A full century has passed since the sudden and tragically premature demise of Aleksandr Porfir'evich Borodin in 1887 at the age of 53, when he was following with phenomenal success the disparate careers of musician, composer, organic chemist, and pioneer in women's medical education. As a unique figure among the remarkable group of geniuses who suddenly appeared in Russia in the middle of the last century and explosively propelled that country into the mainstream of world culture in the arts, humanities, and sciences, it might have been expected that Borodin was the object of much research....