This book explores portraits of significant women living in central and southeastern Europe whose lives and activities remain unknown, uncovering their lifestyles as well as the social entanglements relating to their education. The book also examines transnationality and modernity, arguing that during the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries transculturality as a cultural marker was in contrast with national fallacies. In addition to this, it provides insight into the controversies concerning women’s social standing, and it investigates the prevailing social norms, restrictions, and biases that affected their lives. The book draws on a wide range of original printed sources such as school archives, government documents, newspapers, and journals as well as secondary sources of literature.

Polly Thanailaki holds a PhD in Modern History from Democritus University of Thrace, Greece, and was a visiting scholar at Harvard University, USA. Her previous publications include Gender Inequalities in Rural European Communities During 19th and Early 20th Century: A Historical Perspective (Springer, 2018) and Gendered Stereotypes and Female Entrepreneurship in Southern Europe, 1700-1900 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).