Russian Women of the 20th Century Quiz

Answer: Poetry

Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) was one of the most important Russian poets of the 20th century. Born Anna Gorenko near Odessa, she adopted the pen name Akhmatova after her father reportedly objected to her publishing poetry under the family name. She became a leading figure of Acmeism, a literary movement that favoured clarity and precision over the mysticism of Russian Symbolism.

The political turmoil of Soviet Russia had a profound impact on her life. Her first husband, the poet Nikolay Gumilyov, was executed in 1921, and her son Lev Gumilyov was repeatedly arrested and imprisoned. Akhmatova herself was denounced by the Soviet authorities and her poetry was banned from publication for extended periods.

Her most famous work, "Requiem", grew out of the Stalinist terror of the 1930s. It describes the suffering of women waiting outside prisons for news of arrested relatives, an experience Akhmatova knew personally while her son was imprisoned. As writing it down was dangerous, parts of the work were memorised by trusted friends rather than kept on paper. "Requiem" was not published in full in the Soviet Union until 1987, over twenty years after Akhmatova's death.

Answer: Ballet

Anna Pavlova (1881-1931) was one of the most famous ballet dancers of the early 20th century. Born in Saint Petersburg, she studied at the Imperial Ballet School and joined the Imperial Ballet in 1899. Although her slender physique differed from the powerful build then considered ideal for a ballerina, she rose rapidly through the company and became a prima ballerina in 1906.

Pavlova became particularly famous for "The Dying Swan", a short solo created for her by choreographer Mikhail Fokine in 1905 to music by Camille Saint-Saëns. The piece became closely associated with her, and she performed it thousands of times during her career. She also appeared briefly with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes before forming her own company.

Unlike many leading ballet dancers of her era, Pavlova toured extensively around the world, performing in Europe, North and South America, Asia and Australia. Her tours helped introduce classical ballet to audiences who had rarely or never seen it before. She died of pneumonia in The Hague in 1931, shortly before her 50th birthday. The famous dessert known as the pavlova was named in her honour, although Australia and New Zealand have long disputed where it was first created.

Answer: Spaceflight

Valentina Tereshkova (born 1937) became the first woman in space when she flew aboard Vostok 6 in June 1963. Born in a village in central Russia, she worked in a textile factory and became an enthusiastic amateur parachutist. Although she had no experience as a pilot, her parachuting skills helped her to qualify for the Soviet space programme, which selected her from more than 400 applicants.

Tereshkova was just 26 when Vostok 6 was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. During her mission, she orbited the Earth 48 times and spent almost three days in space. Her radio call sign was "Chaika", meaning "seagull". The flight took place at the same time as Vostok 5, piloted by Valery Bykovsky, and the two spacecraft came within a few kilometres of each other.

After her flight, Tereshkova became a prominent public figure in the Soviet Union and held a number of political positions. It would be another 19 years before the next woman traveled into space, when fellow Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya flew aboard Soyuz T-7 in 1982.

Answer: Sculpture

Vera Mukhina (1889-1953) was one of the most prominent Soviet sculptors of the 20th century. Born in Riga, then part of the Russian Empire, she studied art in Moscow and later continued her training in Paris. After the Russian Revolution, she became closely associated with the development of Soviet monumental art and eventually received some of the country's highest artistic honours.

Her best-known work is "Worker and Kolkhoz Woman", a monumental stainless-steel sculpture created for the Soviet pavilion at the 1937 International Exposition in Paris. The 24.5-metre-high work depicts a male industrial worker and a female collective-farm worker striding forward together while holding a hammer and sickle above their heads. The Soviet pavilion stood directly opposite that of Nazi Germany, turning the two monumental structures into a striking architectural confrontation between the rival regimes.

After the exhibition, the sculpture was moved to Moscow, where it became one of the most recognisable images of Soviet art. Since 1947, an image based on Mukhina's sculpture has also appeared at the beginning of films produced by the Mosfilm studio. Today, "Worker and Kolkhoz Woman" stands near the Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy in Moscow.

Answer: Painting

Natalia Goncharova (1881-1962) was a pioneer of the Russian avant-garde and one of the most influential painters of her generation. Born in the Tula region south of Moscow, she studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. There she met the artist Mikhail Larionov, who became her lifelong partner. Her work drew on a wide range of influences, from Russian folk art and Orthodox icons to Cubism and Futurism.

Together with Larionov, Goncharova helped develop Rayonism, an abstract art movement based on the depiction of light rays reflected from objects. She was also associated with several radical Russian art groups and attracted controversy with exhibitions that combined religious imagery with modern artistic styles. Her large retrospective in Moscow in 1913 included hundreds of works and helped to establish her as a major figure of the Russian avant-garde.

In 1915, Goncharova left Russia to work with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, designing sets and costumes for productions including "The Golden Cockerel". She eventually settled permanently in Paris, where she continued to paint and work for the theatre. In 2007, one of her paintings sold for almost £5 million, at the time setting a world auction record for a work by a female artist.

Answer: Sport / Gymnastics

Larisa Latynina (born 1934) is one of the most successful gymnasts in Olympic history. Born in Kherson, in what is now Ukraine, she initially trained as a ballet dancer before turning to gymnastics. Representing the Soviet Union, she competed at three Olympic Games - Melbourne in 1956, Rome in 1960 and Tokyo in 1964 - and won medals at all three.

Over the course of her Olympic career, Latynina won 18 medals: nine gold, five silver and four bronze. She was particularly successful in the individual all-around and floor exercise, winning both events at consecutive Olympics in 1956 and 1960. At the Melbourne Games, she even competed while several months pregnant, a fact she kept secret at the time.

For 48 years, Latynina held the record for the most Olympic medals won by any athlete. Her total of 18 was finally surpassed by American swimmer Michael Phelps at the 2012 London Olympics. After retiring from competition, she became head coach of the Soviet women's gymnastics team and helped to guide it to team gold medals at the 1968, 1972, and 1976 Olympic Games.

Answer: Acting

Tatiana Samoilova (1934-2014) was a Soviet and Russian actress who achieved international fame for her role in the 1957 war drama "The Cranes Are Flying". Born in Leningrad into an artistic family, she studied at the prestigious Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute in Moscow. Her father, Yevgeny Samoilov, was himself a well-known Soviet actor.

In "The Cranes Are Flying", Samoilova played Veronika, a young woman whose life is transformed by the Second World War after her boyfriend leaves for the front. The film won the Palme d'Or at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival, becoming the only Soviet feature film ever to receive the festival's highest prize. Samoilova's performance brought her international recognition and a special mention from the festival jury.

She later played the title role in Aleksandr Zarkhi's 1967 film adaptation of Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina", which was selected to compete at Cannes the following year. Despite her early international success, Samoilova appeared in relatively few films and largely disappeared from the screen for many years. She returned to acting in the 1990s and was awarded the title "People's Artist of Russia" in 1992.

Answer: Opera

Galina Vishnevskaya (1926-2012) was one of the leading Soviet opera singers of the 20th century. Born in Leningrad, she survived the siege of the city during the Second World War and began her professional career singing operetta. In 1952, despite having little formal musical training, she joined the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, where she became its principal soprano.

Vishnevskaya performed many of opera's major roles, including Tatiana in Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin", Aida in Verdi's opera of the same name and Cio-Cio-San in Puccini's "Madama Butterfly". She also performed internationally at major opera houses including London's Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera in New York and La Scala in Milan. Dmitri Shostakovich wrote the soprano part of his Symphony No. 14 specifically for her.

She was married to the celebrated cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich. The couple openly supported the dissident writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and allowed him to live at their country home, bringing them into conflict with the Soviet authorities. They left the Soviet Union in 1974, and their citizenship was revoked four years later. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, they were able to return to Russia, and Vishnevskaya later founded an opera centre in Moscow.

Answer: Microbiology

Zinaida Yermolyeva (1898-1974) was a Soviet microbiologist whose research focused particularly on cholera and antibiotics. Born in what is now the Rostov region of Russia, she studied medicine at Don University and became interested in cholera while still a student. In 1922, during an outbreak of the disease, she deliberately infected herself with cholera bacteria as part of an experiment investigating how the infection developed and could be prevented.

During the Second World War, Yermolyeva worked on measures to control infectious diseases among Soviet troops and civilians. During the Battle of Stalingrad, she helped to prevent a threatened cholera epidemic by organising the large-scale production and distribution of bacteriophages and introducing measures to disinfect drinking water. For this work, she was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1943.

Yermolyeva also led Soviet research into penicillin. Her team developed a domestically produced antibiotic known as crustosin, which began to be used during the war to treat wounded soldiers. She later headed the Department of Microbiology and Laboratory of New Antibiotics at the Central Institute for Advanced Medical Studies in Moscow and contributed to the development and study of several other antibiotics.

Answer: Popular music

Alla Pugacheva (born 1949) is a Russian singer whose career began during the Soviet era. Born in Moscow, she studied music from childhood and began performing professionally in the 1960s. Her breakthrough came in 1975 when she won the Golden Orpheus song contest in Bulgaria with "Arlekino". The song became a major hit in the Soviet Union and was released in several languages.

During the following decades, Pugacheva recorded songs in a variety of styles and performed throughout the Soviet Union and abroad. She also appeared in several musical films, including "The Woman Who Sings" (1978), in which she played a fictionalised version of herself. The film was seen by more than 50 million people in the Soviet Union. In 1991, shortly before the country ceased to exist, she was awarded the title People's Artist of the USSR.

Pugacheva represented Russia at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1997 with "Primadonna", finishing 15th. She continued to appear regularly on Russian television after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 2022, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, she publicly criticised the war and asked the Russian authorities to designate her a "foreign agent" after her husband, comedian Maxim Galkin, had been given that status.