Vera Kovarsky
Vera Kovarsky (born Vera Rebeka Emila Kovarsky) was a French psychologist who focused on educational guidance and left-handed children. She was born on February 4, 1896, in Daugavpils, Latvia, to Jewish intellectuals, and moved to France to study.
She studied at the University of Montpellier and earned a Doctor of Medicine. In 1927 she defended a thesis called Psychological Profile of Professor Rossolimo, which described tests to measure mental abilities in children and adults to help guide education. The work was published in 1928.
Kovarsky helped Montpellier create a school psychological service and became the city’s inspector-psychologist, one of the first of its kind in France, around 1930. Contemporary reports describe her living in poverty while working for the city.
In 1941, during World War II, she was forced to stop her work because she was Jewish. She was allowed to return after the Liberation in 1945. After the war, she led the phoniatrics laboratory in the otorhinolaryngology department in Montpellier.
Kovarsky was also a pioneer for left-handed people. In 1937 she presented lectures on left-handed children, arguing that left-handedness cannot be corrected and can be linked to speech problems. She proposed a Charter of Fundamental Rights for Left-Handers in 1949 and a Plea in Favor of Left-Handers in 1953, promoting awareness and support for left-handed individuals.
She translated the Russian neurologist Grigory Rossolimo’s works and wrote prose poems. Vera Kovarsky died unmarried on October 13, 1973, in Montpellier, France.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 07:34 (CET).