Mariia Aleksandrovna Rybnikova

Born Feb. 8 (20), 1885, in Aleksandro-Nevskaia, in what is now Novodere-venskii Raion, Riazan’ Oblast; died June 3, 1942, in Sverdlovsk. Soviet educator and literary scholar.

After graduating from the faculty of history and philology of the Moscow Higher Women’s Courses in 1909, Rybnikova taught at the Viaz’ma Women’s Gymnasium. In 1918 she began working in the Malakhovka secondary school, near Moscow. Subsequently she worked in the second Moscow State University from 1924 to 1931 and in various pedagogical research institutes, including the institute of schools of the People’s Commissariat for Education of the RSFSR.

Rybnikova’s chief works dealt with the methodology of studying literary works, the development of the student’s speech skills, problems of literary theory, stylistics, and oral folk literature. In 1941 she developed a scientifically based course on the methods of teaching literature, which emphasized the formative and educational role of literature in the development of the student’s personality and creative abilities.