Vera Yevstafievna Popova

[1] Bogdanovskaya wanted to work on H-C≡P (methylidynephosphane), but had been persuaded to concentrate instead on dibenzyl ketone by her doctoral supervisor, Professor Carl Gräbe.

Her reputation as a lecturer and her knowledge of teaching enabled her to write her first book, a textbook on basic chemistry.

[4] She wrote reviews, translated academic papers on chemistry and, together with her professor, published the works of Alexander Butlerov, who had died in 1886.

[1] Bogdanovskaya left Saint Petersburg and married General Jacob Kozmich Popov in 1895.

He was older than she and a director of a military steel plant, and she demanded that he build her a laboratory where she could continue her chemistry.

[1] It has been suggested that her marriage may have been one of convenience, as it was known that Russian women sometimes married just to escape the conventions of society.

[2] Her early death led to a fund being created in her memory by her husband to assist female students.

Students at the Bestuzhev Courses ' chemistry laboratory