Maria Aleksandrovna Chekhova, née Argamakova, (18 January 1866 – 8 April 1934) was a Russian socialist

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

suffragette A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...

and

educator A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...

. She was a founder of the Women's Equal Rights Union (''Soiuz Ravnopraviia Zhenshchin'') in 1905 and organized petitions for women's suffrage that were submitted to the

State Duma The State Duma (russian: Госуда́рственная ду́ма, r=Gosudárstvennaja dúma), commonly abbreviated in Russian as Gosduma ( rus, Госду́ма), is the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia, while the upper house ...

(Parliament). She edited the journal of the Union of Women (''Soiuz Zhenshchin'') for several years and served on the organizing committee of the first All-Russian Women's Congress in 1908.

Life

Chekhova was born on 18 January 1866 in

St Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, the capital of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

. Her mother died when she was six years old and her father remarried in 1877. When her father was transferred to

Irkutsk Irkutsk ( ; rus, Иркутск, p=ɪrˈkutsk; Buryat language, Buryat and mn, Эрхүү, ''Erhüü'', ) is the largest city and administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. With a population of 617,473 as of the 2010 Census, Irkutsk is ...

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

three years later, she was happy to live with her grandmother and remain in St Petersburg until her marriage with Nikolai Chekhov in 1890. In the meantime, Chekhova graduated from teacher's courses in 1886 with a major in mathematics. She founded her own school in St Petersburg in 1889 which lasted until 1916. The Chekhovs spent the years 1890 to 1904 living in the provinces where they established several schools and had four daughters and three sons. They moved to Moscow in 1904 where they joined the local teacher's union.

Work

The beginning of

1905 Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution of 1905,. also known as the First Russian Revolution,. occurred on 22 January 1905, and was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. The mass unrest was directed again ...

allowed ordinary citizens to demand for the right to vote, but male liberals were mostly concerned about securing the right to vote for men, without spending any political capital on the same right for women. Chekhova helped to found the Women's Equal Rights Union in February 1905 and was its secretary and sat on its central bureau while her husband was the only man on the bureau.Ruthchild, pp. 95–96

Notes

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Chekhova, Maria 1866 births 1934 deaths Soviet people Feminists from the Russian Empire Women's rights activists from the Russian Empire Socialist feminists