Maria Trubnikova

Maria Vasilievna Trubnikova (; 1835 – 1897) was a Russian feminist and activist. She was, alongside Anna Filosofova (1837–1912) and Nadezhda Stasova (1835–1895), one of the pioneer founders and leaders of the first organised Russian women's movement. Together, the three were referred to as the "triumvirate". Early life Trubnikova was born in 1835. Her father, Vladimir Ivashev, had been a participant in the Decembrist revolt ten years earlier, and consequently been sent to a Siberian exile. Trubnikova's mother, Camille Ledentu (alternately "LeDantieux"), was French. She grew up alongside three siblings, and both her parents passed away at when she was very young (in 1839 and 1840). Her mother died in childbirth. Subsequently, Trubnikova was raised by a wealthier aunt, the Princess Khovanskaia, and received an education. At age 19, she married Konstantin Trubnikov, a wealthy landowner of liberal sympathies. She and Trubnikov had seven children, though only four (all daughters) survived to adulthood. Trubnikov later became a stock trader. Career Trubnikova was influenced by the writings of French writers such as Jules Michelet and Henri de Saint-Simon. A strong personality, Trubnikova mentored other women interested in feminism, and both of her longtime colleagues, Filosofova and Stasova, wrote that they had been "empty-headed" before they met her. She hosted a salon that included a large group of wealthy women concerned with the economic and educational status of women in Russia. Trubnikova's woman-only salon was an offshoot of a larger mixed-gender salon; the scholar Rochelle Ruthchild writes that women who hosted these mixed-gender salons were "often idealized as muses inspiring male creativity." Trubnikova, however, actively sought to educate fellow women on feminist issues, seeing her new salon as a "venue for empowering" them. She used any opportunity to recruit women to her cause, convincing her doctor to send his wife to the salon during a routine appointment. In 1859, Trubnikova (along with Stasova, Filosofova, and others) founded the Society for Cheap Lodgings and Other Benefits for the Citizens of St. Petersburg. The group had two factions, the "German party" and the "Russian party", which differed on their preferred approach. The "Germans" favored a traditional, supervised philanthropy to institutions and supervision of the poor.