Vera Pavlovna Lebedeva (; September 18, 1881 – December 10, 1968) was a Soviet physician known for her political activity and her successful efforts to reduce

infant mortality Infant mortality is the death of young children under the age of 1. This death toll is measured by the infant mortality rate (IMR), which is the probability of deaths of children under one year of age per 1000 live births. The under-five morta ...

in the nation.

Early life and education

Lebedeva was born in Nizhny Novgorod in 1881; her father, a cook, died in 1892, leaving the family dependent on charity. Despite this, Lebedeva graduated from the gymnasium and earned a gold medal, then took a job as a schoolteacher in a rural area. By 1901, she was financially stable enough to attend the Women's Medical Institute in Saint Petersburg, but was expelled twice due to her political activities. Lebedeva joined the Bolshevik faction of the

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; in , ''Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)''), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a socialist pol ...

in 1907 and was a participant in the Russian Revolution of 1905–1907. She eloped to Finland with the Bolshevik,

Pavel Lebedev-Polianskii Pavel Ivanovich Lebedev-Polianskii (Russian: Па́вел Ива́нович Ле́бедев-Поля́нский; 21 December 1881 – 4 April 1948) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and later a prominent Soviet state functionary, literary schola ...

, and then fled to Geneva in the interim, but graduated from the Institute in 1910.

Career

Though she was fired from her first job as a district physician in Russia for political activity, Lebedeva soon returned to Geneva, where her political views were more accepted. Beginning in 1912, she was an obstetrician/gynecologist in Geneva. In 1917 she became returned to Russia and came back to the nascent Soviet Union for good. Her first position in the new country was as the director of the Central Institute for Protection of Motherhood and Infancy; she chaired that institute from 1918 to 1930. There, she instituted the world's first public health program aimed at reducing infant mortality. The innovative program consisted of a network of nurseries and preschools, each staffed with a qualified pediatrician who could monitor the children's health and advise parents. The program was very successful. She also supported legalized abortion as a positive policy that supported women in the workforce. Lebedeva also worked to procure donations from the

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carneg ...

for Soviet relief campaigns. In 1924, she attended a congress of the Medical Women's International Association. During this time she also ran the American Medical Women's Association's medical relief efforts in the Caucasus region. Lebedeva's career in public health grew as she was charged with researching disabilities (from 1931–1934), and then as a state public health inspector, from 1934–1938. For the next 12 years, she directed Moscow's Central Institute of Advanced Training for Physicians.

Honors

Lebedeva was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour and the Order of Lenin, the latter three times.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lebedeva, Vera 1881 births 1968 deaths 20th-century Russian women scientists People from Nizhny Novgorod Russian Social Democratic Labour Party members Recipients of the Order of Lenin Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Russian obstetricians Soviet obstetricians and gynaecologists Soviet women scientists Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery