Vladimir Nabokov
The Nobel Prize in Literature is the most prestigious award given annually by the Nobel Foundation for achievements in literature since 1901. An award-winning writer appears in the eyes of millions of people as an incomparable talent or genius who, with his work, has managed to win the hearts of readers from all over the world.
However, there are a number of famous writers who, for various reasons, bypassed the Nobel Prize, but they deserved it no less than their fellow laureates, and sometimes even more. Who are they?
LEV TOLSTOY
It is generally accepted that Leo Tolstoy himself refused the prize. In 1901, the first Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the French poet Sully-Prudhomme - although, it would seem, how can one get around the author of Anna Karenina, War and Peace?
Understanding the embarrassment, the Swedish academicians shyly turned to Tolstoy, calling him "the deeply revered patriarch of modern literature" and "one of those mighty penetrating poets, which in this case should be remembered first of all." However, they wrote, the great writer himself "never aspired to such an award." Tolstoy thanked: “I was very pleased that the Nobel Prize was not awarded to me,” he wrote. "This saved me from a great difficulty - to dispose of this money, which, like all money, in my opinion, can only bring evil."
49 Swedish writers, led by August Strindberg and Selma Lagerlöf, wrote a letter of protest to the Nobel academics. The opinion of the expert of the Nobel Committee, Professor Alfred Jensen, was left behind the scenes: the philosophy of the late Tolstoy contradicts the testament 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 agreed with this:
"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."
Whether Lev Nikolayevich heard about it or not, but in 1906, anticipating another nomination, he asked the academicians to do everything so that he would not have to refuse the prestigious award. They happily agreed, and Tolstoy did not appear on the list of Nobel laureates.
VLADIMIR NABOKOV
One of the contenders for the award in 1963 was the famous writer Vladimir Nabokov, author of the sensational novel Lolita. This circumstance was a pleasant surprise for fans of the writer's work.
The scandalous novel, the theme of which was unthinkable for that time, was published in 1955 by the Parisian publishing house Olympia Press. In the 60s, rumors about Vladimir Nabokov's nomination for the Nobel Prize appeared more than once, but nothing was really clear. A little later it will become known that Nabokov will never receive the Nobel Prize for excessive immorality.
Anders Esterling, a permanent member of the Swedish Academy, opposed Nabokov's candidacy. “The author of the immoral and successful novel Lolita cannot under any circumstances be considered as a candidate for the prize,” Esterling wrote in 1963.
In 1972, the prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn approached the Swedish committee with a recommendation to consider Nabokov's candidacy. Subsequently, the authors of many publications (in particular, the London Times, The Guardian, New York Times) ranked Nabokov among those writers who were undeservedly not included in the lists of nominees.
The writer was nominated in 1974 but lost to two Swedish authors who are now forgotten. But they turned out to be members of the Nobel Committee. One American critic wittily said: "Nabokov did not receive the Nobel Prize, not because he did not deserve it, but because the Nobel Prize did not deserve Nabokov."
MAKSIM GORKY
Since 1918, Maxim Gorky was nominated 5 times for the Nobel Prize in Literature - in 1918, 1923, 1928, 1930 and finally in 1933.
But even in 1933, the Nobel bypassed the writer. Among the nominees that year, together with him, were again Bunin and Merezhkovsky. For Bunin, this was the fifth attempt to take the Nobel. It turned out to be successful, in contrast to the five-time nominees. The award to Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was presented with the wording "For the strict skill with which he develops the traditions of Russian classical prose."
Until the forties, the Russian emigration had a concern - to do everything so that the prize would not fall to Gorky and the myth that there would be no culture left on the territory of Russia without emigrants. Both Balmont and Shmelev were put forward as candidates, but Merezhkovsky was especially nervous. The fuss was accompanied by intrigues, Aldanov urged Bunin to agree to a "group" nomination, the three of us, Merezhkovsky persuaded Bunin to agree to an amicable agreement - whoever wins will divide the prize in half. Bunin did not agree, and he did the right thing - Merezhkovsky, a fighter against the "coming boor", will soon be soiled by fraternization with Hitler and Mussolini.
And Bunin, by the way, gave part of the award without any contracts to needy Russian writers (they fought anyway), part was lost in the war, but Bunin bought a radio receiver for the award, on which he listened to reports of battles on the eastern front - he was worried.
However, the fact is that even here the Swedish newspapers were perplexed. Gorky has much more merit in Russian and world literature, Bunin is known only to fellow writers and rare connoisseurs. And Marina Tsvetaeva was indignant, by the way, sincerely: “I don’t protest, I just don’t agree, because Bunin is incomparably bigger: more, and more humane, and more original, and more necessary - Gorky. Gorky is an era, and Bunin is the end of an era. But - since this is politics, since the king of Sweden cannot pin an order on the communist Gorky ... "
Behind the scenes were the malicious opinions of experts. Having listened to them, back in 1918, academicians considered that Gorky, nominated by Romain Rolland, was an anarchist and "without a doubt, does not fit into the framework of the Nobel Prize in any way." The Dane H. Pontoppidan was preferred to Gorky (don't remember who it is - and it doesn't matter). In the 1930s, academicians hesitated and came up with - "collaborating with the Bolsheviks", the award "will be misinterpreted."
ANTON CHEKHOV
Anton Pavlovich, who died in 1904 (the award has been awarded since 1901), most likely simply did not have time to receive it. By the day of his death, he was known in Russia, but not yet very well in the West. In addition, there he is better known as a playwright. More precisely, in general, only as a playwright, he is known there. And the Nobel Committee does not favor playwrights.
…WHO ELSE?
In addition to the aforementioned Russian writers, among the Russian nominees for the award in different years were Anatoly Koni, Konstantin Balmont, Pyotr Krasnov, Ivan Shmelev, Nikolai Berdyaev, Mark Aldanov, Leonid Leonov, Boris Zaitsev, Roman Yakobson and Evgeny Yevtushenko.
And how many geniuses of Russian literature have not even been declared among the nominees Bulgakov, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Mandelstam ... Everyone can continue this brilliant series with the names of their favorite writers and poets.
Is it a coincidence that four out of five Russian writers who became Nobel laureates were in one way or another in conflict with the Soviet authorities? Bunin and Brodsky were emigrants, Solzhenitsyn was a dissident, Pasternak received an award for a novel published abroad. Yes, Sholokhov, who was completely loyal to the Soviet government, was given the Nobel "for the artistic strength and integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a turning point for Russia."
Is it any wonder that in 1955 even the infamous Soviet cryptographer-defector Igor Gouzenko, who took up literature in the West, was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
And in 1970, the Nobel Committee had to prove for a long time that the prize was awarded to Alexander Solzhenitsyn not for political reasons, but "for the moral strength with which he followed the immutable traditions of Russian literature." Indeed, by that time only eight years had passed from the moment of the first publication of the writer, and his main works “The Gulag Archipelago” and “The Red Wheel” had not yet been published.
That's the way it is, brethren...
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These works are more than thousands of other books that fill the shelves of bookstores. Everything is perfect in them - from the laconic language of talented writers to the topics raised by the authors.
"Scenes from Provincial Life" by John Maxwell Coetzee
South African John Maxwell Coetzee is the first writer to win the Booker Prize twice (in 1983 and 1999). In 2003, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature "for creating countless guises for amazing situations involving outsiders." Coetzee's novels are characterized by well thought out composition, rich dialogue and analytical skill. He subjects the brutal rationalism and artificial morality of Western civilization to merciless criticism. At the same time, Coetzee is one of those writers who rarely talks about his work, and even less often about himself. However, Scenes from a Provincial Life, an amazing autobiographical novel, is an exception. Here Coetzee is extremely frank with the reader. He talks about the painful, suffocating love of his mother, about the hobbies and mistakes that followed him for years, and about the path that he had to go through to finally start writing.
The Humble Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa
Mario Vargas Llosa is an eminent Peruvian novelist and playwright who received the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his cartography of the structure of power and his vivid images of resistance, rebellion and defeat of the individual." Continuing the line of great Latin American writers such as Jorge Luis Borges, Garcia Marquez, Julio Cortazar, he creates amazing novels that balance on the verge of reality and fiction. In Vargas Llosa's new book, The Modest Hero, two parallel storylines masterfully twist in the graceful rhythm of the mariners. The hard worker Felicito Yanake, decent and trusting, becomes a victim of strange blackmailers. At the same time, a successful businessman, Ismael Carrera, in the twilight of his life, seeks revenge on his two idle sons, who long for his death. And Ismael and Felicito, of course, are not heroes at all. However, where others cowardly agree, the two stage a quiet rebellion. On the pages of the new novel, old acquaintances also flicker - the characters of the world created by Vargas Llosa.
Moons of Jupiter, Alice Munro
Canadian writer Alice Munro is a master of the modern short story, winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature. Critics constantly compare Munro to Chekhov, and this comparison is not without foundation: like a Russian writer, she knows how to tell a story in such a way that readers, even those who belong to a completely different culture, recognize themselves in the characters. So these twelve stories, presented in a seemingly simple language, reveal amazing plot abysses. On some twenty pages, Munro manages to create a whole world - alive, tangible and incredibly attractive.
Beloved, Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison received the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature for a writer "who, in her dreamy and poetic novels, brought to life an important aspect of American reality." Her most famous novel, Beloved, was published in 1987 and won the Pulitzer Prize. The book is based on real events that took place in Ohio in the 80s of the nineteenth century: this is an amazing story of a black slave, Sethy, who decided on a terrible act - to give freedom, but take life. Sethie kills her daughter to save her from slavery. A novel about how difficult it is sometimes to tear out the memory of the past from the heart, about the difficult choice that changes fate, and about people who will forever remain loved.
"Woman from Nowhere" by Jean-Marie Gustave Leclezio
Jean-Marie Gustave Leclezio, one of the most important living French writers, won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2008. He is the author of thirty books, including novels, short stories, essays and articles. In the presented book, for the first time in Russian, two stories by Leklezio are published at once: “The Tempest” and “The Woman from Nowhere”. The action of the first takes place on an island lost in the Sea of Japan, the second - in Côte d'Ivoire and the Parisian suburbs. However, despite such a vast geography, the heroines of both stories are very similar in some ways - they are teenage girls who are desperately striving to find their place in an unfriendly, hostile world. The Frenchman Leklezio, who lived for a long time in the countries of South America, Africa, Southeast Asia, Japan, Thailand and on his native island of Mauritius, writes about how a person who grew up in the bosom of pristine nature feels himself in the oppressive space of modern civilization.
"My Strange Thoughts" Orhan Pamuk
Turkish prose writer Orhan Pamuk received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006 "for finding new symbols for the collision and interweaving of cultures in search of the melancholic soul of his native city." "My Strange Thoughts" is the author's last novel, on which he worked for six years. The main character, Mevlut, works on the streets of Istanbul, watching the streets fill with new people, and the city gains and loses new and old buildings. Coups are taking place before his eyes, the authorities are replacing each other, and Mevlut is still wandering the streets on winter evenings, wondering what distinguishes him from other people, why he is visited by strange thoughts about everything in the world, and who is really him sweetheart to whom he has been writing letters for the past three years.
"Legends of Modernity. Occupation Essays, Czeslaw Miloš
Czesław Milosz is a Polish poet and essayist who received the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature "for showing with fearless clairvoyance the insecurity of man in a world torn by conflict." “Legends of Modernity” is the “confession of the son of the century” translated into Russian for the first time, written by Milos in the ruins of Europe in 1942-1943. It includes essays on outstanding literary (Defoe, Balzac, Stendhal, Tolstoy, Gide, Witkevich) and philosophical (James, Nietzsche, Bergson) texts, and polemical correspondence between C. Miloš and E. Andrzejewski. Exploring modern myths and prejudices, appealing to the tradition of rationalism, Milosz tries to find a foothold for European culture, humiliated by the two world wars.
Photo: Getty Images, press archive
The Nobel Prize in Literature began to be awarded in 1901. Several times the awards were not held - in 1914, 1918, 1935, 1940-1943. Current laureates, chairmen of authors' unions, professors of literature and members of scientific academies can nominate other writers for the award. Until 1950, information about the nominees was public, and then they began to name only the names of the winners.
For five consecutive years, from 1902 to 1906, Leo Tolstoy was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
In 1906, Tolstoy wrote a letter to the Finnish writer and translator Arvid Järnefelt, in which he asked him to convince his Swedish colleagues “to try to make sure that they don’t award me this prize,” because “if this happened, it would be very unpleasant for me to refuse.”
As a result, the prize was awarded in 1906 to the Italian poet Giosue Carducci. Tolstoy was glad that he was spared the prize: “Firstly, it saved me from a great difficulty - to manage this money, which, like any money, in my opinion, can only bring evil; and secondly, it gave me the honor and great pleasure to receive expressions of sympathy from so many persons, although not familiar to me, but nevertheless deeply respected by me.
In 1902, another Russian, a lawyer, judge, orator and writer Anatoly Koni, also ran for the award. By the way, Koni had been friends with Tolstoy since 1887, he corresponded with the count and met him many times in Moscow. On the basis of Koni's memoirs about one of Tolstov's cases, "Resurrection" was written. And Koni himself wrote the work "Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy".
Koni himself was nominated for an award for his biographical essay on Dr. Haase, who devoted his life to the struggle to improve the lives of prisoners and exiles. Subsequently, some literary critics spoke of Koni's nomination as a "curiosity".
In 1914, the writer and poet Dmitry Merezhkovsky, the husband of the poetess Zinaida Gippius, was nominated for the award for the first time. In total, Merezhkovsky was nominated 10 times.
In 1914, Merezhkovsky was nominated for the prize after the release of his 24-volume collected works. However, this year the prize was not awarded due to the outbreak of the World War.
Later, Merezhkovsky was nominated as an émigré writer. In 1930 he was again nominated for the Nobel Prize. But here Merezhkovsky finds himself in competition with another outstanding Russian émigré literature, Ivan Bunin.
According to one of the legends, Merezhkovsky offered Bunin to conclude a pact. “If I get the Nobel Prize, I will give you half, if you - you give me. Let's split it in half. Let's insure each other." Bunin refused. Merezhkovsky was never awarded the prize.
In 1916, Ivan Franko, a Ukrainian writer and poet, became a nominee. He died before the award could be considered. With rare exceptions, Nobel Prizes are not awarded posthumously.
In 1918, Maxim Gorky was nominated for the prize, but again it was decided not to present the award.
The year 1923 becomes "fruitful" for Russian and Soviet writers. Ivan Bunin (for the first time), Konstantin Balmont (pictured) and again Maxim Gorky were nominated for the award. Thanks for this to the writer Romain Rolland, who nominated all three. But the award is given to the Irishman William Gates.
In 1926, a Russian émigré, Tsarist Cossack General Pyotr Krasnov, became the nominee. After the revolution, he fought with the Bolsheviks, created the state of the Great Don Army, but later was forced to join Denikin's army, and then retire. In 1920 he emigrated, until 1923 he lived in Germany, then in Paris.
Since 1936, Krasnov lived in Nazi Germany. He did not recognize the Bolsheviks, he helped anti-Bolshevik organizations. During the war years, he collaborated with the Nazis, considered their aggression against the USSR as a war exclusively against the Communists, and not against the people. In 1945 he was captured by the British, handed over by the Soviets and in 1947 hanged in the Lefortovo prison.
Among other things, Krasnov was a prolific writer, he published 41 books. His most popular novel was the epic From the Double-Headed Eagle to the Red Banner. Slavic philologist Vladimir Frantsev nominated Krasnov for the Nobel Prize. Can you imagine if in 1926 he miraculously won the prize? How would you argue now about this person and this award?
In 1931 and 1932, in addition to the already familiar nominees Merezhkovsky and Bunin, Ivan Shmelev was nominated for the award. In 1931, his novel Praying Man was published.
In 1933, the first Russian-speaking writer, Ivan Bunin, received the Nobel Prize. The wording is "For the strict skill with which he develops the traditions of Russian classical prose." Bunin did not really like the wording, he wanted more to be awarded for poetry.
On YouTube, you can find a very murky video in which Ivan Bunin reads out his address on the Nobel Prize.
After the news of the award, Bunin stopped by to visit Merezhkovsky and Gippius. “Congratulations,” the poetess told him, “and I envy you.” Not everyone agreed with the decision of the Nobel Committee. Marina Tsvetaeva, for example, wrote that Gorky deserved much more.
Bonus, 170331 kroons, Bunin actually squandered. The poet and literary critic Zinaida Shakhovskaya recalled: “Having returned to France, Ivan Alekseevich ... apart from money, 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.
In 1949, emigrant Mark Aldanov (pictured) and three Soviet writers at once were nominated for the award - Boris Pasternak, Mikhail Sholokhov and Leonid Leonov. The award was given to William Faulkner.
In 1958, Boris Pasternak received the Nobel Prize "for significant achievements in modern lyric poetry, as well as for continuing the traditions of the great Russian epic novel."
Pasternak received the award, having previously been nominated six times. It was last nominated by Albert Camus.
In the Soviet Union, the persecution of the writer immediately began. At the initiative of Suslov (pictured), the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU adopts a resolution labeled "Top Secret" "On B. Pasternak's slanderous novel."
"Recognize that the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Pasternak's novel, which slanderously depicts the October Socialist Revolution, the Soviet people who made this revolution, and the building of socialism in the USSR, is an act hostile to our country and an instrument of international reaction aimed at fomenting the Cold War" , the resolution said.
From a note by Suslov on the day the prize was awarded: "Organize and publish a collective performance by the most prominent Soviet writers, in which they evaluate the award of the prize to Pasternak as a desire to ignite the Cold War."
The persecution of the writer began in the newspapers and at numerous meetings. From the transcript of the all-Moscow meeting of writers: “There is no poet more distant from the people than B. Pasternak, a poet more aesthetic, in whose work the pre-revolutionary decadence preserved in its original purity would sound like this. All the poetic work of B. Pasternak lay outside the real traditions of Russian poetry, which always warmly responded to all events in the life of its people.
Writer Sergei Smirnov: “Finally, I was offended by this novel, as a soldier of the Patriotic War, as a man who had to cry over the graves of his dead comrades during the war, as a man who now has to write about the heroes of the war, about the heroes of the Brest Fortress, about others wonderful war heroes who revealed the heroism of our people with amazing power.
"Thus, comrades, the novel Doctor Zhivago, in my deep conviction, is an apology for betrayal."
Critic Kornely Zelinsky: “I have a very heavy feeling from reading this novel. I felt literally spat upon. My whole life seemed spat upon in this novel. Everything that I have invested in for 40 years, creative energy, hopes, hopes - all this was spat on.
Unfortunately, Pasternak was smashed not only by mediocrity. Poet Boris Slutsky (pictured): “A poet must seek recognition from his people, and not from his enemies. The poet must seek glory in his native land, and not from an overseas uncle. Gentlemen, the Swedish academicians know about the Soviet land only that the Battle of Poltava, which they hate, and the October Revolution, which they hate even more, took place there (noise in the hall). What is our literature to them?
Writers' meetings were held throughout the country, at which Pasternak's novel was denounced as slanderous, hostile, mediocre, and so on. Rallies were held at the factories against Pasternak and his novel.
From a letter from Pasternak to the Presidium of the Board of the Union of Writers of the USSR: “I thought that my joy at the award of the Nobel Prize to me would not remain alone, that it would touch the society of which I am a part. In my eyes, the honor given to me, a modern writer living in Russia and, consequently, to the Soviet one, shown at the same time to all Soviet literature. I am sorry that I was so blind and deluded.”
Under enormous pressure, Pasternak decided to withdraw the prize. “Because of 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,” he wrote in a telegram to the Nobel Committee. Until his death in 1960, Pasternak remained in disgrace, although he was not arrested or expelled.
It is now Pasternak is being erected monuments, his talent is recognized. Then the hunted writer was on the verge of suicide. In the poem "Nobel Prize" Pasternak wrote: "What did I do for dirty tricks, / I am a murderer and a villain? / I made the whole world cry / Over the beauty of my land." After the publication of the poem abroad, the Prosecutor General of the USSR Roman Rudenko promised to bring Pasternak under the article "Treason to the Motherland." But not attracted.
In 1965, the Soviet writer Mikhail Sholokhov received the prize - "For the artistic power and integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a turning point for Russia."
The Soviet authorities viewed Sholokhov as a "counterweight" to Pasternak in the fight for the Nobel Prize. In the 1950s, lists of nominees were not yet published, but the USSR knew that Sholokhov was being considered as a possible contender. Through diplomatic channels, the Swedes were hinted that the USSR would highly appreciate the presentation of the award to this Soviet writer.
In 1964, the prize was awarded to Jean-Paul Sartre, but he refused it and expressed regret (among other things) that the prize was not awarded to Mikhail Sholokhov. This predetermined the decision of the Nobel Committee next year.
During the presentation, Mikhail Sholokhov did not bow to King Gustav Adolf VI, who presented the award. According to one version, this was done on purpose, and Sholokhov said: “We, the Cossacks, do not bow to anyone. Here in front of the people - please, but I will not be in front of the king and that's it ... "
1970 - a new blow to the image of the Soviet state. The prize was awarded to the dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Solzhenitsyn holds the record for the speed of literary recognition. From the moment of the first publication to the award of the last prize, only eight years. Nobody has been able to do this.
As in the case of Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn immediately began to persecute. The Ogonyok magazine published a letter from the American singer Dean Reed, popular in the USSR, who convinced Solzhenitsyn that everything was in order in the USSR, but in the USA - complete seams.
Dean Reed: “It is America, not the Soviet Union, who wages wars and creates a tense environment of possible wars in order to enable their economy to operate, and our dictators, the military-industrial complex to amass even more wealth and power from the blood of the Vietnamese people, our own American soldiers and all the freedom-loving peoples of the world! A sick society is in my homeland, and not in yours, Mr. Solzhenitsyn!
However, Solzhenitsyn, who went through prison, camps and exile, was not too frightened by the censure in the press. He continued literary creativity, dissident work. The authorities hinted to him that it would be better to leave the country, but he refused. Only in 1974, after the release of the Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn was deprived of Soviet citizenship and forcibly expelled from the country.
In 1987, the award was received by Joseph Brodsky, at that time a US citizen. The prize was awarded "For comprehensive creativity, saturated with clarity of thought and passion of poetry."
US citizen Joseph Brodsky wrote the Nobel speech in Russian. She became part of his literary manifesto. Brodsky spoke more about literature, but there was also a place for historical and political remarks. The poet, for example, put the regimes of Hitler and Stalin on the same level.
Brodsky: “This generation - the generation that was born just when the Auschwitz crematoria were operating at full capacity, when Stalin was at the zenith of god-like, absolute, by nature itself, it seemed, sanctioned power, appeared in the world, apparently to continue what theoretically, it should have been interrupted in these crematoria and in the unmarked common graves of the Stalinist archipelago.
Since 1987, the Nobel Prize has not been awarded to Russian writers. Among the contenders, Vladimir Sorokin (pictured), Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Mikhail Shishkin, as well as Zakhar Prilepin and Viktor Pelevin are usually named.
In 2015, the Belarusian writer and journalist Svetlana Aleksievich sensationally receives the award. She wrote such works as "War has no woman's face", "Zinc Boys", "Charmed by Death", "Chernobyl Prayer", "Second Hand Time" and others. A rather rare event in recent years, when the award was given to a person who writes in Russian.
The winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature will soon be announced. Throughout history, only five Russian writers and poets - Ivan Bunin (1933), Boris Pasternak (1958), Mikhail Sholokhov (1965), Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1970) and Joseph Brodsky (1987) - were awarded this prestigious award. Meanwhile, other prominent representatives of Russian literature also claimed the prize - but they never managed to get the coveted medal. About which of the Russian writers could become the owner of the Nobel, but never received it - in the RT material.
Secret Prize
It is known that the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually since 1901. A special committee selects candidates, and then with the help of experts, literary critics and laureates of previous years, the winner is selected.
However, thanks to archival finds at the University of Uppsala, it became known that the literature prize could have been awarded in the 19th century. Most likely, it was established by Alfred Nobel's grandfather, Emmanuel Nobel Sr., who at the end of the 18th century, in correspondence with friends, discussed the idea of establishing an international literary prize.
The list of prize winners found at the Swedish University also includes the names of Russian writers - Thaddeus Bulgarin (1837), Vasily Zhukovsky (1839), Alexander Herzen (1867), Ivan Turgenev (1878) and Leo Tolstoy (1894). However, we still know little about the mechanism for selecting winners and other details of the award process. Therefore, let us turn to the official history of the award, which began for Russia in 1902.
Lawyer and Tolstoy
Few people know, but the first to be nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature was not a writer or a poet, but a lawyer - Anatoly Koni. At the time of his nomination, in 1902, he was an honorary academician of the Academy of Sciences in the category of fine literature, as well as a senator in the general meeting of the First Department of the Senate. It is known that Anton Wulfert, head of the department of criminal law at the Military Law Academy, proposed his candidacy.
The most famous nominee is Leo Tolstoy. From 1902 to 1906, the Nobel Committee persistently proposed his candidacy. By that time, Leo Tolstoy was already well known not only to the Russian, but also to the world community for his novels. According to the expert community, Leo Tolstoy was "the most revered patriarch of modern literature." In a letter that was sent to the writer from the Nobel Committee, academicians called Tolstoy "the greatest and most profound writer." The reason why the author of "War and Peace" never received an award is simple. Alfred Jensen, an expert on Slavonic literature who served as one of the advisors to the nominations committee, criticized Leo Tolstoy's philosophy, describing it as "destructive and contrary to the idealistic nature of the award".
However, the writer was not particularly eager for the award and even wrote about it in a response letter to the committee: “I was very pleased that the Nobel Prize was not awarded to me. This saved me from the great difficulty of managing this money, which, like all money, in my opinion, can only bring evil.
Since 1906, after this letter, Leo Tolstoy was no longer nominated for the prize.
- Leo Tolstoy in his office
- RIA News
Merezhkovsky's calculation
In 1914, on the eve of the First World War, the poet and writer Dmitry Merezhkovsky was nominated for the Nobel Prize. All the same Alfred Jensen noted "the artistic skill of the image, the universal content and the idealistic direction" of the poet's work. In 1915, Merezhkovsky's candidacy was again proposed, this time by the Swedish writer Karl Melin, but again to no avail. But the First World War was going on, and only 15 years later Dmitry Merezhkovsky was again nominated for the award. His candidacy was put forward from 1930 to 1937, but the poet had to face serious competition: Ivan Bunin and Maxim Gorky were nominated with him in the same period. However, the persistent interest of Sigurd Agrel, who nominated Merezhkovsky for seven years in a row, gave hope to the writer to become one of the owners of the coveted award. Unlike Leo Tolstoy, Dmitry Merezhkovsky wanted to become a Nobel laureate. In 1933 Dmitry Merezhkovsky was closest to success. According to the memoirs of Ivan Bunin's wife, Vera, Dmitry Merezhkovsky offered her husband to share the prize. Moreover, in the event of a victory, Merezhkovsky would have given Bunin as much as 200,000 francs. But that did not happen. Despite the fact that Merezhkovsky persistently wrote to the committee, convincing its members of his superiority over competitors, he never got the award.
Gorky is more needed
Maxim Gorky was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature 4 times: in 1918, 1923, 1928 and 1933. The writer's work presented a certain difficulty for the Nobel Committee. Anton Karlgren, who replaced Alfred Jensen as an expert on Slavic studies, noted that in the post-revolutionary work of Gorky (meaning the revolution of 1905. - RT) there is “not the slightest echo of ardent love for the motherland” and that in general his books are a solid “sterile desert”. Earlier, in 1918, Alfred Jensen spoke of Gorky as a "dual cultural and political personality" and "a tired, long-worn out writer." In 1928, Gorky was close to receiving an award. The main struggle unfolded between him and the Norwegian writer Sigrid Unset. Anton Karlgren noted that Gorky's work is like an "extraordinary renaissance" that provided the writer with "a leading place in Russian literature."
- Maxim Gorky, 1928
- RIA News
The Soviet writer lost because of the devastating review of Heinrich Shuk, who noted in Gorky's work "the evolution from bad May Day rhetoric to direct discrediting of the authorities and agitation against it, and then to the Bolshevik ideology." The late works of the writer, according to Shyuk, deserve "absolutely murderous criticism." This became a weighty argument for conservative Swedish academics in favor of Sigrid Undset. In 1933, Maxim Gorky lost to Ivan Bunin, whose novel The Life of Arseniev left no chance for anyone.
Marina Tsvetaeva subsequently resented that Gorky was not awarded the prize precisely in 1933: “I don’t protest, I just don’t agree, because Bunin is incomparably bigger: more, and more humane, and more original, and more necessary - Gorky. Gorky is an era, and Bunin is the end of an era. But - since this is politics, since the king of Sweden cannot pin an order on the communist Gorky ... ".
"Star" 1965
In 1965, four domestic writers were nominated for the award at once: Vladimir Nabokov, Anna Akhmatova, Konstantin Paustovsky and Mikhail Sholokhov.
Vladimir Nabokov was nominated several times in the 1960s for his acclaimed novel Lolita. A member of the Swedish Academy, Anders Osterling, spoke of him as follows: "The author of the immoral and successful novel Lolita cannot under any circumstances be considered as a candidate for the award."
In 1964 he lost to Sartre, and in 1965 to his former compatriot (Nabokov emigrated from the USSR in 1922. — RT) Mikhail Sholokhov. After the 1965 nomination, the Nobel Committee called the novel Lolita immoral. It is still unknown if Nabokov was nominated after 1965, but we do know that Alexander Solzhenitsyn approached the Swedish committee in 1972 with a request to reconsider the writer's candidacy.
Konstantin Paustovsky was eliminated at the preliminary stage, although Swedish academics spoke well of his Tale of Life. Anna Akhmatova competed with Mikhail Sholokhov in the final. Moreover, the Swedish committee proposed to divide the prize between them, arguing that "they write in the same language." Andreas Esterling, professor, long-term secretary of the Academy, noted that Anna Akhmatova's poetry is full of "genuine inspiration." Despite this, the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1965 was awarded to Mikhail Sholokhov, who was nominated for the seventh time.
- King of Sweden Gustav VI Adolf presents Mikhail Sholokhov with an honorary diploma and a Nobel laureate medal
- RIA News
Aldanov and company
In addition to the above-mentioned nominees, other no less honored writers and poets were nominated from Russia at different times. For example, in 1923, together with Maxim Gorky and Ivan Bunin, Konstantin Balmont was nominated. However, his candidacy was rejected by the experts unanimously, as obviously unsuitable.
In 1926, Vladimir Frantsev, a Slavist and historian of literature, nominated White General Pyotr Krasnov to receive a prize in literature. Twice, in 1931 and 1932, the writer Ivan Shmelev applied for the prize.
Since 1938, the writer and publicist Mark Aldanov, who has become the record holder in the number of nominations - 12 times, has long claimed the award. The prose writer was popular among the Russian emigration in France and the USA. Over the years, it was nominated by Vladimir Nabokov and Alexander Kerensky. And Ivan Bunin, who became the laureate of the prize in 1933, proposed Aldanov's candidacy 9 times.
The philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev was nominated four times, the writer Leonid Leonov was nominated twice, the writer Boris Zaitsev was nominated once, and the author of the novel The Fall of Titan Igor Gouzenko, a Soviet cipher-defector defector, was nominated once each.
Edward Epstein
Nobel Prize- one of the most prestigious world awards is awarded annually for outstanding scientific research, revolutionary inventions or a major contribution to culture or society.
November 27, 1895 A. Nobel made a will, which provided for the allocation of certain funds for the award awards in five areas: physics, chemistry, physiology and medicine, literature and contribution to world peace. And in 1900 the Nobel Foundation was created - a private, independent, non-governmental organization with an initial capital of 31 million Swedish kronor. Since 1969, at the initiative of the Swedish Bank, awards have also been made economics awards.
Since the inception of the awards, strict rules have been in place for the selection of laureates. The process involves intellectuals from all over the world. Thousands of minds are working to get the Nobel Prize for the most worthy of the applicants.
In total, five Russian-speaking writers have received this award so far.
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin(1870-1953), Russian writer, poet, honorary academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1933 "for the strict skill with which he develops the traditions of Russian classical prose." In his speech at the award ceremony, Bunin noted the courage of the Swedish Academy, which honored the émigré writer (he emigrated to France in 1920). Ivan Alekseevich Bunin is the greatest master of Russian realistic prose.
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak(1890-1960), Russian poet, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1958 "for outstanding services in modern lyric poetry and in the field of great Russian prose." He was forced to refuse the award under the threat of expulsion from the country. The Swedish Academy recognized Pasternak's refusal of the prize as forced and in 1989 presented a diploma and a medal to his son.
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov(1905-1984), Russian writer, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1965 "for the artistic power and integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a turning point for Russia." In his speech during the awards ceremony, Sholokhov said that his goal was to "exalt a nation of workers, builders and heroes". Starting as a realistic writer who is not afraid to show the deep contradictions of life, Sholokhov, in some of his works, became a prisoner of socialist realism.
Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn(1918-2008), Russian writer, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970 "for the moral strength gleaned from the tradition of great Russian literature." The Soviet government considered the decision of the Nobel Committee "politically hostile", and Solzhenitsyn, fearing that after his trip, returning to his homeland would be impossible, accepted the award, but did not attend the award ceremony. In his artistic literary works, as a rule, he touched on acute socio-political issues, actively opposed communist ideas, the political system of the USSR and the policies of its authorities.
Joseph Alexandrovich Brodsky(1940-1996), poet, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1987 "for a multifaceted work, marked by sharpness of thought and deep poetry." In 1972 he was forced to emigrate from the USSR, he lived in the USA (the world encyclopedia calls him American). I.A. Brodsky is the youngest writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. The features of the poet's lyrics are the understanding of the world as a single metaphysical and cultural whole, the identification of the limitations of a person as a subject of consciousness.
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