On January 3, 2001, Isabella Grigoryevna Bashmakova, a renowned authority on history of mathematics, celebrated her eightieth birthday. Bashmakova was born in Rostov-on-Don, to Grigory Georgevich Bashmakov and Anna Ivanovna (maiden name Aladzhalova). Her father was a lawyer, known for his oratory, a graduate of the Moscow M. V. Lomonosov University and a pupil of the distinguished jurist and philosopher Pavel I. Novgorodtsev (1868Novgorodtsev ( -1924)). He was a remarkable personality endowed with many talents. He loved philosophy and history. In 1932, the Bashmakov family moved to Moscow, where Isabella finished secondary school. The family established lively links with Moscow cultural life and the atmosphere in their home was very intellectual. The circle of family friends included eminent scientists, such as the physiologist and academician (since 1968) Mikhail Kh. Chailakhyan, as well as men of arts, such as the famous poets Boris L. Pasternak (1890Pasternak ( -1960) ) and Samuel Ya. Marshak (1887Marshak ( -1964)). Very soon, she showed a turn for mathematics. Thus, she enrolled in the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics of the Moscow M. V. Lomonosov State University in 1938. All her subsequent life has been closely associated with the activities of this faculty. During World War II, she evacuated Moscow, together with the personnel from the University, to Samarqand, where she served as a nurse.
Bashmakova's intellectual interests in the history of mathematics were formed within the wider environment of the Moscow Mathematical School of the first half of the 20th century and particularly the Research Seminar on History of Mathematics, initiated 1 Editorial note. A retrospective of the life and work of Isabella Bashmakova on the occasion of her sixtieth birthday was published in 1981 in Historia Mathematica 8, 389-392. The present article provides an updated and more detailed account, supplemented with a complete bibliography of her extensive writings in the history of mathematics.