Gender Aspect of the Professionalization of Philosophy in Russia: Historical and Philosophical Excursion

Abstract

The article is devoted to Mary Bezobrazova, the first among Russian women to receive training in
philosophy. The author describes the main stages of her career and analyses her key works, showing
the range of issues that reflect the spirit of time and her personal preferences (historiography,
theoretical and practical ethics, the women’s movement, education). The focus is on works in the
history of philosophy, and research in the field of Russian thought in particular, where Bezobrazova
was among the few experts, who turned attention to the Old Russian period in the evolution of
thought, and used rare manuscripts as empirical material. Research in the archives and collections,
containing manuscripts, as sources for the study of philosophy, was an innovative method that was
appreciated by few of her contemporaries, but created an elementary basis for further research in the
field of reconstructing the past of the Russian thought.