was the triumph of the periodical system of elements. It was totally acknowledged by the scientific world. And Mendeleyev himself reacted to the discovery of germanium in a very unusual way: in May of 1886 he made a special photomontage of the “consolidators of the periodical law.” This photomontage, pasted to the mat, consisted of four portraits: P. Lecock de Boibodrant, L. Nilson, K. Winckler and B. Browner. On the back side, in front of each portrait, there were made notes by the hand of Mendeleyev, which were briefly characterizing the accomplishments of the scientist.
The authority of D. I. Mendeleyev was growing among the scientists of the world. However, everything wasn’t so easy in Russia. The news about D. I. Mendeleyev having got married to Anna Popova without having had divorced with the first wife caused many rumours and gossips. It was even rumoured that the actual bigamy of the scientist became the reason of Dmitry Ivanovich’s having not being elected to the academy. A joke even was said during those years: when one of the generals applied to the emperor with a request to give him a permission for the second marriage, Alexander III refused definitely. And when the general reminded that Mendeleyev had had two wives and nothing had happened, the emperor answered: “That is true, that Mendeleyev has two wives, but I have only one Mendeleyev.” But, certainly, there was another reason of Mendeleyev having not been elected to the actual members of the Academy of Sciences. The scientist’s relationships with the officials in the government as well as in the scientific circles were far from cloudless. Mendeleyev himself after having visited once the Ministry wrote in his diary: “Never have I been to put on airs, to kowtow before anybody, and it is necessary for them to do both, there isn’t any middle. May their kingdom flourish – it isn’t a place for us – it is humiliating, it is bad to become trivial with them, you want to cry and anger is overcoming.”
The question of electing Mendeleyev to the actual members of Petersburg Academy of Sciences was raised at the beginning of 1880. Naturally, the scientific activity of D. I. Mendeleyev was connected from the very beginning with the Academy. He had many friends there: J. F. Fritzsche, N. N. Zinin, E. H. Lenz, A. M. Butlerov, etc. The articles of Mendeleyev were being published repeatedly in the editions of the Academy of Sciences. In 1876 D. I. Mendeleyev was elected a Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences without any specific difficulties. The candidature of D. I. Mendeleyev was suggested by G. P. Gelmersen, N. I. Koksharov, F. B. Schmidt, A. V. Gadolin and A. M. Butlerov. 17 from 20 presented voted for him. It is possible to explain the success of the elections also by the impression, which had been made upon the scientific world by the discovery of gallium by Lecock de Boibodrant.
In March of 1880 there was established the commission attached to the Department of Physico-Mathematical Sciences, which was to nominate the academician candidates to the chair of technology and chemistry. The fact is that at the beginning of February of 1880 academician N. N. Zinin died. The “chair” of the academician “in the sphere of technology and chemistry, adapted to the arts and crafts” became empty.
Butlerov, Koksharov, physicists Wield and Gadolin were the members of the commission. Butlerov nominated two candidatures: D. I. Mendeleyev and professor N. N. Beketov from Kharkov University. Both scientists were at the chairs of “pure” chemistry at the universities and formally couldn’t claim to the vacant post of academician at the chair of technology and chemistry. But Butlerov hadn’t found worthier candidature. The commission hesitated in the choice between the two scientists. Beketov had learned about it and agreed that it was necessary to nominate Mendeleyev in that case.
While characterizing the candidature of D. I. Mendeleyev, academicians A. M. Butlerov, P. L. Chebyshev, N. I. Koksharov and F. V. Ovsyannikov noted his extraordinary accomplishments in the science: “Professor Mendeleyev takes first place in Russian chemistry, and we dare to think, sharing the general opinion of Russian chemists, that the place in the primary class of the Russian empire belongs to him by right. By adding professor Mendeleyev to its milieu, the Academy will honour the Russian science and, therefore, itself as its spiritual representative.”
Mendeleyev started preparing the speech, which he was to pronounce after the election. The speech was named “Which Academy do we need?”. The necessity of changes was its main topic.
Indispensable secretary of the Academy of Sciences K. S. Veselovsky tried to disrupt the balloting. He advised the president F. P. Litke to use the “veto” so that the elections would not have taken place at all. However, the elections took place in November of 1880. 18 people took part in it: 16 members of the physico-mathematical department, the president who had had two votes and the indispensable secretary. Exactly the half of the staff of the Department of physico-mathematical sciences seconded the candidature of Mendeleyev. The University scientists were the supporters of the election: A. M. Butlerov, P. L. Chebyshev, N. I. Koksharov and A. S. Famintsyn. Indispensable secretary of the Academy K. S. Veselovsky was one of the main opponents. Mendeleyev lacked four votes to become an Actual Member of the Academy of Sciences. The academic majority has blackballed the scientist.
The paper, where the approximate allocation of the forces was written by the hand of Butlerov: “It is evident – the black ones: Litke (2), Veselovsky, Gelmersen, Schrenk, Maksimovich, Strauch, Schmidt, Wield and Gadolin. The white ones: Bunyakovsky, Koksharov, Butlerov, Famintsyn, Ovsyannikov, Chebyshev, Alekseev, Struve and Savich.”
The voting against Mendeleyev broadly echoed in the press. The question of the reasons of having not elected the scientist to the members of the Academy of Sciences is rather disputable. The contemporaries mentioned different versions: “intrigues of German party”, a difficult temper of D. I. Mendeleyev, a competition between the Academy of Sciences and Saint-Petersburg University. It is also necessary to take into consideration the fact that the periodical law was one of the items, according to which Mendeleyev was recommended for academician, hasn’t absolutely consolidated in the scientific world and raised certain doubts yet.
Protests from different institutions and organizations fell to the Academy of Sciences. Mendeleyev received hundreds of sympathetic letters. During the small period after having been blackballed Mendeleyev got about 20 diplomas of the status of honorary member of the number of Russian universities and scientific societies.
Dmitry Ivanovich took hard the failed elections for academician, though the general attention and reaction of the press seemed to worry him more. He wrote in his letter to an old friend of him, the professor of the University in Kiev, P. P. Alekseev: “… I didn’t want to be elected to the Academy, I would have been discontent with it, because they don’t need there what I may give, and I don’t want to reorganize myself anymore. There is neither foreign pomposity, solid firmness in the object of studies, nor the affected religious rite in the temple of science may be in me, if it had never been.” Telegrams and sympathetic letters worried Mendeleyev. However, later Dmitry Ivanovich came to a conclusion that he was only a cause, thus, it was expressed “the wish to change the old with something new, but with its own…”. And he was ready to help “to transform the fundamentals of the Academy to something new, Russian, his own…”.
Unseldom the scientist had to overcome the hard periods of failures, misunderstanding and aloofness, arousing in him pessimism, tiredness and unbelief in his own strength. During one of such periods, in spring of 1884, he wrote a pathetic letter to the children from his first wife, Olga and Vladimir, a peculiar instruction for life, full of love to the children, and at the same time a will. The letter ended with the words: “… live with God, labour and truth. It’s time me had a rest, it’s time, farewell…”
By the twist of fate, rejected as a member of Petersburg Academy of Sciences, the scientist was unanimously elected at the beginning of the 1890’s as a member of the Russian Academy of Fine Arts.
D. I. Mendeleyev did a lot in the sphere of economy and industry of Russia.
He was always in earnest about agriculture and during a period he was making experiments at his plots in the estate of Boblovo. His niece N. Y. Kapustina-Gubkina wrote that
