The first Russian writer to receive the Nobel Prize. Great Russian Writers Who Didn't Win a Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize Literature Award for Achievement in Literature, awarded annually by the Nobel Committee in Stockholm. Contents 1 Requirements for nominating candidates 2 List of laureates 2.1 1900s ... Wikipedia

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Medal of the laureate of the State Prize of the USSR The State Prize of the USSR (1966-1991) is one of the most important prizes in the USSR along with the Lenin Prize (1925-1935, 1957-1991). Established in 1966 as successor Stalin Prize awarded in 1941 1954; laureates ... ... Wikipedia

The building of the Swedish Academy The Nobel Prize in Literature is an award for achievements in the field of literature, awarded annually by the Nobel Committee in Stockholm. Contents ... Wikipedia

Medal of the laureate of the State Prize of the USSR The State Prize of the USSR (1966-1991) is one of the most important prizes in the USSR along with the Lenin Prize (1925-1935, 1957-1991). Established in 1966 as a successor to the Stalin Prize awarded in 1941-1954; laureates ... ... Wikipedia

Medal of the laureate of the State Prize of the USSR The State Prize of the USSR (1966-1991) is one of the most important prizes in the USSR along with the Lenin Prize (1925-1935, 1957-1991). Established in 1966 as a successor to the Stalin Prize awarded in 1941-1954; laureates ... ... Wikipedia

Medal of the laureate of the State Prize of the USSR The State Prize of the USSR (1966-1991) is one of the most important prizes in the USSR along with the Lenin Prize (1925-1935, 1957-1991). Established in 1966 as a successor to the Stalin Prize awarded in 1941-1954; laureates ... ... Wikipedia

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• According to the will. Notes on the Nobel Prize Laureates in Literature, Ilyukovich A. The publication is based on biographical essays on all Nobel Prize winners in literature for 90 years, from the moment of its first award in 1901 to 1991, supplemented by ...

“In works of great emotional power, he revealed the abyss that lies beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world,” says the official release published on the website of the Nobel Committee and announcing the new Nobel laureate in literature - British writer Japanese-born Kazuo Ishiguro.

A native of Nagasaki, he moved with his family to Britain in 1960. The first novel of the writer - "Where the hills are in the haze" - was published in 1982 and was dedicated to his hometown and new home. The novel tells about a native of Japan who, after her daughter's suicide and moving to England, cannot get rid of obsessive dreams about the destruction of Nagasaki.

Great success came to Ishiguro with the novel The Rest of the Day (1989),

dedicated to the fate of the former butler, who served one noble house all his life. For this novel, Ishiguro received the Booker Prize, and the jury voted unanimously, which is unprecedented for this award. In 1993, American director James Ivory filmed this book with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson in the lead roles.

The writer's fame was greatly supported by the release in 2010 of the film based on the dystopia Don't Let Me Go, which takes place in alternative Britain at the end of the 20th century, where organ donor children for cloning are raised in a special boarding school. The film stars Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan and others.

In 2005, this novel was included in the list of one hundred best according to Time magazine.

Kazuo's latest novel, The Buried Giant, published in 2015, is considered one of Kazuo's strangest and boldest works. This is a medieval fantasy novel in which an elderly couple travels to neighboring village to his son becomes a road to his own memories. Along the way, the couple defend themselves from dragons, ogres, and other mythological monsters. You can read more about the book.

Ishiguro has been compared to Vladimir Nabokov and Joseph Conrad - these two authors, Russian and Polish, respectively, managed to create outstanding works in their non-native language. English language.

British and American critics note that Ishiguro (who calls himself not Japanese, but British) did a lot to turn English into the universal language of world literature.

Ishiguro's novels have been translated into more than 40 languages.

In Russian, the writer, in addition to the two main hits “Don't Let Me Go” and “The Buried Giant”, published the early “Artist of the Unsteady World”.

By tradition, the name of the future laureate is traditionally kept in the strictest confidence until the announcement. The list of candidates drawn up by the Swedish Academy is also classified and will not be known until 50 years later.

The Nobel Prize in Literature is one of the most prestigious and significant literary world. It has been awarded annually since 1901. A total of 107 awards were presented. According to the charter of the Nobel Foundation, only members of the Swedish Academy, professors of literature and linguistics at various universities, Nobel Prize winners in literature, heads of authors' unions from different countries can nominate candidates for the prize.

Last year, the American musician Bob Dylan unexpectedly received the award "for creating new poetic expressions in the great American song tradition". The musician did not come to the presentation, having sent a letter through the singer Patti Smith, in which he expressed doubts that his texts could be considered literature.

Over the years, Selma Lagerlöf, Romain Rolland, Thomas Mann, Knut Hamsun, Ernest Hemingway, Albert Camus, Orhan Pamuk and others. Among the laureates who wrote in Russian are Ivan Bunin, Boris Pasternak, Mikhail Sholokhov, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Iosif Brodsky, Svetlana Aleksievich.

The amount of the award this year is $1.12 million. Solemn ceremony The presentation will take place at the Stockholm Philharmonic on December 10, the day of the death of the founder of the Prize, Alfred Nobel.

literary rate

Every year, it is the Nobel Prize in Literature that is of particular interest to bookmakers - in no other discipline in which the award is awarded, such a stir does not happen. The list of this year's favorites, according to the betting companies Ladbrokes, Unibet, "League of Stakes", includes Kenyan Ngugi Wa Thiongo (5.50), Canadian writer and critic Margaret Atwood (6.60), Japanese writer Haruki Murakami (factor 2.30). The fellow countryman of the current laureate, the author of "Sheep Hunt" and "After the Darkness", however, is promised the Nobel for more than a year - as well as another "eternal" nominee literary Nobel, the famous Syrian poet Adonis. However, both of them remain without a reward from year to year, and the bookmakers are in a slight bewilderment.

Among the other candidates this year were: Chinese Ian Leanke, Israeli Amos Oz, Italian Claudio Magris, Spaniard Javier Marias, American singer and poetess Patti Smith, Peter Handke from Austria, South Korean poet and novelist Ko Eun, Nina Buraui from France, Peter Nadash from Hungary, American rapper Kanye West and others.

In the entire history of the award, bookmakers were not mistaken only three times:

In 2003, when the victory was awarded to the South African writer John Coetzee, in 2006 with the famous Turk Orhan Pamuk, and in 2008 with the Frenchman Gustave Leklezio.

“What bookmakers are guided by when determining favorites is unknown,” says the literary expert, Chief Editor Gorky Media resource Konstantin Milchin, - it is only known that a few hours before the announcement, the odds for the one who then turns out to be the winner fall sharply to unprofitable values. Does this mean that someone is supplying bookmakers with information a few hours before the announcement of the winners, the expert refused to confirm. According to Milchin,

Bob Dylan was at the bottom of the list last year, as was Svetlana Aleksievich in 2015.

According to the expert, a few days before the announcement of the current winner, rates on Canadian Margaret Atwood and Korean Ko Eun went down sharply.

The name of the future laureate is traditionally kept in the strictest confidence until the announcement. The list of candidates drawn up by the Swedish Academy is also classified and will not be known until 50 years later.

The Swedish Academy was founded in 1786 by King Gustav III to support and develop the Swedish language and literature. It includes 18 academicians who are elected to their post for life by other members of the academy.

RUSSIAN HISTORY

Prix ​​Nobel? Oui, ma belle". So joked Brodsky long before receiving the Nobel Prize, which is the most important award for almost any writer. Despite the generous scattering of Russian literary geniuses, only five of them managed to receive the highest award. However, many of them, if not all, having received it, suffered enormous losses in their lives.

Nobel Prize 1933 "For the truthful artistic talent with which he recreated in prose a typical Russian character."

Bunin became the first Russian writer to receive the Nobel Prize. The fact that Bunin had not even appeared in Russia for 13 years, even as a tourist, gave a special resonance to this event. Therefore, when he was informed of the call from Stockholm, Bunin could not believe what had happened. In Paris, the news spread instantly. Every Russian, regardless of financial position and spent his last pennies in the tavern, rejoicing that their compatriot turned out to be the best.

Once in the Swedish capital, Bunin was almost the most popular Russian person in the world, they stared at him for a long time, looked around, whispered. He was surprised, comparing his fame and honor with the glory of the famous tenor.



Nobel Prize ceremony.
I. A. Bunin in the first row, far right.
Stockholm, 1933

Nobel Prize in 1958 "For significant achievements in modern lyric poetry, as well as for the continuation of the traditions of the great Russian epic novel"

Pasternak's candidacy for the Nobel Prize was discussed in the Nobel Committee annually, from 1946 to 1950. After a personal telegram from the head of the committee and Pasternak's notice of the award, the writer replied with the following words: "Grateful, glad, proud, embarrassed." But some time later, after the planned public persecution of the writer and his friends, public persecution, sowing an impartial and even hostile image among the masses, Pasternak refused the prize, writing a letter with a more voluminous content.

After the prize was awarded, Pasternak bore the entire burden of the “persecuted poet” firsthand. Moreover, he carried this burden not at all for his poems (although it was for them, for the most part, that he was awarded the Nobel Prize), but for the “anti-Sovestvenny” novel Doctor Zhivago. Nes, even refusing such an honorary award and a solid amount of 250,000 crowns. According to the writer himself, he still would not have taken this money, sending it to another, more useful place than his own pocket.

On December 9, 1989, in Stockholm, the son of Boris Pasternak, Yevgeny, was awarded a diploma and Nobel medal Boris Pasternak.



Pasternak Evgeny Borisovich

Nobel Prize 1965 "for the artistic power and integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a turning point for Russia".

Sholokhov, like Pasternak, repeatedly appeared in the field of view of the Nobel Committee. Moreover, their paths, like their offspring, involuntarily, and voluntarily too, crossed more than once. Their novels, without the participation of the authors themselves, "prevented" each other from winning the main award. It is pointless to choose the best of two brilliant, but such various works. Moreover, the Nobel Prize was given (and is being given) in both cases not for individual works, but for the general contribution as a whole, for a special component of all creativity. Once, in 1954, the Nobel Committee did not award Sholokhov an award only because the letter of recommendation from Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences Sergeev-Tsensky arrived a couple of days later, and the committee did not have enough time to consider Sholokhov's candidacy. It is believed that the novel (" Quiet Don”) at that time was not beneficial to Sweden politically, and artistic value has always played a secondary role for the committee. In 1958, when the figure of Sholokhov looked like an iceberg in the Baltic Sea, the prize went to Pasternak. Already a gray-haired, sixty-year-old Sholokhov in Stockholm was awarded his well-deserved Nobel Prize, after which the writer read the same pure and honest speech as all his work.



Mikhail Alexandrovich in the Golden Hall of the Stockholm City Hall
before the start of the Nobel Prize.

Nobel Prize 1970 "For the moral strength gleaned from the tradition of great Russian literature."

Solzhenitsyn learned about this award while still in the camps. And in his heart he aspired to become its laureate. In 1970, after he was awarded the Nobel Prize, Solzhenitsyn replied that he would come for the award "in person, on the appointed day." However, just like twelve years earlier, when Pasternak was also threatened with deprivation of his citizenship, Solzhenitsin canceled his trip to Stockholm. It's hard to say that he regretted it too much. Reading the program of the gala evening, he kept coming across pompous details: what and how to say, a tuxedo or tailcoat to wear at a particular banquet. "... Why is it necessary white butterfly- he thought, - but you can’t wear a camp jacket?" "And how to talk about the main business of all life at the" banquet table "when the tables are laden with dishes and everyone drinks, eats, talks...".

Nobel Prize 1987 "For a comprehensive literary activity distinguished by clarity of thought and poetic intensity.

Of course, it was much "easier" for Brodsky to receive the Nobel Prize than for Pasternak or Solzhenitsyn. At that time, he was already a hunted emigrant, deprived of citizenship and the right to enter Russia. The news of the Nobel Prize caught Brodsky at lunch in a Chinese restaurant near London. The news practically did not change the expression of the writer's face. He only joked to the first reporters that now he will have to talk his tongue whole year. One journalist asked Brodsky whether he considers himself a Russian or an American? “I am a Jew, a Russian poet and an English essayist,” Brodsky replied.

Known for his indecisive nature, Brodsky took to Stockholm two versions of the Nobel Lecture: in Russian and in English. Before last moment no one knew in what language the writer would read the text. Brodsky stopped in Russian.



On December 10, 1987, the Russian poet Iosif Brodsky was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his all-encompassing work, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity."

FIVE RUSSIAN WRITERS WHO BECAME NOBEL LAUREATES 1.IVAN BUNIN. On December 10, 1933, King Gustav V of Sweden presented the Nobel Prize in Literature to the writer Ivan Bunin, who became the first Russian writer to receive this high award. In total, the award, established by the inventor of dynamite Alfred Bernhard Nobel in 1833, was received by 21 natives of Russia and the USSR, five of them in the field of literature. Indeed, it has historically been the case that Russian poets and writers, the Nobel Prize was fraught with big problems. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin distributed the Nobel Prize to friends. In December 1933, the Parisian press wrote: “Without a doubt, I.A. Bunin - for last years, - the most powerful figure in Russian fiction and poetry", "the king of literature confidently and equally shook hands with the crowned monarch." The Russian emigration applauded. In Russia, however, the news that a Russian emigrant received the Nobel Prize was treated very caustically. After all, Bunin negatively perceived the events of 1917 and emigrated to France. Ivan Alekseevich himself experienced emigration very hard, was actively interested in the fate of his abandoned homeland, and during the Second World War he categorically refused all contacts with the Nazis, having moved to the Maritime Alps in 1939, returning from there to Paris only in 1945. It is known that the Nobel laureates themselves have the right decide how to spend the money they receive. Someone invests in the development of science, someone in charity, someone in own business. Bunin, a creative person and devoid of "practical ingenuity", disposed of his bonus, which amounted to 170,331 crowns, completely irrationally. Poet and literary critic Zinaida Shakhovskaya recalled: “Having returned to France, Ivan Alekseevich ... apart from money, he began to arrange feasts, distribute “allowances” to emigrants, and donate funds to support various societies. Finally, on the advice of well-wishers, he invested the remaining amount in some kind of “win-win business” and was left with nothing. Ivan Bunin is the first émigré writer to be published in Russia. True, the first publications of his stories appeared already in the 1950s, after the death of the writer. Some of his novels and poems were published in his homeland only in the 1990s. Merciful God, why did you give us passions, thoughts and worries, Thirst for business, glory and comfort? Joyful are the cripples, idiots, The leper is the most joyful of all. (I. Bunin. September, 1917)

2.BORIS PASTERNAK. Boris Pasternak refused the Nobel Prize. Boris Pasternak was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature "for significant achievements in modern lyric poetry, as well as for continuing the traditions of the great Russian epic novel" annually from 1946 to 1950. In 1958, last year's Nobel laureate Albert Camus again proposed his candidacy, and on October 23, Pasternak became the second Russian writer to be awarded this prize. The writers' environment in the poet's homeland took this news extremely negatively, and already on October 27, Pasternak was unanimously expelled from the Writers' Union of the USSR, at the same time submitting a petition to deprive Pasternak of Soviet citizenship. In the USSR, Pasternak was associated with receiving the award only with his novel Doctor Zhivago. The literary newspaper wrote: “Pasternak received “thirty pieces of silver”, for which the Nobel Prize was used. He was rewarded for agreeing to play the role of bait on the rusty hook of anti-Soviet propaganda ... An inglorious end awaits the resurrected Judas, Doctor Zhivago, and his author, whose lot will be popular contempt. The mass campaign launched against Pasternak forced him to refuse the Nobel Prize. The poet sent a telegram to the Swedish Academy, in which he wrote: “Due to the significance that the award awarded to me has received in the society to which I belong, I must refuse it. Do not take my voluntary refusal as an insult. It should be noted that in the USSR until 1989, even in school curriculum there was no mention of Pasternak's work in the literature. The first to decide to massively acquaint Soviet people with the creative work of Pasternak directed by Eldar Ryazanov. In his comedy "The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!" (1976) he included the poem "There Will Be No One in the House", transforming it into an urban romance, performed by the bard Sergei Nikitin. Ryazanov later included in his film " Love affair at work"an excerpt from another poem by Pasternak -" Loving others is a heavy cross ..." (1931). True, he sounded in a farcical context. But it is worth noting that at that time the very mention of Pasternak's poems was a very bold step. It's easy to wake up and see the light, Shake the verbal rubbish out of the heart And live without being clogged in the future, All this is not a big trick. (B. Pasternak, 1931)

3. MIKHAIL SHOLOKHOV Mikhail Sholokhov, receiving the Nobel Prize, did not bow to the monarch. Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1965 for his novel The Quiet Flows the Flows Flows the Flows Flows and went down in history as the only Soviet writer to receive this award with the consent of the Soviet leadership. The diploma of the laureate says "in recognition of the artistic strength and honesty that he showed in his Don epic about the historical phases of the life of the Russian people." Gustav Adolf VI, who presented the award to the Soviet writer, called him "one of the most prominent writers our time". Sholokhov did not bow to the king, as prescribed by the rules of etiquette. Some sources claim that he did this intentionally with the words: “We Cossacks do not bow to anyone. Here in front of the people - please, but I will not be in front of the king ... "

4. ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN Alexander Solzhenitsyn was deprived of Soviet citizenship because of the Nobel Prize. Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn, the commander of the sound intelligence battery, who rose to the rank of captain during the war years and was awarded two military orders, was arrested in 1945 by front-line counterintelligence for anti-Sovietism. Sentence - 8 years in camps and life exile. He went through a camp in New Jerusalem near Moscow, Marfinskaya "sharashka" and the Special Ekibastuz camp in Kazakhstan. In 1956, Solzhenitsyn was rehabilitated, and since 1964 Alexander Solzhenitsyn devoted himself to literature. At the same time, he worked immediately on 4 major works: “The Gulag Archipelago”, “ cancer corps”, “Red Wheel” and “In the first circle”. In the USSR in 1964 they published the story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich", and in 1966 the story "Zakhar-Kalita". On October 8, 1970, Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize "for the moral strength gleaned from the tradition of great Russian literature." This was the reason for the persecution of Solzhenitsyn in the USSR. In 1971, all the writer's manuscripts were confiscated, and in the next 2 years, all his publications were destroyed. In 1974, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was issued, which, for the systematic commission of actions that are incompatible with belonging to the citizenship of the USSR and detrimental to the USSR, ”Alexander Solzhenitsyn was deprived of Soviet citizenship and deported from the USSR. Citizenship was returned to the writer only in 1990, and in 1994 he and his family returned to Russia and became actively involved in public life.

5.JOSIF BRODSKII Nobel Prize winner Joseph Brodsky in Russia was convicted of parasitism. Joseph Aleksandrovich Brodsky began to write poetry at the age of 16. Anna Akhmatova predicted for him a hard life and a glorious creative destiny. In 1964, in Leningrad, a criminal case was opened against the poet on charges of parasitism. He was arrested and sent into exile in the Arkhangelsk region, where he spent a year. In 1972, Brodsky turned to Secretary General Brezhnev with a request to work in his homeland as a translator, but his request remained unanswered, and he was forced to emigrate. Brodsky first lives in Vienna, in London, and then moves to the United States, where he becomes a professor at New York, Michigan and other universities in the country. On December 10, 1987, Joseph Brosky was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his comprehensive work, saturated with the clarity of thought and the passion of poetry." It is worth saying that Brodsky, after Vladimir Nabokov, is the second Russian writer who writes in English as his native language. The sea was not visible. In the whitish haze that swaddled all over us, it was absurd to think that the ship was going to land - if at all it was a ship, and not a bunch of fog, as if someone had poured white into the milk. (B. Brodsky, 1972)

INTERESTING FACT Nobel Prize in different time put forward, but never received it, such famous people like Mahatma Gandhi, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Franklin Roosevelt, Nicholas Roerich and Leo Tolstoy.

The Nobel Committee has been silent about its work for a long time, and only after 50 years does it reveal information about how the prize was awarded. On January 2, 2018, it became known that Konstantin Paustovsky was among the 70 candidates for the 1967 Nobel Prize in Literature.

The company was very worthy: Samuel Beckett, Louis Aragon, Alberto Moravia, Jorge Luis Borges, Pablo Neruda, Yasunari Kawabata, Graham Greene, Wisten Hugh Auden. That year the Academy awarded the Guatemalan writer Miguel Ángel Asturias “for his living literary achievements, deeply rooted in national features and traditions of the indigenous peoples of Latin America”.


The name of Konstantin Paustovsky was proposed by a member of the Swedish Academy, Eivind Junson, but the Nobel Committee rejected his candidacy with the wording: "The Committee would like to emphasize its interest in this proposal for a Russian writer, but for natural reasons it should be put aside for the time being." It is difficult to say which natural causes» is being discussed. It remains only to bring known facts.

In 1965, Paustovsky was already nominated for the Nobel Prize. This was unusual year, because among the nominees for the award there were four Russian writers at once - Anna Akhmatova, Mikhail Sholokhov, Konstantin Paustovsky, Vladimir Nabokov. As a result, Mikhail Sholokhov received the award, so as not to annoy too much Soviet authorities after the previous Nobel laureate Boris Pasternak, whose award caused a huge scandal.

The prize for literature was first awarded in 1901. Since then, six authors writing in Russian have received it. Some of them cannot be attributed either to the USSR or to Russia in connection with questions of citizenship. However, their instrument was the Russian language, and this is the main thing.

Ivan Bunin becomes the first Russian Nobel Prize in Literature in 1933, taking the top on his fifth attempt. As subsequent history will show, this will not be the longest path to the Nobel.


The award was presented with the wording "for the rigorous skill with which he develops the traditions of Russian classical prose».

In 1958, the Nobel Prize went to a representative of Russian literature for the second time. Boris Pasternak was noted "for significant achievements in modern lyric poetry, as well as for continuing the traditions of the great Russian epic novel."


For Pasternak himself, the award brought nothing but problems and a campaign under the slogan “I didn’t read it, but I condemn it!”. It was about the novel "Doctor Zhivago", which was published abroad, which at that time was equated with a betrayal of the motherland. Even the fact that the novel was published in Italy by a communist publishing house did not save the situation. The writer was forced to refuse the award under the threat of expulsion from the country and threats against his family and loved ones. The Swedish Academy recognized Pasternak's refusal of the prize as forced and in 1989 presented a diploma and a medal to his son. This time there were no incidents.

In 1965, Mikhail Sholokhov became the third recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature "for the artistic power and integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a turning point for Russia."


It was the "correct" award from the point of view of the USSR, especially since the state supported the writer's candidacy directly.

In 1970, the Nobel Prize in Literature went to Alexander Solzhenitsyn "for the moral force with which he followed the immutable traditions of Russian literature."


The Nobel Committee made excuses for a long time that its decision was not political, as the Soviet authorities claimed. Supporters of the version about the political nature of the award note two things - only eight years have passed from the moment of the first publication of Solzhenitsyn to the award of the award, which cannot be compared with other laureates. Moreover, by the time the prize was awarded, neither The Gulag Archipelago nor The Red Wheel had been published.

The fifth recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1987 was the émigré poet Joseph Brodsky, awarded "for his all-encompassing work, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity."


The poet was forcibly sent into exile in 1972 and had American citizenship at the time of the award.

Already in the 21st century, in 2015, that is, 28 years later, Svetlana Aleksievich receives the Nobel Prize as a representative of Belarus. And again, there was some scandal. Many writers, public figures and politicians were rejected by the ideological position of Aleksievich, others believed that her works were ordinary journalism and had nothing to do with artistic creativity.


In any case, in the history of the Nobel Prize opened new page. For the first time, the prize was awarded not to a writer, but to a journalist.

Thus, almost all decisions of the Nobel Committee concerning writers from Russia had a political or ideological background. This began as early as 1901, when Swedish academicians wrote to Tolstoy, calling him "the highly venerated patriarch modern literature"and" one of those powerful soulful poets, which in this case should be remembered first of all.

The main message of the letter was the desire of academicians to justify their decision not to award the prize to Leo Tolstoy. Academicians wrote that the great writer himself "never aspired to such an award." Leo Tolstoy thanked in response: “I was very pleased that the Nobel Prize was not awarded to me ... This saved me from a great difficulty - to manage this money, which, like any money, in my opinion, can only bring evil.”

Forty-nine Swedish writers, led by August Strindberg and Selma Lagerlöf, wrote a letter of protest to the Nobel academics. In total, the great Russian writer was nominated for the award for five years in a row, last time this was in 1906, four years before his death. It was then that the writer turned to the committee with a request not to award him the prize, so that he would not have to refuse later.


Today, the opinions of those experts who excommunicated Tolstoy from the prize have become the property of history. Among them is Professor Alfred Jensen, who believed that the philosophy of the late Tolstoy was contrary to the will of Alfred Nobel, who dreamed of an "idealistic orientation" of his works. And "War and Peace" is completely "devoid of understanding of history." The secretary of the Swedish Academy, Karl Virsen, even more categorically formulated his point of view on the impossibility of awarding the prize to Tolstoy: "This writer condemned all forms of civilization and insisted in return for them to adopt a primitive way of life, cut off from all the establishments of high culture."

Among those who became a nominee, but did not have the honor of giving the Nobel lecture, there are many big names.
This is Dmitry Merezhkovsky (1914, 1915, 1930-1937)


Maxim Gorky (1918, 1923, 1928, 1933)


Konstantin Balmont (1923)


Pyotr Krasnov (1926)


Ivan Shmelev (1931)


Mark Aldanov (1938, 1939)


Nikolai Berdyaev (1944, 1945, 1947)


As you can see, the list of nominees includes mainly those Russian writers who were in exile at the time of the nomination. This series has been replenished with new names.
This is Boris Zaitsev (1962)


Vladimir Nabokov (1962)


Of the Soviet Russian writers, only Leonid Leonov (1950) was on the list.


Anna Akhmatova, of course, Soviet writer can only be considered conditionally, because she had the citizenship of the USSR. The only time she was in the Nobel nomination in 1965.

If you wish, you can name more than one Russian writer who has earned the title of Nobel Prize winner for his work. For example, Joseph Brodsky Nobel lecture mentioned three Russians poets who would be worthy to be on the Nobel rostrum. These are Osip Mandelstam, Marina Tsvetaeva and Anna Akhmatova.

Further history Nobel nominations will surely open up many more interesting things for us.