Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Tchaikovsky, Mendeleev, Kasparov — the Russian minds whose work defined literature, music, and chess.
28 GeniusesRussia's contribution to literature, music, and science is out of all proportion to its history. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky wrote two of the greatest novels in any language. Mendeleev gave us the periodic table. Kasparov dominated chess for 20 years.
This list ranks the most influential Russian-born geniuses.
Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky are the two most-cited. Tolstoy wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina; Dostoevsky wrote Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov.
Garry Kasparov is most often cited with IQ around 190. He was world chess champion from 1985 to 2000.
Yes. Mendeleev left gaps in his 1869 periodic table for elements that had not yet been discovered, predicting their properties. Three of his predictions (gallium, germanium, scandium) were confirmed within 15 years.
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