Maria Tschetschulin (1852–1917), was a Finnish clerk. She was the first woman to attend university in Finland. Maria Tschetschulin, who was of Russian descent through her Russian father, was the daughter of the steam boat owner Feodor Tschetschulin and Hilda Eckstein in Helsinki. After the death of her father and the bankruptcy of her family, she applied for a permission to study to support her family, having three younger sisters. In 1870, she became the first female university student in Finland at the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku (in Swedish ''Åbo'') in 1640 as the ...

. Women were not allowed to study there, but she was given special dispensation to do so, and thus became the first woman in the Nordic countries to do so: though women in Sweden was given the right to attend university the same year, the first woman,

Betty Pettersson Betty Maria Carolina Pettersson (Visby 14 September 1838–7 February Stockholm 1885), was a Swedish teacher. She became the first official female university student in Sweden in 1871. She was also the first female student of Uppsala University ...

, did not enlist at university until the year after. Maria Tschetschulin was the first female to study at university, but she discontinued her studies in 1873 without taking her exam, and the first female graduate was

Emma Irene Åström Emma Irene Åström (27 April 1847 – 3 July 1934) was a Finnish teacher and Finland's first female university graduate. Early life Åström was born in 1847 in Taivassalo, in the Turku and Pori Province of the Grand Duchy of Finland. Her paren ...

in 1882; she described herself as an anti-feminist, and did not wish to attend lectures in the company of only men. After her studies, she successfully worked within the steam boat business of her family. She was sister of the violinist, composer and music teacher

Agnes Tschetschulin Agnes Tschetschulin (24 February 1859 – 23 April 1942) was a Finnish composer and violinist who toured internationally. Tschetschulin was born in Helsinki to Feodor and Hilda Eckstein Tschetschulin. She had three sisters: Maria, Melanie, and E ...

References

kansallisbiografia Suomen kansallisbiografia (National Biography of Finland)
1852 births 1917 deaths People from Helsinki People from Uusimaa Province (Grand Duchy of Finland) Finnish people of Russian descent 19th-century Finnish women {{Finland-academic-bio-stub