Mariya Sergeyenko

Sergeyenko was born in Novozybkov (then Russian Chernigov Governorate). She graduated from the Chernigov women gymnasium. In 1910 she entered the history department of the Higher Women Courses. Sergeyenko participated in the seminars of Michael Rostovtzeff and Tadeusz Stefan Zieliński and considered herself their student.[1] From fall 1915 she started to lecture Latin.[1] In 1926 Sergeyenko submitted her first article, "The First Elegy of Tibullus".

In 1929 Sergeyenko moved from Saratov to St. Petersburg, where she worked in the city's library in 1931–34.[1] From 1932 she also worked in the Institute of the History of Science and Technology at the Soviet Academy of Sciences.[1] Sergeyenko studied the role of agricultural works of Varro, Cato the Elder and Columella in the development of ancient agronomy. In that area she wrote such works as "From the History of the Italian Gardening", "The Outline of the Development of the Roman Agronomy", "Varro and Columella as Stockbreeders", "The Precursors of Applied Botany in the Ancient World", "Corn Field Fertilization in Ancient Italy", "Two Types of Rural Farms in Italy in the 1st century AD". In 1935 Sergeyenko started to lecture Latin at the Historical and Philological Department of the St. Petersburg University. During World War II she refused to be evacuated with the university and continued her work in the besieged Leningrad.[1]

From the 1960s Sergeyenko researched the daily life of ancient Rome and its social and economic relations, having authored The Life in Ancient Rome (1964).