Biografia
Sofya Alexandrovna Yanovskaya was born in Pruzhany, a small Polish village (current Belarus) on January 31, 1896, in the bosom of a humble Jewish family. Her father, Alexander Neimark, was an accountant. She lived in Russia for most of her life, devoted to studying and education.
At the age of 9, her family moved to Odessa (Ukraine). There, she learned classics and mathematics. She was a student of Ivan Yurévich Timchenko, a renowned figure in the study of the history of mathematics.
In 1915 she joined the feminine institute in Odessa, which depended on the university. There, with the help of Samuil Osipovich Shatunovsky, she learned mathematical logic, group theory, number theory and geometry. The axiomatic method was used to lay the logic foundations of geometry, algebraic fields, the "Galois" theory, etc.
She quit studying after the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917 and played an active role in politics with the Communist party: first in secrecy and then as the editor of the Kommunist newspaper in Odessa. She joined the Red Cross to help political prisoners and acted as a commissary in the Red Army.
In 1923, the Commissariat of Education proposed that the most qualified workers should study in order to make up for the years of backwardness in the proletariat's studies, so, in 1924, Sofya endeavoured to make up for lost time by enrolling in Moscow at the Red Teachers' Institute, attached to the State University.
In 1928 she published her first work, entitled On Hegel and the Nature of Mathematics. In 1930, she published Idealism in the Contemporary Philosophy of Mathematics, and she also wrote The Immediate Tasks of Marxist Mathematicians, which was featured in the article collection Under the Flag of Marxism. In 1933, she wrote the article The Mathematical Manuscripts of Marx.
In 1935, she obtained a doctorate in mathematics. That same year, she met the mathematician and philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. After days of heated debate, she convinced him that the ways of teaching mathematics in the Western world were obsolete.
During this period, together with her university colleagues, she developed the study technique called "non-standard analysis", where mathematical problems are approached from different points, formulating the "pros" and "cons" of a thesis in a dialectical way. The innovative thing was that, even in already set and accepted analysis and synthesis, everything is in motion, since nothing is everlasting. This approach to study had a very direct impact on medicine, chess, space science, educational training, agriculture, physics, chemistry and all the statements in the research books of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Besides, she also considerably influenced the academic world in China.
She had to flee Moscow during World War II. In 1941, she helped by evacuating people and, for a brief period, she settled in Perm, where she taught general algebra.
In 1943, she came back to Moscow, but as a Director of the Logics Department at Moscow's State University. Her master classes created an incredible school of mathematicians who amazed the world. She always taught theory, but with an everyday problem approach, connected to persistence. Her method was simple: not to follow well-worn paths, to innovate, to continually ask oneself: what am I doing, where am I going, why is a theory the way it is?
One of her greatest achievements is the practical application of logics in the teachings of the entire Soviet Union.
Sofya's style of learning spread to all Soviet high schools and universities, constituting an essential development of logic for all Soviet students and later om of the system of scientific treatment of mathematics worldwide. Some of her students were great researchers such as Isabella Grigoryevna Bashmakova (1921–2005), Eugene Borisovich Dynkin (1924–2014), Olga Arsenievna Oleinik (1925–2001), Mikhail Mikhailovich Postnikov (1927– 2004), N.I. Styazhkin (author of History of Mathematical Logic from Leibniz to Peano, Cambridge, Mass./ London, MIT Prensa, 1969), Evguenii Kasimírivich Voishvillo (author of The Concept As a Way of Thought, 1989) and Adolf-Andréi Pávlovich Yushkévich (1906-1993).
With the influence of her professor, Ivan Yurévich Timchenko, Sophia also became interested in the history of mathematics. She studied Greek and Latin texts in depth and wrote for many Soviet magazines and publications, as it is detailed in the "Works" section.
She worked on the philosophy, the logic and the history of mathematics. She made several publications in those fields, such as Descartes' Geometry, Theory of Fractions in Egypt, Paradox of Zeno of Elea, etc.
In 1966, she published her last article "On The Role of Mathematical Rigour in The Creative Development of Mathematics".
Yanovskaya published two studies, considered some of the most important for the people in the Soviet Union: History of Mathematical Logic in the USSR between 1917 and 1957.
In 1951, she was awarded the Order of Lenin, the highest civilian decoration for the Soviets, because of her contribution to the incredible development of mathematics.
She died from diabetes in Moscow, on October 25, 1966.
Extracted from Sofía Aleksandrovna Janovskaja, <https://ztfnews.wordpress.com/2014/01/31/sofia-aleksandrovna-janovskaja/>, (25/03/2022)
Extracted From Sofía Alexandrovna Yanovskaya, <https://es.slideshare.net/AlejandroApezteguaTorres/sofa-alexandrovna-yanovskaya>, (25/03/2022)
