka (1851–1937) was a Polish historian and the first woman awarded a Doctorate of Philosophy at the University of Zürich (in 1875).

Biography Wolicka, born in Warsaw (which from 1867 was within the Russian Empire) pursued her history degree despite the efforts of the Russian government of the time to prevent women from pursuing higher education. In 1873 she defied a decree ordering Russian women studying abroad to abandon their studies. Wolicka elected to continue her studies after her request for an exemption from the decree was denied. She petitioned the Minister of Education, Dmitry Tolstoy, directly, without success. The Russian government achieved the expulsion of several women students in Zürich, due to the political threat it saw in radical socialist activists called the "Fritschi Circle" (named after their Zürich landlady, Frau Fritsch). Some were put on trial in Russia, during the Trial of Fifty in 1877, leading to convictions and imprisonment for several. There is no evidence that Wolicka was ever part of this circle, and recent research indicates that some students in Zürich were listed as revolutionaries by the government based solely on the fact that they had attended university in Switzerland during the period 1872–73. However, Wolicka's name was on a list of 45 female Russian students sent to Tolstoy, who were all banned from teaching in the Russian…Citește mai mult

Bibliography Stefania Wolicka (1875). Griechische Frauengestalten. 1. Theil. Zürich. OCLC 48859610.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)