Editing Dmitri Mendeleev (section)

==Early life==
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Mendeleev was born in the village of Verkhnie Aremzyani, near [[Tobolsk]] in [[Siberia]], to Ivan Pavlovich Mendeleev (1783–1847) and [[Maria Dmitrievna Mendeleeva]] ([[née]] Kornilieva) (1793–1850).<ref>{{cite book|last1=Rao|first1=C N R|last2=Rao|first2=Indumati|title=Lives and Times of Great Pioneers in Chemistry: (Lavoisier to Sanger)|date=2015|publisher=World Scientific |isbn=978-9814689076 |page=119}}</ref><ref name='notes'>''Maria Mendeleeva (1951)''. D. I. Mendeleev's Archive: Autobiographical Writings. Collection of Documents. Volume 1 // [https://books.google.com/books?id=_vnODAAAQBAJ&pg=PA13 Biographical notes about D. I. Mendeleev (written by me – D. Mendeleev), p. 13]. – Leningrad: D. I. Mendeleev's Museum-Archive, 207 pages (in Russian)</ref> Ivan worked as a school principal and a teacher of fine arts, politics and philosophy at the [[Tambov]] and [[Saratov]] gymnasiums.<ref name="pavel">''Maria Mendeleeva (1951)''. D. I. Mendeleev's Archive: Autobiographical Writings. Collection of Documents. Volume 1 // [https://books.google.com/books?id=_vnODAAAQBAJ&pg=PA11 From a family tree documented in 1880 by brother Pavel Ivanovich, p. 11]. Leningrad: D. I. Mendeleev's Museum-Archive, 207 pages (in Russian)</ref> Ivan's father, Pavel Maximovich Sokolov, was a [[Russian Orthodox Church|Russian Orthodox]] priest from the [[Tver]] region.<ref>[http://www.mendcomm.org/Mendeleev.aspx Dmitriy Mendeleev: A Short CV, and A Story of Life] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170825073835/http://www.mendcomm.org/Mendeleev.aspx |date=25 August 2017 }}, mendcomm.org</ref> As per the tradition of priests of that time, Pavel's children were given new family names while attending the [[theological seminary]],<ref>[http://starina.library.tver.ru/us-35-1.htm Удомельские корни Дмитрия Ивановича Менделеева (1834–1907)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070908083404/http://starina.library.tver.ru/us-35-1.htm |date=8 September 2007 }}, starina.library.tver.ru</ref> with Ivan getting the family name Mendeleev after the name of a local landlord.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://chemaust.raci.org.au/article/julyaugust-2019/mother%E2%80%99s-love-maria-dmitrievna-mendeleeva.html|title=A mother's love: Maria Dmitrievna Mendeleeva|last=Larcher|first=Alf|date=21 June 2019|website=Chemistry in Australia magazine|publisher=Royal Australian Chemical Institute|language=en|issn=1839-2539|access-date=20 October 2019|archive-date=26 August 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190826191740/http://chemaust.raci.org.au/article/julyaugust-2019/mother%E2%80%99s-love-maria-dmitrievna-mendeleeva.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Maria Kornilieva came from a well-known family of Tobolsk merchants, founders of the first [[Siberian]] printing house who traced their ancestry to Yakov Korniliev, a 17th-century [[posad people|posad]] man turned a wealthy merchant.<ref name='int'>''Yuri Mandrika (2004)''. Tobolsk Governorate Vedomosti: Staff and Authors. Anthology of Tobolsk Journalism of the late XIX – early XX centuries in 2 Books // From the interview with Maria Mendeleeva, born Kornilieva, p. 351. Tumen: Mandr i Ka, 624 pages</ref><ref>''Elena Konovalova (2006)''. [http://www.spsl.nsc.ru/fulltext/GPNTB/051_gpntb.pdf A Book of the Tobolsk Governance. 1790–1917]. Novosibirsk: State Public Scientific Technological Library, p. 15 (in Russian) {{ISBN|5945601160}}</ref> In 1889, a local librarian published an article in the Tobolsk newspaper where he claimed that Yakov was a baptized [[Teleuts|Teleut]], an ethnic minority known as "white [[Kalmyks]]" at the time.<ref>''Yuri Mandrika (2004)''. Tobolsk Governorate Vedomosti: Staff and Authors. ''Anthology of Tobolsk Journalism of the late XIX – early XX centuries in 2 Books'' // The Kornilievs, Tobolsk Manufacturers article by Stepan Mameev, p. 314. – Tumen: Mandr i Ka, 624 pages</ref> Since no sources were provided and no documented facts of Yakov's life were ever revealed, biographers generally dismiss it as a myth.<ref>''Eugenie Babaev (2009)''. "[http://www.chem.msu.ru/rus/mendeleevia/05_family/05_02.pdf Mendelievia. Part 3]" article from the ''[[Khimiya i Zhizn – XXI Vek|Chemistry and Life – 21st Century]]'' journal at the [[MSU Faculty of Chemistry]] website (in Russian)</ref><ref>Alexei Storonkin, Roman Dobrotyn (1984). ''D. I. Mendeleev's Life and Work Chronicles''. Leningrad: Nauka, 539 pages, p. 25</ref> In 1908, shortly after Mendeleev's death, one of his nieces published ''Family Chronicles. Memories about D. I. Mendeleev'' where she voiced "a family legend" about Maria's grandfather who married "a [[Kyrgyz people|Kyrgyz]] or [[Tatars|Tatar]] beauty whom he loved so much that when she died, he also died from grief".<ref>Nadezhda Gubkina (1908). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=3ukhBwAAQBAJ&pg=PT2 Family Chronicles. Memories about D. I. Mendeleev]''. Saint Petersburg, 252 pages</ref> This, however, contradicts the documented family chronicles, and neither of those legends is supported by Mendeleev's autobiography, his daughter's or his wife's memoirs.<ref name='notes' /><ref>"Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev comes from indigenous Russian people", p. 5 // ''Olga Tritogova-Mendeleeva (1947)''. ''Mendeleev and His Family''. Moscow: Academy of Sciences Publishing House, 104 pages</ref><ref>Anna Mendeleeva (1928). ''Mendeleev in Life''. Moscow: M. and S. Sabashnikov Publishing House, 194 pages</ref> Yet some Western scholars still refer to Mendeleev's supposed "Mongol", "Tatar", "[[Tartary|Tartarian]]" or simply "Asian" ancestry as a fact.<ref>[[Loren R. Graham]], ''Science in Russia and the Soviet Union: A Short History'', Cambridge University Press (1993), p. 45</ref><ref>[[Isaac Asimov]], ''Asimov on Chemistry'', Anchoor Books (1975), p. 101</ref><ref>Leslie Alan Horvitz, ''Eureka!: Scientific Breakthroughs that Changed the World'', John Wiley & Sons (2002), p. 45</ref><ref>Lennard Bickel, ''The deadly element: the story of uranium'', Stein and Day (1979), p. 22</ref>

Mendeleev was raised as an [[Eastern Orthodox|Orthodox Christian]], his mother encouraging him to "patiently search divine and scientific truth".<ref>{{cite book|first1=Ray Eldon |last1=Hiebert |first2= Roselyn |last2= Hiebert |year= 1975 |title= Atomic Pioneers: From ancient Greece to the 19th century |publisher= U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Division of Technical Information | page= 25}}</ref> His son Ivan would later inform that Mendeleev had departed from the Church and embraced a form of "romanticized [[deism]]".<ref name="Gordin">{{cite book|title=A Well-ordered Thing: Dmitrii Mendeleev and the Shadow of the Periodic Table|year=2004|publisher=Basic Books|isbn=978-0465027750|first=Michael D.|last=Gordin|pages=[https://archive.org/details/wellorderedthing00gord/page/229 229–230]|quote=Mendeleev seemed to have very few theological commitments. This was not for lack of exposure. His upbringing was actually heavily religious, and his mother – by far the dominating force in his youth – was exceptionally devout. One of his sisters even joined a fanatical religious sect for a time. Despite, or perhaps because of, this background, Mendeleev withheld comment on religious affairs for most of his life, reserving his few words for anti-clerical witticisms&nbsp;... Mendeleev's son Ivan later vehemently denied claims that his father was devoutly Orthodox: "I have also heard the view of my father's 'church religiosity' – and I must reject this categorically. From his earliest years Father practically split from the church – and if he tolerated certain simple everyday rites, then only as an innocent national tradition, similar to Easter cakes, which he didn't consider worth fighting against."&nbsp;... Mendeleev's opposition to traditional Orthodoxy was not due to either atheism or scientific materialism. Rather, he held to a form of romanticized deism.|url=https://archive.org/details/wellorderedthing00gord/page/229}}</ref>

Mendeleev was the youngest of 17 siblings, of whom "only 14 stayed alive to be baptized" according to Mendeleev's brother Pavel, meaning the others died soon after their birth.<ref name='pavel' /> The exact number of Mendeleev's siblings differs among sources and is still a matter of some historical dispute.<ref>{{cite news|last=Johnson|first=George|title=The Nitpicking of the Masses vs. the Authority of the Experts| url= https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/03/science/03comm.html|access-date=14 March 2011|newspaper=The New York Times|date=3 January 2006}}</ref>{{efn|When the Princeton historian of science Michael Gordin reviewed this article as part of an analysis of the accuracy of Wikipedia for the 14 December 2005 issue of ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'', he cited as one of Wikipedia's errors that "They say Mendeleev is the 14th child. He is the 14th surviving child of 17 total. 14 is right out." However in a January 2006 article in ''[[The New York Times]]'', it was noted that in Gordin's own 2004 biography of Mendeleev, he also had the Russian chemist listed as the 17th child, and quoted Gordin's response to this as being: "That's curious. I believe that is a typographical error in my book. Mendeleyev was the final child, that is certain, and the number the reliable sources have is 13." Gordin's book specifically says that Mendeleev's mother bore her husband "seventeen children, of whom eight survived to young adulthood", with Mendeleev being the youngest.<ref>{{cite news|first= George |last= Johnson |title= The Nitpicking of the Masses vs. the Authority of the Experts |newspaper= The New York Times |date= 3 January 2006| url= https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/03/science/03comm.html }}</ref><ref>{{cite web| title= Supplementary information to accompany ''Nature'' news article "Internet encyclopaedias go head to head" (''Nature'' 438, 900–901; 2005) |website= Blogs.Nature.com |date= 22 December 2005 |url= http://blogs.nature.com/wp/nascent/supplementary_information.pdf |first= Michael | last= Gordin | via= 2004| page= 178}}</ref>}} Unfortunately for the family's financial well-being, his father became blind and lost his teaching position. His mother was forced to work and she restarted her family's abandoned glass factory. At the age of&nbsp;13, after the passing of his father and the destruction of his mother's factory by fire, Mendeleev attended the [[Gymnasium (school)|Gymnasium]] in Tobolsk.

In 1849, his mother took Mendeleev across Russia from Siberia to Moscow with the aim of getting Mendeleev enrolled at the [[Moscow State University|Moscow University]].<ref name=":0" /> The university in Moscow did not accept him. The mother and son continued to [[Saint Petersburg]] to the father's alma mater. The now poor Mendeleev family relocated to Saint Petersburg, where he entered the [[Main Pedagogical Institute]] in 1850. After graduation, he contracted [[tuberculosis]], causing him to move to the [[Crimea]]n Peninsula on the northern coast of the [[Black Sea]] in 1855. While there, he became a science master of the [[Simferopol gymnasium №1|1st Simferopol Gymnasium]]. In 1857, he returned to Saint Petersburg with fully restored health.

Between 1859 and 1861, he worked on the [[Capillary action|capillarity of liquids]] and the workings of the [[spectroscope]] in [[Heidelberg]]. Later in 1861, he published a textbook named ''Organic Chemistry''.{{sfn|Heilbron|2003|page=509}} This won him the Demidov Prize of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences.{{sfn|Heilbron|2003|page=509}}

On 4 April 1862, he became engaged to Feozva Nikitichna Leshcheva, and they married on 27 April 1862 at [[Military Engineering-Technical University|Nikolaev Engineering Institute]]'s church in Saint Petersburg (where he taught).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.rustest.spb.ru/site/9/4/index.html |title=Семья Д.И.Менделеева |publisher=Rustest.spb.ru |access-date=13 March 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100922084854/http://www.rustest.spb.ru/site/9/4/index.html |archive-date=22 September 2010}}</ref>

Mendeleev became a professor at the [[Saint Petersburg State Institute of Technology|Saint Petersburg Technological Institute]] and [[Saint Petersburg State University]] in 1864,{{sfn|Heilbron|2003|page=509}} and 1865, respectively. In 1865, he became a Doctor of Science for his dissertation "On the Combinations of Water with Alcohol". He achieved [[tenure]] in 1867 at St. Petersburg University and started to teach inorganic chemistry while succeeding Voskresenskii to this post;{{sfn|Heilbron|2003|page=509}} by 1871, he had transformed Saint Petersburg into an internationally recognized center for chemistry research.