The Kazan School of chemistry: A re-interpretation

Brooks, Nathan M.

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/128006 Copy

Description

Title

The Kazan School of chemistry: A re-interpretation

Author(s)

Brooks, Nathan M.

Issue Date

2019-09-15

Keyword(s)

• History
• Chemistry

Abstract

For a considerable portion of the nineteenth century, chemistry teaching and research at the small and geographically isolated Kazan University outshone that in all other Russian institutions. Chemists working at Kazan University discovered the element ruthenium, discovered the reduction of nitrobenzene to aniline (which would become essential to the synthetic dye industry), firmly established and delineated the structural theory of organic chemistry, developed important synthetic methods using organozinc reagents, and many other important advances in chemistry. As early as the 1860s, some observers began speaking of a "Kazan School of Chemistry." The classic expression of this view was stated by A. E. Arbuzov, himself a Kazan chemist, in various articles published in the 1930s and after. In Arbuzov’s formulation, the Kazan School of Chemistry began with N. N. Zinin (sometimes including K. Klaus) in the 1830s and continuing in an apostolic succession until the present day. However, as I will argue in this paper, this formulation can work only if the term "school" is rather loosely applied. If we employ a more rigorous definition of school, such as those described by Morrell and Geison, then the Kazan School of Chemistry only began around 1860 with A. M. Butlerov.

Publisher

Division of the History of Chemistry

ISSN

1053-4385

Type of Resource

text

Genre of Resource

article

Language

eng

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/128006

DOI

https://doi.org/10.70359/bhc2019v044p092

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2019 Division of the History of Chemistry

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