Efrussi Polina

About

Polina (Perl) Osipovna Efrussi was born on August 22, 1876, in Chișinău, into the family of a Jewish merchant and banker, and became one of the first women in the Bessarabian region to achieve recognition in academic psychology. She studied at the girls' gymnasium in Chișinău, then worked as an arithmetic teacher at the Jewish vocational school for girls, an experience that strengthened her interest in pedagogy and modern teaching methods. Later, she continued her education at universities in Berlin, Breslau, and Göttingen, where she worked in G. E. Müller's experimental psychology laboratory and defended her doctoral thesis on memory, contributing to the development of experimental research in the field. In her scientific career, Polina Efrussi worked as a professor and researcher at the Leningrad Institute for the Study of the Brain and Psychic Activity, a leading institution in Soviet psychology research. She lectured on the psychology of speech and thought and conducted activities at the Pedagogical Museum, with a particular interest in experimental psychology, child psychology, developmental disabilities, school education, defectology, and forensic psychology. Through her articles and studies, she supported the transition from pedagogical observation to the scientific investigation of mental processes, during a period when psychology was rapidly modernizing in Eastern Europe. Regarding her personal life, public information is mainly related to her origins and family. She was born into the family of Iosif Efrussi and Riva Blank, part of a large and educated family from which other well-known figures in fields such as economics, journalism, and science also emerged. She lived until October 29, 1942, when she died in Mineralnye Vody, in a historical context marked by war and persecution. Her legacy remains important for the intellectual history of Chișinău and for the affirmation of women in psychological sciences in Eastern Europe.