Lebedeva, Vera

Born Sept. 18 (30), 1881, in Nizhny Novgorod (present-day Gorky); died Dec. 10, 1968, in Moscow. Soviet public health figure; organizer and leader in maternal and infant care in the USSR; doctor of medical sciences (1935). Member of the CPSU (1907).

Lebedeva became involved in the revolutionary movement in 1896 and was an active participant in all three Russian revolutions. Lebedeva graduated from the St. Petersburg Women’s Medical Institute in 1910. From 1912 to 1917 she lived in emigration in Geneva doing Bolshevik party work. From 1918 to 1929 she was head of the department of maternal and infant care of the People’s Commissariat of Public Health of the RSFSR. She was the initiator and creator of the Institute for Maternal and Infant Care (1922) and head of the subdepartment of maternal and infant social hygiene there from 1924 to 1930. She was editor of the journal Okhrana materinstva i mladenchestva (Maternal and Infant Care).

Lebedeva participated in the organization of the first all-Russian and all-Union congresses on maternal and infant care. From 1930 to 1934 she was vice-commissar of social welfare of the RSFSR. From 1934 to 1938 she was deputy chief government inspector of sanitation of the People’s Commissariat of Public Health of the RSFSR. She was director of the Central Institute for the Advanced Training of Physicians from 1938 to 1959. Lebedeva was awarded three Orders of Lenin, an Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and various medals.