The Mathematical Logic and Female Intuition in the Play “The Struggle for Happiness” by Sofya V. Kovalevskaya and Anne Charlotte Leffler

The article deals with the original dramaturgical experience of Sofya V. Kovalevskaya and Swedish writer A.C. Leffl er, who in the late 1880s created an unparalleled project: a two-part play “The Struggle for Happiness”. In this play, one part represents the real course of events (as they are thought in the realist paradigm), and the second part is a certain utopian version of what happened, taking into account the fact that the heroes realized their mistakes and began to be guided by the possibility of an ideal world order. At fi rst glance, the emergence of utopian foresight does not seem original. But in fact it becomes a literary illustration of Henri Poincaré’s mathematical theory of probability, which is not surprising, since Sofya Kovalevskaya was fascinated by diff erential equations, knowingly assuming a “bundle” of possible solutions. But, having put mathematical knowledge and logic in the basis of the play, she and her co-author reached the philosophical level and asked questions about free will, about the role of randomness in human life. And since Kovalevskaya, together with A.C. Leffl er, were carriers of feminist views, she successfully connected female intuition and sense in solving the problem, which made the female characters play with special colors. As a result, we have a stage work with originally developed characters, with a deep penetration into the inner world of human beings. The article also analyzes the artistic features of the play: complex spatial structures and a nonlinear chronotope, which allow the second part of the drama, “As It Could Be” to be compared to a medieval miracle play.