Vladimir Onufrievich Kovalevsky (Russia: Владимир Онуфриевич Ковалевский; 2 August 1842 – 15 April 1883) was a Russian academic and paleontologist. One of the first adopters of

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...

in Russia, he is most notable for his early work on the evolution of the

Hippomorpha Odd-toed ungulates, mammals which constitute the taxonomic order Perissodactyla (, ), are animals—ungulates—who have reduced the weight-bearing toes to three (rhinoceroses and tapirs, with tapirs still using four toes on the front legs) o ...

family. Brother of Alexander Kovalevsky. He married Sofia Kovalevskaya, and had a daughter named Sofia, nicknamed 'Fufa'. After spending some years together as a couple, Vladimir, financially ruined, a victim of depression and unable to support his wife and daughter, committed suicide.

Early life

Vladimir Kovalevsky was born in Vitebsk providence, outside of Palibino, the youngest of two children. His father, Onufry Osipovich Kovalevsky, was a Russianized Polish landowner and his mother, Polina Petrovna, was Russian. He spent his entire childhood at the estate, and was tutored until the age of 16. He had a grounding in foreign languages, and during his last year at Imperial School of Jurisprudence he earned money by translating books. After graduating in 1861, he gained employment at the Department of Heraldry but asked to travel abroad for his health. After traveling to

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

, Tübingen,

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, and

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...

, he settled in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

where he taught the daughter of exiled radical Alexander Herzen. This attracted the attention of the agents of the tzar. When he returned home, he published many scientific texts and, in 1866, Herzen's "Who is to Blame" of which the entire printing was burned by order of the censors. After his engagement to a young radical woman was broken, he met Sofia Kovalevskaya (''

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

'' Korvin-Krukovskaya) and the two were "fictitiously" married 27 September 1868.

Importance of work

Kovalevsky edited many scientific books, and on 27 February 1867 he wrote to Charles Darwin about translating his latest book, '' The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication''. His translation work was so fast that the Russian copy of ''Variation'' was published several months before the "original" English version. He also translated '' The Descent of Man'', which he and Sofia had to carry through Prussian lines into besieged Paris during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, and ''

The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals ''The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals'' is Charles Darwin's third major work of evolutionary theory, following ''On the Origin of Species'' (1859) and ''The Descent of Man'' (1871). Initially intended as a chapter in ''The Descen ...

''. In his lifetime, his only original work was his thesis, ''On the Osteology of the Hyopotamidae'', in which he "documented the most famous evolutionary story of all", the transformation of a small ancestor with many toes into the large, single-toed modern horse. He also identified the primary basis for this transformation, which was a shift in their environment from eating leaves in the woodlands and marshes to grazing grass on the open plains.

Return to Russia and suicide

Kovalevsky returned with his wife to Russia by 1878, with the hopes of becoming a professor of

paleontology Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

, which he was unable to attain in Europe. In October, they had a child by the name of Sofya, who they called "Foufie". However, the teaching job did not come through. Kovalevsky subsequently entered a bad business situation which led to his disgrace. Humiliated, Kovalevsky committed suicide.

Selected works

References

External links