Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin 12
November 1833 – 27 February 1887) was a Russian Romantic composer
of Georgian-Russian
origin, as well as a doctor and chemist.
He was one of the prominent 19th-century composers known as The Mighty Handful, a group dedicated to
producing a uniquely Russian kind of classical music, rather than imitating
earlier Western European models.
Borodin is best known for his symphonies,
his two string quartets, the tone poem In the Steppes of Central Asia and
his opera Prince Igor.
Music from Prince Igor and
his string quartets was later adapted for the US musical Kismet.
A notable advocate of women's rights,
Borodin was a promoter of education in Russia and founded the School of
Medicine for Women in Saint Petersburg.
As a chemist, he is best known for his work in organic
synthesis, including being among the first chemists to
demonstrate nucleophilic substitution, as well as
being the co-discoverer of the aldol reaction.
Life
and Profession
Family and education
Borodin was born in Saint Petersburg as
an illegitimate son of a 62-year-old Georgian nobleman,
Luka Stepanovich Gedevanishvili, and a married 25-year-old Russian woman,
Evdokia Konstantinovna Antonova.
Due to the circumstances of Alexander's birth,
the nobleman had him registered as the son of one of his Russian serfs,
Porfiry Borodin, hence the composer's Russian last name. As a result of this
registration, both Alexander and his nominal Russian father Porfiry were
officially serfs of Alexander's biological father Luka. The Georgian father
emancipated Alexander from serfdom when he was 7 and provided housing and money
for him and his mother. In spite of this, Alexander was never publicly
recognized by his mother, who stayed close but was referred to by young Borodin
as his "aunt".
Despite his status as a commoner, Borodin was
well provided for by his Georgian father and grew up in a large four-storey
house, which was gifted to Alexander and his "aunt" by the nobleman. Although
his registration prevented enrollment in a proper gymnasium, Borodin received good education in
all of the subjects through private tutors at home.
In 1850 he entered the
Medical–Surgical Academy in Saint Petersburg, which was later home to Ivan Pavlov,
and pursued a career in chemistry. On graduation he spent a year as surgeon in
a military hospital, followed by three years of advanced scientific study in
western Europe.
In 1862 Borodin returned to Saint Petersburg
to take up a professorial chair in chemistry at the Imperial Medical-Surgical
Academy and spent the remainder of his scientific career in research,
lecturing and overseeing the education of others. Eventually, he established
medical courses for women (1872).
He began taking lessons in composition
from Mily Balakirev in 1862. He married
Ekaterina Protopopova, a pianist, in 1863, and had at least one daughter, named
Gania. Music remained a secondary vocation for Borodin outside his main
career as a chemist and physician. He suffered poor health, having
overcome cholera and
several minor heart attacks. He died suddenly during a ball
at the Academy, and was interred in Tikhvin Cemetery at
the Alexander Nevsky Monastery in Saint Petersburg.
