Golovina Anastasia

About

Anastasia Golovina is also considered the first female doctor in Bulgaria to have completed higher education, and at the same time, the first professional psychologist in Bulgaria. She was born in 1850 in Chișinău, into a family of Bessarabian Bulgarians, and chose to pursue university studies in medicine at a time when women's access to higher education was extremely limited at the European level. She initially attended courses at the University of Zurich, but after becoming involved in Russian revolutionary movements, she was expelled and continued her studies in Paris, where she obtained her doctorate in 1878 at the Sorbonne with a thesis highly praised by Jean Martin Charcot, dedicated to the histological study of the arterial wall. After graduation, Anastasia Golovina settled in Bulgaria, then a nation newly liberated from Ottoman rule and in profound need of qualified medical personnel. She worked as a doctor in the municipal health service in Targovishte (Tarnovo), at a girls' gymnasium in Sofia, and at the state hospital. Later, she headed a psychiatric department at the state hospital in Varna between 1889 and 1893, thus becoming the first woman to practice her profession within a Bulgarian public hospital. Among her revolutionary achievements in medicine were the systematic introduction of autopsies to determine the cause of death and the promotion of more rigorous hygienic and prophylactic practices, especially during epidemics and wars, in which she participated as a consulting physician. The personal life and public activity of Anastasiya Golovina are closely linked to social commitment and support for vulnerable women and children. She was involved in the Physico-Medical Society, the first medical association in Bulgaria, and played a pioneering role in promoting professional standards and sanitary control. In Varna, she became an emblematic figure in philanthropy, supporting through donations and funds both needy children and the elderly, contributing to the opening of medical centers for children and accessible recreational facilities for disadvantaged families, leaving a lasting legacy in Bulgaria's medical and civic culture.