Alekséy Yevgényevich Chichibábin (russian: Алексей Евгеньевич Чичибабин) was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

n organic chemist, born , Kuzemin village, current Sumy Oblast,

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

, died in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

, 15 August 1945. His name is also written ''Alexei Yevgenievich Chichibabin'' and ''Alexei Euguenievich Tchitchibabine''.

Life

Chichibábin was born at Kuzemin on March 17, 1871. He studied at the

University of Moscow M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

from 1888 until 1892, and received his PhD from the

University of Saint Petersburg A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

. In 1896, Chichibáin married Vera Vladimirovna as his wife. He became a professor at the Imperial College of Technology in Moscow in 1909, and remained there until 1929. After losing his daughter Natacha, a chemist, to an industrial oleum accident (explosion) that he deemed preventable, Chichibábin moved to Paris where he remained despite threat of and eventual stripping of his Soviet citizenship and his position in the Academy of Sciences (1936, Academy standing restored posthumously, 1990).David Lewis, 2012, Early Russian Organic Chemists and Their Legacy (Vol. 4, SpringerBriefs in Molecular Science: History of chemistry), Heidelberg:Springer, , se

accessed 12 February 2015. In 1931 he began working at the Collège de France, remaining until his death in 1945, but also serving over parts of the same period as the director of research at French dye and fine chemical manufacturer Établissement Kuhlmann, and as an advisor to the Schering and Roosevelt Co. of New York. Chichibábin and his wife, Vera Vladmirovna Tchitchibabine, had one child, a daughter who became a chemist. Chichibábin died in 1945 and was buried at the

Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery (french: Cimetière russe de Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois) is part of the ''Cimetière de Liers'' and is called the Russian Orthodox cemetery, in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, Paris, France. History The ...

near Paris.

Scientific work

Chichibábin is associated with the development of several important organic chemical reactions. One is a novel

terpyridine Terpyridine (2,2';6',2"-terpyridine, often abbreviated to Terpy or Tpy) is a heterocyclic compound derived from pyridine. It is a white solid that is soluble in most organic solvents. The compound is mainly used as a ligand in coordination chemist ...

synthesis, the

Chichibabin pyridine synthesis The Chichibabin pyridine synthesis () is a method for synthesizing pyridine rings. The reaction involves the condensation reaction of aldehydes, ketones, α,β-Unsaturated carbonyl compounds, or any combination of the above, with ammonia. It was ...

. The other reactions are the Bodroux-Chichibabin aldehyde synthesis and the Chichibabin reaction. Chichibábin authored the two-volume ''Osnovnye nachala organicheskoy khimii'' (''Fundamentals of Organic Chemistry''), which first appeared in 1924, a principal university-level chemistry textbooks in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

that went through 7 Russian editions and was translated into Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, French, Spanish, English, and Chinese.A.N. Kost, 2008, "Alexei Yevgenievich Chichibabin," in the ''Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography''New York:Charles Scribner's Sons, se

accessed 12 February 2015. An edition of the book was dedicated to Chichibábin's daughter, Natacha, who was killed by an oleum explosion in a chemical production factory in 1930. Chichibábin won the Lenin Prize in 1926.

References

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Chichibabin, Aleksei 1871 births 1945 deaths Burials at Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery Lenin Prize winners Chemists from the Russian Empire Soviet inventors Soviet chemists 20th-century chemists Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Soviet emigrants to France Imperial Moscow University alumni