Correspondence between Professor J. Heyrovský and Academician A. P. Vinogradov: Historical Aspect

Abstract

This article introduces for scientific use the letters exchanged by the 1959 Nobel Prize winner Professor Jaroslav Heyrovský, the Czech scientist who founded the method of polarography, and Academician A. P. Vinogradov, the Soviet geochemist and full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences since 1959, and a letter addressed to Vinogradov by E. N. Varasova, who died early and tragically, a chemist and promoter of polarography in the USSR. The letters that are deposited in Vinogradov’s personal fonds in the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences (f. 1691) touch upon the themes of book exchange between the Czech and Soviet scientists; the organization of Vinogradov’s visit to Heyrovský’s laboratory in Prague to master his skills of working with the polarographic method of analysis; Heyrovský’s informing Vinogradov about the losses suffered by the Czech science during WWI; and the organization of Heyrovský’s visits to the USSR. Varasova’s letter to Vinogradov is concerned with the details of Vinogradov’s mastering the method of polarography.