Volume 27, Number 1

Bull. Hist. Chem., VOLUME 27, Number 1  (2002)

31

contained only six items, valued at 310 rubles, 57 ko-

pecks.  At the same time, the chemistry laboratory con-

tained 4,730 items valued at 6,106 rubles, 7 kopecks.

Moreover, it was noted that the technology laboratory

was “combined with the chemistry laboratory, due to a

lack of space” (34).  The items in the technology labo-

ratory were intended not only for research in technol-

ogy but mainly for demonstrations during lectures in

technology.  In 1845, the chemistry laboratory added

equipment and glassware worth 444 rubles, 28 kopecks,

while there is no record of any additions to the technol-

ogy laboratory (35).

Thus it appears that Zinin had little interest in fos-

tering the growth of technology as a subject at the uni-

versity.  He did not personally conduct research in tech-

nology and did not promote the subject of technology

outside his lecture courses.  This is in stark contrast to

his successor in the kafedra  of technology, Modest

Iakovlevich Kittary, who actively worked to stimulate

interest in technology by offering public lectures on

various topics in technology, resuscitating the moribund

Kazan’ Economic Society and making it an effective

organ for publications and information, founding the

Society of Young Technologists, as well as developing

contacts with local factory owners and entrepreneurs.

In addition, Kittary served as a consultant for several

factories in Kazan’ and attended many exhibitions both

in Russia and abroad (36).

While Zinin did not have much interest in technol-

ogy, he did continue his research in organic chemistry.

This was fairly unusual for chemistry professors in Rus-

sia during the first half of the nineteenth century, even

for those who studied with Liebig.  Most conducted some

research for their doctoral dissertations but little or no

research after that.  They were mainly concerned with

building a “local” reputation as this would help gain them

promotions and other types of honors, such as bureau-

cratic awards, which were coveted in Russia (37).  Most

chemists during these years were active in the affairs of

their university and also served on committees for vari-

ous government agencies or, much more rarely, acted as

consultants for private companies.  Zinin, however, did

not pursue such committee assignments or consulting

work while he was in Kazan’.  The archival record indi-

cates only one instance of his doing such a “local” ac-

tivity during his years in Kazan’; he performed a chemi-

cal analysis of an ore sample at the request of a govern-

ment agency (38).  While it is possible that Zinin did

not have the opportunity to undertake many such activi-

ties during his years in Kazan’, I believe it is more likely

that he chose not to pursue them.  Instead, he concen-

trated on his research in organic chemistry, perhaps in

hopes of building a scientific reputation that would al-

low him eventually to move to a different institution

where he could concentrate on teaching chemistry and

not technology.  Even though his scientific output was

modest during these years, it was sufficiently unusual

and impressive to help him win the position of profes-

sor of chemistry and physics at the Medical-Surgical

Academy in St. Petersburg in a competition with other

chemists, including another student of Liebig.

It was during Zinin’s few years in Kazan’ that he

completed his most famous work, the reduction of ni-

trobenzene to aniline.  When Zinin returned to Kazan’

following his study trip abroad, he was faced with the

problem of selecting a new research problem.  His work

in Liebig’s laboratory had utilized oil of bitter almonds

as a starting material, as had a considerable amount of

the work in Liebig’s laboratory during the late 1830s.

However, Zinin was not able to continue using this sub-

stance upon his return because its import into Russia

was prohibited since it contained small amounts of hy-

drogen cyanide and, thus, was potentially very toxic.

Instead, he decided to investigate the action of hydro-

gen sulfide on a series of organic compounds closely

related to oil of bitter almonds, first studying nitroben-

zene and nitronaphthalene.  In this work Zinin found

that the two oxygen atoms of the nitro group are re-

placed by two atoms of hydrogen (39).  Zinin himself

named the reaction products (Benzid and Naphthalid,

respectively), but Iulii Fedorovich Fritsshe (also known

as C. J. Fritzsche), chemistry academician at the Acad-

emy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, soon noted that Benzid

was identical to Anilin (40).  Fritsshe had obtained

aniline in 1840 by the decomposition of indigo.

The significance of this reaction soon became ap-

parent.  At the same time as Zinin was investigating this

reaction, A.W. von Hofmann and several others began

the difficult process of unraveling the constitution of

coal tar.  Continuing this work when he moved to Lon-

don in 1845, Hofmann, together with his students, iso-

lated twenty or so basic substances that became the foun-

dation of the coal-tar dye industry.  Zinin’s work on the

reduction of nitrobenzene to aniline provided a key step

in the production of various coal-tar dyes.  In an obitu-

ary of Zinin written in 1880, Hofmann stated that “[i]f

Zinin had done nothing more than to convert nitroben-

zene to aniline, even then his name should be inscribed

in gold letters in the history of chemistry”(41).

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