Chemistry for Everyone Facing the Music: How Original Was Borodin’s Chemistry? Michael D. Gordin Department of History, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544;
[email protected] Aleksandr Porfir’evich Borodin (1833–1887) was a re- Markovnikov (1838–1904, of the eponymous rule), or F. K. markable individual. Born illegitimate in St. Petersburg, Rus- Beilstein (1838–1906, of the indispensable Handbuch). Al- sia, to a Russified nobleman from the Caucasus and his maid, though Borodin began the 1860s as one of the more prom- he was educated in that city as a medical doctor at the ising young chemists of his generation—a reputation based Medico–Surgical Academy (later home to Ivan Pavlov), stud- on some striking research while he was abroad at Heidelberg ied abroad on a postdoctoral trip in Heidelberg (1859–1862), and Pisa—for a variety of reasons his research programs began a career teaching at his alma mater in 1862, lobbied dwindled largely on their own (and certainly not, as has been for higher education for women, and along the way man- claimed, due to subterfuge and priority theft by foreigners— aged to compose two and a half symphonies, roughly twenty although issues of priority were raised and continue to be songs, two string quartets, a symphonic poem (“On the pressing issues for chemists internationally today). Borodin Steppes of Central Asia”), and an unfinished operatic mas- seems to have left active chemical research owing to a dimi- terpiece, Prince Igor. (The music for the latter formed the nution of interest and an increasing desire to devote his time basis for the score of the Tony-award-winning Kismet.) Al- to other issues.