Writing as a form of communication between the scientific community and women-historians in the second half of the XIXth - early XXth centuries

In today's national historiography the traditional areas of research are being reconsidered, new areas of research interests are being identified and new concepts are being developed. These processes occur in the context of interdisciplinarity, the use of other methods of social sciences (sociology, psychology), interest in the micro-level studies, the emergence of new historical subdisciplines, one of which being the history of women. In 1990s an attempt was made to interpret the women's place in the history of the present new historical subdiscipline - the history of women. A woman became an object of the research, while the subject of research was women's experience, women's social practices, the women's existence, scope and means of influence. In the Russian scientific community there was a long-standing tradition of denying women's participation in science, because this area of activity has long been considered a male one. The university charter for higher education of 1863 gave no chance for the women to participate in a scientific life of the academic community. The only way for Russian women was to go abroad. As a result, they studied in Switzerland, France and Germany. In this difficult period communication helped women to survive and to develop the understanding with the scientific community. It was communication that gave the women-historians the opportunity to join the historical community and gain recognition. Exploring the questions above, the authors use the following sources: correspondence of M. A. Ostrovskaya, O. A. Dobiash-Rozhdenstvenskaya, M. A. Kholodnyak, A. Ya. Efimenko and E. N.Shchepkina with S. F. Platonov; S. K. Bryullova's correspondence with A. N. Pypin, correspondence of O. A. Dobiash-Rozhdestvenskaya with A. S. Lappo-Danilevsky and A. L. Nikitin, correspondence of N. A. Belozerskiy with D. L. Mordovtseva.