Ekaterina Andreeva (arachnologist)

The participants of the XVIII International Arachnological Congress that took place in 2010 in Siedlce, Poland received a collection of abstracts dedicated to the memory of Andreeva and other outstanding arachnologists who died recently.

Andreeva died during medical examination preparing for major surgery on 18 September 2008 in Milanówek, Poland.

In 1974, she participated in the International Arachnological Congress in Amsterdam. In 1976, Andreeva published Spiders of Tajikistan which is a taxonomic book on spiders in central Asia that is still used for "revisions and taxonomic surveys of that area". She used her own funds to publish Spiders of Tajikistan and it is the first USSR publication of an original monograph about Central Asian spiders. Andreeva's mother helped her edit the book.

From 1966 to 1971, Andreeva most intensively collected spiders in Central Asia by herself, particularly in high mountainous regions. Her unique spider collection is a source for conducting revisions and taxonomic surveys of Central Asia. In September 1972, she married Polish arachnologist Jerzy Prószyński and moved to Poland. The main reason for her moving to Poland was due to failing at becoming employed at the Zoological Institute in Leningrad which is considered the best place in the USSR to study taxonomy.

In 1960, Andreeva began her biological studies at a local university, where she spent her time working alone to research spiders that are located in Tajikistan. No specialists of Central Asian spiders existed during this period. In 1966, Andreeva completed her university course and obtained a PhD scholarship in Tajikistan, spending several months each year working in the Entomology Department of the Leningrad University under the official supervision of Professor Victor Tyshchenko, who worked on spiders in Kazakhstan. Therefore, she is referred to as a representative of Leningrad arachnological school.

Ekaterina Mikhailovna Andreeva also known as Katarzyna Andrejewa-Prószyńska (16 November 1941 – 18 September 2008) was an Uzbek arachnologist. She collected spiders in Central Asia and later published Spiders of Tajikistan. At least eight spider and harvestman taxa were named in her honor.

Andreeva was born on 16 November 1941 in Tashkent (the current capital of Uzbekistan) and spent some of her childhood in Samarkand. Her grandmother, Maria Vikentievna Jasiewicz, was Polish, but had been exiled to Central Asia in the late 1880s for her political activity, and there married a land surveyor Konstantin Pisarczik, and had four children, including Andreeva's mother, Antonina Konstantinovna. Antonina became a student of ethnography at Tashkent University, and later married a professor of ethnography from the university, Mikhail Stepanovich Andreev. Their daughter Ekaterina Andreeva was born in Tashkent in 1941, and in 1946 moved with her mother to Dushanbe in Tajikistan. She was invited by her mother on ethnographic expeditions throughout Tajikistan. Her family had to conceal their true thoughts about the Soviet Union due to fear of persecution, imprisonment, and potential execution.