"Essay on the history of fossil ungulates" by Academician M. V. Pavlova as phenomenon in the world palaeozoological science (end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries)

Abstract

The objective of the research is to reveal the main areas of research of Academician M. V. Pavlova in scientific works "Essay on the history of fossil ungulates" in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to show the contribution of these works to the world of palaeozoological science. The scientific novelty is that the life path and academic heritage of academician M. V. Pavlova was investigated in complex in the context of the development of Palaeozoology for the first time in Ukrainian historiography, and her scientific biography was reconstructed; the history of domestic palaeozoology is presented through the prism of M. V. Pavlova work and her scientific school; the published and handwritten works of the scientist were analyzed, which enabled to deepen the knowledge about the history of the national palaeozoological science and its influence on the development of world science. She demonstrated the importance of fossil mammal research for stratigraphic constructions. The founder of paleontology, as a scholarly discipline, is considered a prominent George Cuvier. Also, Paleontology and its section of Palaeozoology were created, such world-renowned scholars as Albert Godry, Otniel Marsh, Edward Cop, Volodymyr Kovalevsky, Melchior Neumire, Louis Dollo, Henry Osbourne, and others. To this galaxy of scientists-paleozoologist belongs also our compatriot, academician M. V. Pavlova (1854-1938). It was established that Maria Vasylivna Pavlova (in the girlhood M. V. Gortynskaya) is an entire era in the development of Palaeozoology. She is an outstanding specialist in the study of fossil mammals, the organizer and promoter of Palaeozoology Science. Maria Vasylivna is a world-class paleozoologist, a well-known specialist in scientific circles who was personally familiar with many prominent paleo scientists, for example, Albert Godri, who was her teacher at the Sorbonne, and with Henry Osborne she studied together at the same university, supported the connections with him all her life. The first woman-paleontologist, woman-professor, female academician in the Russian Empire, thanks to whom the domestic paleontology was allocated to independent biological science and which, with its research, laid the foundation for the development of paleontology (palaeozoology) in Ukraine. Works on the history of a large number of groups of fossil ungulates ended one of the cycles of M. V. Pavlova works, that showed the monophyletic development of most of the ungulates, the number of Tertiary and Quaternary faunas in the territory of the Russian Empire and in general in Ukraine.