Praskovia Arian


Praskovia Naumovna Arian, née Belenkaia, was a Russian writer, translator, feminist and educator. She founded the annual First Women's Calendar covering women's issues in Russia and later the :ru:Высшие женские политехнические курсы|First Women’s Technical Institute. She wrote articles under the pseudonym "Ar.". In the 1930s she taught courses for workers at the Kirov Plant in Leningrad.

Life

Arian was born to Jewish parents in either 1864 or 1865 in St. Petersburg, the capital of the Russian Empire. While a student in the physics and mathematics section of the St Petersburg Bestuzhev Higher Women’s Courses, Arian became radicalized. She completed her coursework, but failed to take her final exams. The date of her marriage to process engineer Miron Isaevich Arian is unknown.

Work

Arian was a translator and journalist, writing for a variety of publications including :ru:Биржевые ведомости|Stock Market Gazette and Art and Life, to name just two. She founded a daycare center for workers in St. Petersburg in 1884 and worked there for the next decade. In 1889, she founded the First Women's Calendar covering a wide range of issues of interest to women, including coverage of the major feminist organization and their congresses. Published annually until 1915, Arian was the publisher, editor and compiler of the Calendar. The writer Maxim Gorky, the radical activist Vera Figner, the artist Ilia Repin and the psychologist Vladimir Bekhterev all contributed to the Calendar.

First Women's Calendar