History of Academician Alexander Braunstein’s Nomination for the Nobel Prize: Materials from the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences
The article reviews the history of nomination for the Nobel Prize of the member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR Alexander E. Braunstein (1902-1986), biochemist and molecular biologist. The author has studied documents of the Braunstein fond from the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences and materials from the Archive of the Nobel Committee, as well as literary sources on the topic. Having studied the historiography, the author concludes that the interpretation of the issue in the national scholarship is inaccurate. The task is complicated by the fact that, according to the rules of the Nobel Committee, the names of nominees are not publicly announced, nominees are not informed of their nomination, promulgation of names of nominees is allowed only fifty years after the nomination. It was the study of archival materials that has allowed to supplement and clarify the history of the Russian scientist’s nomination for the Nobel Prize. The 1950s saw many works on molecular biology that laid foundation for the subsequent research and received recognition of the Nobel Committee. The study refutes the tendency to underestimate the impact of Soviet science by showing the foreign scholars’ attitude to Alexander Braunstein’s discoveries. The chronological framework of the study is determined by submissions for nomination stored in the fond and dated 1952-1985. The article examines four nominations of Braunstein to the Nobel Committee for his work on processes and enzymes of nitrogen metabolism. Braunstein was one of Russian biochemists who could have been awarded the Nobel Prize, but had never been. And yet his repeated nomination for the award shows high evaluation of his work by scientists of global renown.