By David Gordon, associate editor
It’s not every day that an American academic has his work honored abroad.
It’s even more unusual when the honors are based not on distinguished work in some academic discipline but rather on research and writing about the history of that discipline. . . in another country, at that.
That’s exactly what Prof. David Lewis of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire experienced when he visited Kazan Federal University in Russia this past spring. Lewis is a UW-EC organic chemist who was honored for his research and writing about the history of Russian chemistry.
This was Lewis’ fifth trip to Russia, four of them to the university in Kazan, a 1,000-year-old city of about one and a half million people located some 600 miles east of Moscow along the Volga River. Kazan is far enough east in Russia – virtually on the dividing line between European and Russian Asia – that it was the destination for many Russian scientists who were evacuated from Moscow and St. Petersburg ahead of the Nazi advances in World War II.
The university there traces its roots back to 1804, when it was created by Czar Alexander I. It became the premier chemistry school in Russia, Lewis said, and has influenced chemistry faculties throughout the Russian empire.
On his most recent trip to Kazan, Lewis delivered the opening talk at an international Symposium on the Design and Synthesis of Supramolecular Architecture – that is, systems built from molecules which have no strong bonds between them. His presentation, though, used an historical lens to review the crucial role played by Kazan chemists in building the first useful version of the theory of molecular structure, a necessary precursor to all the advances of 20th and 21st century chemistry.
But what really set this trip apart for Lewis was that every conference attendee received a hardcover copy of a book containing his collected papers on the role played by Russian chemists – particularly those from Kazan – in the history of organic chemistry. The 288-page book – in both Russian and English – contains 13 articles that were translated into Russian by a team of two Kazan faculty members and four doctoral students, in slightly more than three months’ time just before the conference.
Reactions and the Chemists Behind Them
Lewis explained that, as a shorthand device, organic chemical reactions are often named after the chemist who first does them successfully. He said that, in the 1990s while he was on the faculty at South Dakota State University, he became curious about the people behind the names of “the reactions I teach in my introductory and upper level courses” and began to look into their backgrounds.
He found that most people – including his students – couldn’t name a single Russian chemist.
“How come we don’t know anything about these chemists,” he wondered and quickly realized the answer: “what was written (about them) was on the web, in Russian.”
What he found was that first one, and then another, and then many of these early chemists had ties – directly or indirectly – to the chemistry faculty at the university in Kazan, a city and university he had never heard of. This piqued his interest and led to a pair of 1994 articles in the Journal of Chemical Education in which he referred to Kazan as “the cradle of Russian chemistry.”
More articles followed, as did a book, Early Russian Organic Chemists and Their Legacy, published in 2013. Lewis, who came to UW-Eau Claire in 1997, said that many early chemists whom he (and others in the west) thought to be German turned out to be Russian once he had researched them.
Russian Chemical Research
He said that chemical research in Russia flourished under the czars, but even under the Soviet regime “the flame of creativity wasn’t completely extinguished for Russian chemists.”
Lewis was particularly impressed by “what they managed to do under the conditions they had to work,” he said.
“It’s fascinating to see how creative these Russians were and how unafraid of trying,” he added. “There is now a lack of willingness to take risks. In 19th century Russia, they weren’t afraid to take risks and as a result they made discoveries.”
“I have a great deal of respect for Russian chemists, especially the organic chemists, because that’s what I do,” he said.
Lewis said his historical research had almost instant credibility with the Russians, in part simply because he was a westerner who was able to publish in English-language journals, which provide far more exposure than Russians writing in Russian journals. Beyond that, he said, most Russians who write about the history of chemistry are trained as historians, while his training is in chemistry.
This gives him more insights into the work of those early chemists and the difficulties they encountered, he explained. It allows him to get below the surface in recounting their work and provide “a deeper understanding of what they were doing,” he said.
Without a knowledge of chemistry, Lewis said, “you can’t understand the ‘wow factor.’”
Another advantage that Lewis said he has with the Russians is that he is not tainted by the 1960s and ‘70s politicization of Russian science history, when the emphasis was put on Russians being first in everything, including science. Traces of that still remain, he said, in contrast to his approach, which is to look for the Russians who came up with the best theories, not who came out with one first.
Lewis said that Russians realize that that their historians of science will be viewed with some suspicion in the west, and appreciate having Lewis to recount Russian scientific history.
“I’m not going to be suspected of pro-Soviet propaganda,” he remarked.
Because of this, the Russian scientists don’t get upset when he challenges some of their approaches, he said.
“They’re actually coming around to my perspective now,” he said. “They listen to what I say.”
He added that, on this last trip, he was greeted like a celebrity.
“My reputation in Russia is very nice,” he said. “It’s nice to be treated like a rock star” and then added: “It’s a little humbling, actually.”
His wife, Debbie, has accompanied Lewis on three of his five trips. Last June, on one of the other two, he was joined by two of his students, Alex Davis and Gene Walsh.
That trip was financed by the UW-Eau Claire International Fellows Program through the Blugold Commitment. Lewis and the students spent three weeks at the university, working in the Butlerov Museum of the Kazan School of Chemistry, to digitize several manuscripts.
“The translation is slow, but coming along,” Lewis said.
What’s next for Lewis in regard to Russian chemical history? It’s a safe bet that it will involve additional visits to Kazan (he has a frequent flyer’s card on Aeroflot, the Russian national airline) and even stronger ties with the Russian chemistry community.
Lewis said he wants to write a “proper history of organic chemistry in Kazan.” If and when that happens, it will solidify his stature even more at the Federal University of Kazan, where he was told by a senior Russian chemist on his most recent visit:
“You know our history better than we do.”
Additional photos related to this story can be found by clicking here.
Photos used in the story, and in the linked Photo Gallery, were all provided by David Lewis.