Article ID: CBB001212003

Green is the Colour: St. Petersburg's Chemical Laboratories and Competing Visions of Chemistry in the Eighteenth Century (2013)

unapi

Werrett, Simon (Author)


Ambix: Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry
Volume: 60, no. 2
Issue: 2
Pages: 122-138


Publication Date: 2013
Edition Details: Part of a special issue, “Sites of Chemistry in the Eighteenth Century.”
Language: English

Histories of chemistry in eighteenth-century Russia have often ignored or downplayed the scientific character of chemical sites, treating the chemical laboratory of M.V. Lomonosov in St. Petersburg's Imperial Academy of Sciences as the definitive site of Russian chemistry. This essay surveys a variety of Russian medical, military, and academic institutions as chemical sites, and suggests that dividing them up as scientific or non-scientific sites, as Lomonosov sought to, is unhelpful, as many were integrated and engaged in connected enterprises. A case study then shows how the setting of Russian court society provoked competition within the network of Russian chemical sites. Competition led Lomonosov to urge a sharp division of labour between chemical artisanry and chemical science, forging a distinction that historians of Russian chemical sites have often reproduced subsequently.

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Description “Surveys a variety of Russian medical, military, and academic institutions as chemical sites, [showing] how the setting of Russian court society provoked competition [among them].” (from the abstract)


Included in

Article Perkins, John (2013) Sites of Chemistry in the Eighteenth Century. Ambix: Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (pp. 95-98). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001212003/

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Authors & Contributors
Alferov, Zh. I.
Brooks, Nathan M.
Collis, Robert
Delbourgo, James
Frercks, Jan
Frietsch, Ute
Journals
Ambix: Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry
British Journal for the History of Science
Bulletin for the History of Chemistry
Historia Scientiarum: International Journal of the History of Science Society of Japan
Istoriko-Biologicheskie Issledovaniia
Minerva: A Review of Science, Learning and Policy
Publishers
Brill
Nauka
Concepts
Chemistry
Societies; institutions; academies
Geographical studies of science
Laboratories
Court sponsored science; patronage
Research institutes; research stations
People
Bancroft, Edward
Carl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
Peter I, the Great, Tsar of Russia
Scherer, Alexander Nicolaus
Time Periods
18th century
19th century
20th century, early
17th century
20th century
16th century
Places
Russia
St. Petersburg (Russia)
Germany
Bohemia
Great Britain
Hungary
Institutions
St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences
Rossiiskaia Akademiia Nauk
Habsburg, House of
Herzog August Bibliothek
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