Maria Vasilievna Pavlova (; ''née'' Gortynskaia (); June 26, 1854 – December 23, 1938) was a Ukrainian who became a paleontologist and academician in Moscow during the Russian Empire and Soviet era. She is known for her research on the fossils of and the naming of hoofed-mammals of the Tertiary period. She was a professor at

Moscow State University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public university, public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, a ...

. She also made great efforts to establish the Museum of Paleontology at the university. In 1926, the museum was named after her and her second husband, Alexei Petrovich Pavlov, a geologist, paleontologist, and academician who made a significant contribution in the field of stratigraphy.

Early life

Maria Vasillievna Gortynskaia was born in Kozelets,

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

in 1854. She was schooled at home until the age of eleven in 1865. Her secondary education was at the Institute for Noble Maidens in Kiev, which she completed in 1870 at the age of sixteen. Her first marriage was to Illich-Shishatsky, who died shortly after their wedding. In 1880, she moved to Paris to study. She studied a number of

natural history Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

subjects and pursued research at the

National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. With 4.4 ...

in Paris, under Professor

Albert Gaudry Jean Albert Gaudry (16 September 1827 – 27 November 1908) was a French geologist and palaeontologist. He was born at St Germain-en-Laye, and was educated at the Catholic Collège Stanislas de Paris. He was a notable proponent of theistic evolu ...

. She also studied at the

University of Paris The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...

. After graduation from the Sorbonne in 1884, she moved to

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

and married geologist and paleontologist Alexei P. Pavlov, whom she had met in Paris. He was a geologist, a paleontologist, an academician who was a professor at Moscow University and the St. Petersburg Imperial Academy of Sciences. He is known for his significant contributions to the field of

stratigraphy Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers (strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks. Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithost ...

Career

Initially, Pavlova studied the geological collections of the museum at

, working without payment. She moved from submitting papers on Early Cretaceous ammonites from the Volga region, to pursuing research into Tertiary mammals. She studied their evolution, using data collected from Russia, Western Europe, and America. Her work reached and was well-recognized by an international audience. She studied

ungulate Ungulates ( ) are members of the diverse clade Euungulata ("true ungulates"), which primarily consists of large mammals with Hoof, hooves. Once part of the clade "Ungulata" along with the clade Paenungulata, "Ungulata" has since been determined ...

mammals and proboscidians. By 1894 she was working on Russian

mastodon A mastodon, from Ancient Greek μαστός (''mastós''), meaning "breast", and ὀδούς (''odoús'') "tooth", is a member of the genus ''Mammut'' (German for 'mammoth'), which was endemic to North America and lived from the late Miocene to ...

s. In 1897, Pavlova was one of only two women invited to join the organizing committee for and to make presentations at the first

International Geological Congress The International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) is an international non-governmental organization devoted to global cooperation in the field of geology. As of 2023, it represents more than 1 million geoscientists around the world. About Fo ...

(IGC) that was held in St. Petersburg, Russia. She published ''Fossil Elephants'' in 1899. She would go on to describe separate groups of fossil mammals, and to describe complete faunas. For instance, the most completely-known species of the genus ''

Paraceratherium ''Paraceratherium'' is an extinct genus of hornless rhinocerotoids belonging to the family Paraceratheriidae. It is one of the largest terrestrial mammals that has ever existed and lived from the early to late Oligocene epoch (34–23 ...

'' she named in 1922, ''P. transouralicum'', is the basis upon which most reconstructions of paraceratheres are made, though this species is considered by some researchers to be a junior synonym of ''P. asiaticum'' which was named earlier in 1918. Pavlova was made a professor at Moscow State University in 1919. Her extensive work in describing and tracing the genetic lines of many large mammals was derived from the study of collections that would be included in a palaeontological museum at Moscow State University that she was instrumental in founding. In 1926, the museum was named jointly for her and her husband, in recognition of their research. He died in 1929. She went on her last geological expedition in 1931, to the city of

Khvalynsk Khvalynsk is a river port town in Saratov Oblast, Russia, located by the Volga River. Population: 16,000 (1974). It is located on the right bank of the Volga, at the foot of the Khvalynsk Mountains, northeast of Saratov and southwest of S ...

, located in Russia near the Volga River. At the age of 84, Maria Vasilievna Pavlova died on December 23, 1938, in Moscow. She was buried in the Novodevichiy cemetery.

Professional memberships

Pavlova was a member of many Russian scientific organizations, including: * Moscow Society of Naturalists * Honorary Member of the Mineralogical Society (Honorary member) * Moscow Society of Amateurs of Natural Sciences, Anthropology and Ethnography * Russian Geographical Society * Uralian Society of Amateurs of Natural Sciences * Novorossiysk Society of Naturalists * Russian Mining Society * The Academy of Sciences of the USSR (honorary member)

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pavlova, Maria V. 1854 births 1938 deaths Paleontologists from the Russian Empire Soviet paleontologists Honorary members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Women scientists from the Russian Empire Women paleontologists University of Paris alumni Expatriates from the Russian Empire in France People from Kozelets