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Aleksandr Porfir'evich Borodin Aleksandr Porfir'evich Borodin Portrait by E[lena] T[imofeevna] Makovskaia (1870) (The original is to be found in the Glinka State Central Museum of Musical Culture, Moscow. - T.) N. A. FigurovskiI and Yu. I. Solov'ev Aleksandr Porfir'evich Borodin A Chemist's Biography Translated from the Russian by Charlene Steinberg and George B. Kauffman Foreword by Martin D. Kamen Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York London Paris Tokyo Translators: Charlene Steinberg Department of Chemistry University of Wisconsin Center-Sheboygan Sheboygan, WI 53081, USA George B. Kauffman Department of Chemistry School of Natural Sciences California State University Fresno Fresno, CA 93740, USA Author o/Foreword: Martin D. Kamen Professor Emeritus of Chemistry University of California, San Diego La Jolla, CA 92093, USA ISBN-13:978-3-642-72734-4 e-ISBN-13:978-3-642-72732-0 DOl: 10.1007/978-3-642-72732-0 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data. Figurovskii, Nikolai Aleksandrovich. Aleksandr Porfir'evich Borodin. Translation of: Aleksandr Porfir'evich Borodin. Bibliography: p. Includes index. \. Borodin, Aleksandr Porfir'evich, 1833--1887. 2. Chemists-Soviet Union-Biography. I. Solov'ev, Wrii Ivanovich. II. Title. QD22.B72F513 1988 540'.92'4 [BI 87-23433 ISBN-!3:978-3-642-72734-4 (U.S.) This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in other ways, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is only permitted under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its version of June 24, 1985, and a copyright fee must always be paid. Violations fall under the prosecution act of the German Copyright Law. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1988 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1988 The use of registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. 2152/3020-543210 This book is dedicated to the cause of friendship between two great peoples, those of the United States of America and those of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Aleksandr Porfir'evich Borodin by N. A. Figurovskii and Yu. I. Solov'ev Excerpts from reviews of the Russian Edition (1950) " ... completely reveals the charming aspect of a brilliant representative of Russian culture in a lively, popular form ... · .. provides great interest for broad circles of Soviet readers ... · .. Borodin's letters to chemists and letters from other scientists received by him, which are [here] published for the first time, are of great interest. Borodin's complete letter to A. M. Butlerov is published for the first time. The author [Borodin] writes with bitterness about the difficulties in building a new laboratory at the Military-Medical Academy and about the absurd organization of work, which hampered fruitful scientific and pedagogical activity ... · .. Borodin's life is depicted against a background of the cultural life of Russia." - O. A. Starosel'skaia-Nikitina: Sovetskaia Kniga. 3: 81 (1951) " ... fully elucidates for the first time the scientific activity of [this] outstanding . Russian chemist, establishing the contemporary significance of his works ... a valuable essay on the history of Russian science written in a popular and fascinating manner. The authors make the most of the works of Borodin and his students, the large collection of archival materials, and the epistolary legacy of the last century. It is the first monograph which acquaints the reader with all sides of the life and versatile activities of [this] outstanding Russian scholar­ patriot and great composer." V. V. Razumovskii: Priroda. 3: 87,88 (1951) Foreword A full century has passed since the sudden and tragically premature demise of Aleksandr Porfir'evich Borodin in 1887 at the age of 53, when he was following with phenomenal success the disparate careers of musician, composer, organic chemist, and pioneer in women's medical education. As a unique figure among the remarkable group of geniuses who suddenly appeared in Russia in the middle of the last century and explosively propelled that country into the mainstream of world culture in the arts, humanities, and sciences, it might have been expected that Borodin was the object of much research. However, he remains a victim of an affliction on-going in the biographical arts - the Missing Image Syndrome, as I have had the presumption to term it. In the production of a color photograph the conventional procedure requires the preparation of three images as seen through three primary colors. These are superimposed to give a photograph or projection which shows the original object faithfully rendered in full color. The loss of anyone of these partial color images results in a distorted color rendition. The analogy to the situation confronting the reader supplied with an essentially one-sided biography is clear. For example, there are few who would be satisfied with a biography of Leonardo da Vinci written wholly from the aspect of his interest and achievements in aeronautical science. In the Western world - and even in Russia - the predominant documentation of Borodin's activities has been concerned with his musical genius. There is no doubt that he was one of the supremely talented melodists in musical history, and a testimonial to this gift is readily at hand in the popularity of the many exotic themes that he bequeathed in his compositions, adapted by Robert Wright and George Forrest for their musical comedy Kismet. But, in accord with the syndrome mentioned above, his images as a chemist and educator are missing. That of the chemist was rescued from oblivion only recently in Russia, with the appearance of the first and only book-length biography on record dealing mainly with Borodin as a great pioneer of Russian organic chemistry. However, as its authors - Professors N. A. Figurovskii and Yu. I. Solov'ev - explicitly state, this memoir was projected as one in a series of short monographs intended for popular consumption. Still. it went some distance in closing the yawning gaps in the biographical treatment of Borodin's life and accomplishments. There is no doubt that the Russian contribution to the amazing development of structural chemistry in the last century has tended to be underplayed, while that in the rest of Europe has received much more attention. One wonders, in particular, whether Borodin's name might not have appeared in the chemical pantheon, as have those of Mendeleev, Markovnikov, Menshutkin, and many other X Foreword Russians, if the aldol condensation, which he was the first to discover and investigate, had been named the Borodin condensation. Straightening out the record is important; Figurovskii and Solov'ev's biography does much in this respect. Just as meritorious have been the scholarly and exhaustive efforts of Professors Charlene Steinberg and George B. Kauffman, who have made the Russian text accessible to the Western world in their accurate and engrossing translation. Their task was complicated not only by the well-known difficulties in producing an English text completely faithful in spirit as well as detail to the Russian version but also by the somewhat strident propagandist overtones which to some extent have weakened the generally favorable impression of the case that the Russian authors were making to uphold the priority of Borodin's researches in various areas of aldehyde chemistry. The final version now offered to the reader seems eminently adapted to permit accurate evaluation of the merits of the Russian text. What emerges is a document which for the first time enables the chemist and also the intelligent lay reader outside Russia to appreciate the remarkable contributions to organic chemistry as well as to women's medical education made by Borodin, despite infuriating distractions, his natural inability to say "no", and by pathetic inadequacies in facilities and instrumentation. What can also be seen is the scope of the many questions remaining to be answered. It is clear that a treatment in depth of the Borodin corpus of chemical research is still to be done. For the psychohistorian there is the need to probe Borodin's complex interactions with his friends and particularly with his remarkable mother and neurasthenic wife. One receives a strong impression that Borodin accomplished as much as he did, despite his natural indolence, because of the dedication of his mother, who kept him focused on achievement rather than on nondirectional activity. But this is not the occasion to indulge in speculations as to what pro­ fessionals in the area of cultural history and biography will find when they start mining the resource materials which hopefully still exist. One can only wish that the present translation will arouse attention among a wider audience than its original Russian version so that eventually there will be available biographies which show Borodin in all his images and in full color. Montecito, May 1988 Martin D. Kamen Dr. Kamen, codiscoverer of carbon-14, the critical long-lived isotope that revolutionized the medical and biological sciences through its use as a tracer, was a central figure in the pioneering nuclear research performed at the Radiation Laboratory of the University of California, Berkeley. He attained international recognition for his work on bacterial photosynthesis, bacterial cytochromes, and the use of radioisotopic tracers in biological and biomedical research. He was born in Toronto to Russian immigrant parents; like Borodin, he is an accomplished musician, who plays chamber music and symphonic music. His latest book is Radiant Science, Dark Politics: A Memoir of the Nuclear Age (University of California Press, 1985).
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