Sofiia Rusova

Sofiia Fedorivna Rusova (née Lindfors, 1856–1940) was a Ukrainian educator, theorist of preschool and adult education, writer, and one of the founders of the Ukrainian women's movement. She was born on 1 March (18 February, old style) 1856 in Oleshnia, Chernihiv region. In 1871, with her sister Mariia, she opened the first kindergarten in Kyiv. In 1876 she helped her husband, the ethnographer Oleksandr Rusov, publish the full Kobzar of Taras Shevchenko in Prague. For many years she fought for teaching in the native language; in January 1913 she defended it at the women's congress in St Petersburg. In 1917 she was a member of the Ukrainian Central Rada; from 1920 she headed the Ukrainian National Women's Council. From 1922 she lived in emigration, from 1923 in Prague, where she taught pedagogy at the Drahomanov Ukrainian Higher Pedagogical Institute and cared for emigrant children. She spoke at international women's congresses in Rome (1923) and Grenoble (1932) and called on the world to help famine-struck Ukraine. She died in Prague on 5 February 1940 and is buried at Olšany Cemetery.

Collection12