Marie Bashkirtseva

Marie Bashkirtseff, born Maria Konstantinovna Bashkirtseva (; – 31 October 1884), was an émigré artist who was born into a noble family on their estate near the city of Poltava. to a wealthy noble family. Her father was a local marshal of nobility, Konstantin Pavlovich Bashkirtsev. Her mother Maria Stepanovna Babanina (1833—1920) also belonged to Russian nobles. Her parents separated when she was 12. Bashkirtseff lived just long enough to emerge as an intellectual in Paris in the 1880s. She wrote several articles for Hubertine Auclert's feminist newspaper La Citoyenne in 1881 under the nom de plume "Pauline Orrel." One of her most-quoted sayings is "Let us love dogs, let us love only dogs! Men and cats are unworthy creatures."

Bashkirtseff died in Paris in 1884, and she is buried in Cimetière de Passy, Paris. Her great friend Prince Bojidar Karageorgevitch was present at her deathbed. Her monument is a full-sized artist's studio that has been declared a historic monument by the government of France. Marie Bashkirtseff was included in the 2018 exhibition Women in Paris 1850-1900.

Diary From approximately the age of 13, Bashkirtseff kept a journal, and it is probably for this that she is most famous today. It has been called "a strikingly modern psychological self-portrait of a young, gifted mind", It remained popular, eventually spinning off both plays and movies based on her life story, including The Affairs of Maupassant, directed by Henry Koster and released in the United States in 1938.