How does a man who died in 1887 win a Tony Award in 1954, and how did that same man co-discover a chemical reaction still taught in universities today? This episode unpacks the divided life of Alexander Borodin, born illegitimate in St. Petersburg in 1833 to a 62-year-old Georgian nobleman and registered as the legal son of one of his father's own serfs. Educated at home by private tutors because commoners were barred from the gymnasium, he grew up calling his mother his aunt while developing a passion for both science and music with no one telling him to choose.

Borodin enrolled in the Medical Surgical Academy in 1850, worked as a military surgeon, studied chemistry in Heidelberg and Pisa alongside Emil Erlenmeyer, and published foundational work on halodecarboxylation and the aldol reaction. He founded a school of medicine for women in 18 ...