22/04/2020
Development of chemistry in the Soviet Union:
After the revolution, right from the time of Lenin until the dissolution of the USSR, many new institutes of chemistry were opened and the work of the previous institutes were expanded. Within the scope of the first five year economic plan, many chemical production centres of the greatest magnitude came into being in Moscow, Leningrad, Volga and Ural regions among others. Organic chemistry at Moscow University, the largest and oldest university in Russia produced an impressive number of outstanding, world-class organic chemists. Nikolai Kishner, a Soviet chemist, developed the Kishner–Wolf reduction,an important organic reaction to convert carbonyls into alkyls (1910) and cyclopropane synthesis (1912), and Aleksei Chichibabin, another organic chemist created the Chichibabin pyridine amination (1913). Much like organic chemistry, organometallic chemistry owes many early and transformative discoveries to Soviet scientists. Nikolay Zelinsky, known for the Hell–Volhard–Zelinsky halogenation for preparing α-halogenated carboxylic acids, also developed the activated charcoal gas mask in Europe during World War I. Aleksandrovich Chugaev, is another Soviet scientist known for the discovery of the first organic spot test reagent—dimethylglyoxime for the detection of nickel (1905)—as well as the thiourea test to detect osmium (1908) and for the discovery of the so-called Chugaev platinum salts (1915) predicted by Alfred Werner’s theory of coordination compounds. In 1926, Ilya Chernyaev formulated one of the most fundamental principles of synthetic inorganic chemistry: the “trans effect,” which has proven to be critical for the synthesis of platinum group metal-based anticancer agents. This research has allowed researchers to obtain isomers with the desired medicinally active configuration.He is also one of the principal scientists who created noble metal refining technology. Kuzma Andrianov was the first to synthesize polyorganosiloxanes (1937) and later helped the Soviet Union in developing a strong industry of silicone polymers in the 1960s and 1970s. The physical chemist and physicist Nikolay Semenov was the first Soviet citizen to win a Nobel Prize, in 1956 for his work on the mechanism of chemical transformation.
Although there is a belief that during the years of Soviet union more money was spent just on developing, producing and equipping chemical weapons than on public education,it is also true that Soviet government made the development and advancement of science a national priority, emphasizing science at all levels of education and showering top scientists with honours to increase their zeal.
