In 2001, she was a recipient of the Alexander Koyré Medal of the International Academy of the History of Science.

In 1950 her husband, mathematician Andrei I. Lapin, was arrested for his opposition to Lysenkoism, but in part due to Bashmakova's efforts he was freed again in 1952.

[5] Bashmakova's dissertation concerned the history of definitions of integers and rational numbers, from Euclid and Eudoxus to Zolotarev, Dedekind, and Kronecker.

She used complex numbers to reinterpret the geometric transformations studied by François Viète.

[1][2] She has also studied the history of algebraic curves, and translated the works of Fermat into Russian.