Maria Tschetschulin

Maria Tschetschulin in 1870's.

Maria Tschetschulin (31 July 1852 Helsinki, Grand Duchy of Finland – 19 September 1917 Helsinki), was a Finnish clerk. She was the first woman to attend university in Finland and in Nordic countries.

Maria Tschetschulin, who was of Russian descent through her Russian father, was the daughter of the steam boat owner and businessman, Commercial Counsellor Feodor Tschetschulin (1818–1871) and Hilda Eckstein in Helsinki.

Maria was a child possessed of a "restless desire for activity and indomitable energy." Thanks to her father’s wealth, she was able to attend Professor Wohlstedt’s private German school in Helsinki and Lecturer Bardy’s French school for young ladies, while also taking special private courses at the boys' school, Helsingfors Lyceum.

Father Feodor wanted Maria to pursue higher education at the Imperial Alexander University—something no young lady had done before. He submitted a controversial petition to the university’s consistory (the body comprising all professors). Initial reactions were met with skeptical smiles, and Vice-Chancellor Casimir von Kothen, in particular, scorned this attempt at "emancipation."

With the help of her father and due to her wealthy family, she applied for a permission to study. In 1870, she became the first female university student in Finland at the University of Helsinki. Women were not allowed to study there, but she was given special dispensation from the Chancellor, Emperor Alexander III to do so. He was pleased that a woman of Russian background wished to become the first woman to earn a university degree.

Thus she 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, 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. After the death of her father in 1871 and the bankruptcy of her family, she had to support her family, having three younger sisters. The first female graduate was Emma Irene Åström in 1882; Maria 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.

She was sister of the violinist, composer and music teacher Agnes Tschetschulin.

Sources

• kansallisbiografia Suomen kansallisbiografia (National Biography of Finland)