For a useful contribution to the modern scientific development, history of any field of natural science should be studied by specialized professionals, not by science historians. Many excellent examples of such historical research can be found in the Bulletin for the History of Chemistry (published by HIST division of ACS).
High-quality texts of Russian origin are, regrettably, less known. Prof Nikolay A. Figurovskyi (1901-1986) was a legendary person who established history of chemistry taught as a separate subject in Moscow University in 1947. His own research specialization was colloid chemistry and adsorption. Yuriy I. Soloviev (1924-2005), the most systematic Russian historian of physical chemistry, started under the influence of Figurovskyi. Unfortunately, Soloviev’s very insightful texts (history of solutions research being arguably the most impressive) are written mostly in Russian. The same problem complicates the reading of an interesting historical collection for students authored by Sergey I. Levchenkov (Rostov-on-Don).
Soloviev’s coauthor, Alexander Ya. Kipnis (1930-2025), left us his web site (partly in German). His studies focused on the history of chemical thermodynamics. Andrey G. Morachevskii (b. 1926) from St. Petersburg should also be mentioned, his original research field is thermodynamics of melts. Some of his texts are available in English: scientific biographies of Kistyakovskii (physical chemistry and corrosion) and Luginin (thermochemistry), and the history of platinum metals manufacturing in Russia started from Klaus’ discovery of ruthenium as the new chemical element.