secure his appointment as an assistant in agronomy. (In March 1866 the Kazan University board voted for this appointment.) Two years later, Zaytsev was awarded his M. Chem. degree, and, the following year (1869) was appointed as Extraordinary Professor of Chemistry, the junior colleague of another Butlerov student, Vladimir Vasilyevich Markovnikov (1838–1904). Zaytsev submitted his Dr. Chem. dissertation in 1870, and was awarded the degree over the indirect objections of Markovnikov (as second examiner of the dissertation, Markovnikov had written an overtly positive assessment that was meant to be read between the lines). The same year, he was promoted to Ordinary Professor of Chemistry. This may have been one of the final straws for Markovnikov, who left Kazan University in 1871 for Odessa. Zaytsev continued at Kazan University until his death in 1910. Research His research at Kazan was primarily concerned with the development of organozinc chemistry and the synthesis of alcohols. The first of these reactions had been reported by Butlerov in 1863, who prepared tert-butyl alcohol from dimethylzinc and phosgene. Zaytsev and his students Egor Egorevich Vagner (Georg Wagner, 1849–1903) and Sergei Nikolaevich Reformatskii (1860–1934) extended this reaction to a general synthesis of alcohols using alkylzinc iodides. This synthesis was the best way to make alcohols until the advent of the Grignard reaction in 1901. Reformatskii's work, which used the zinc compounds from alpha-bromoesters, led to the discovery of a synthetic reaction (the Reformatskii reaction) that is still used today. Zaitsev's Rule was reported in 1875, and appeared just as his nemesis, Markovnikov, (who had made a prediction which the rule contradicts) was taking the Chair at Moscow University. Zaytsev received several honors: he was elected as a Corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Science, an honorary member of Kiev University, and he served two terms as President of the Russian Physical-Chemical Society. Death Zaytsev died on 1 September 1910 in Kazan. References External links Link to an English translation of Zaytsev's seminal 1875 article that he wrote in German. English title: 'The order of addition and of elimination of hydrogen and iodine in organic compounds'. Chemists from the Russian Empire Russian inventors 1841 births 1910 deaths