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. True, historically it turned out that for Russian poets and writers Nobel Prize was fraught with big problems.
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin handed out the Nobel Prize to friends
In December 1933, the Paris 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, 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 Nobel laureates have the right to decide for themselves how to spend the money they receive. Someone invests in the development of science, someone in charity, someone in their own business. Bunin, a creative person and devoid of "practical ingenuity", disposed of his bonus, which amounted to 170,331 crowns, completely irrationally. The poet and literary critic Zinaida Shakhovskaya recalled: “ Returning 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.».
Ivan Bunin is the first of the émigré writers 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.
Dear God, what are you for?
He gave us passions, thoughts and worries,
Thirst for business, glory and comfort?
Joyful cripples, idiots,
The leper is the happiest of all.
(I. Bunin. September, 1917)
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 Gazette 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: 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».
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 director Eldar Ryazanov was the first to decide to massively acquaint the Soviet people with the creative work of Pasternak. 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.
Easy to wake up and see
Shake verbal rubbish from the heart
And live without clogging in the future,
All this is not a big trick.
(B. Pasternak, 1931)
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 outstanding writers of our time." Sholokhov did not bow to the king, as prescribed by the rules of etiquette. Some sources claim that he did it intentionally with the words: “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 ... "
Alexander Solzhenitsyn was deprived of Soviet citizenship because of the Nobel Prize
Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn, the commander of a sound reconnaissance 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, The Cancer Ward, The 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, according to which, for the systematic commission of actions incompatible with belonging to the citizenship of the USSR and damaging 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.
Nobel Prize winner Joseph Brodsky in Russia was convicted of parasitism
Iosif Alexandrovich 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 language as in native.
The sea was not visible. In the white mist
swaddled on all sides of us, absurd
it was thought that the ship was going to land -
if it was a ship at all,
and not a clot of fog, as if poured
who whitened in milk.
(B. Brodsky, 1972)
Interesting fact
At different times, such famous personalities as Mahatma Gandhi, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Franklin Roosevelt, Nicholas Roerich and Leo Tolstoy were nominated for the Nobel Prize at various times, but never received it.
Literature lovers will definitely be interested - a book that is written with disappearing ink.
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 All-Great Don Army, but was later 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 with the Communists, and not with 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. IN last time it was 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 done to me modern writer living in Russia and, consequently, Soviet, rendered 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.
1933, Ivan Alekseevich Bunin
Bunin was the first Russian writer to receive such a high award - the Nobel Prize in Literature. This happened in 1933, when Bunin had been living in exile in Paris for several years. The prize was awarded to Ivan Bunin "for the strict skill with which he develops the traditions of Russian classical prose." It was about the largest work of the writer - the novel " The Life of Arseniev".
Accepting the award, Ivan Alekseevich said that he was the first exile awarded the Nobel Prize. Together with the diploma, Bunin received a check for 715 thousand French francs. With Nobel money, he could live comfortably until the end of his days. But they quickly ran out. Bunin spent them very easily, generously distributed them to needy emigrant colleagues. He invested part of it in a business that, as he was promised by "well-wishers", a win-win, and went bankrupt.
It was after receiving the Nobel Prize that Bunin's all-Russian fame grew into worldwide fame. Every Russian in Paris, even those who have not yet read a single line of this writer, took it as a personal holiday.
1958, Boris Leonidovich Pasternak
For Pasternak, this high award and recognition turned into a real persecution in his homeland.
Boris Pasternak was nominated for the Nobel Prize more than once - from 1946 to 1950. And in October 1958 he was awarded this award. This happened just after the publication of his novel Doctor Zhivago. The prize was awarded to Pasternak "for significant achievements in modern lyric poetry, as well as for continuing the traditions of the great Russian epic novel."
Immediately after receiving the telegram from the Swedish Academy, Pasternak replied "extremely grateful, touched and proud, amazed and embarrassed." But after it became known about the award of the prize to him, the newspapers Pravda and Literaturnaya Gazeta attacked the poet with indignant articles, awarding him with epithets, "traitor", "slanderer", "Judas". Pasternak was expelled from the Writers' Union and forced to refuse the prize. And in a second letter to Stockholm, he wrote: “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.
Boris Pasternak's Nobel Prize was awarded to his son 31 years later. In 1989, the indispensable secretary of the Academy, Professor Store Allen, read both telegrams sent by Pasternak on October 23 and 29, 1958, and said that the Swedish Academy recognized Pasternak's refusal of the prize as forced and, after thirty-one years, is presenting his medal to his son, regretting that the winner is no longer alive.
1965, Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov
Mikhail Sholokhov was the only Soviet writer to receive the Nobel Prize with the consent of the Soviet leadership. Back in 1958, when a delegation of the Union of Writers of the USSR visited Sweden and found out that the names of Pasternak and Shokholov were among those nominated for the prize, a telegram sent to the Soviet ambassador in Sweden said: “It would be desirable, through cultural figures close to us, to give understand the Swedish public that the Soviet Union would highly appreciate the award of the Nobel Prize to Sholokhov. But then the award was given to Boris Pasternak. Sholokhov received it in 1965 - "for the artistic power and integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a turning point for Russia." By this time, his famous "Quiet Flows the Don" had already been released.
1970, Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn
Alexander Solzhenitsyn became the fourth Russian writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1970 "for the moral strength with which he followed the immutable traditions of Russian literature." By this time, such outstanding works by Solzhenitsyn as Cancer Ward and In the First Circle had already been written. Upon learning of the award, the writer stated that he intended to receive the award "in person, on the appointed day." But after the announcement of the award, the persecution of the writer at home gained full strength. The Soviet government considered the decision of the Nobel Committee "politically hostile". Therefore, the writer was afraid to go to Sweden to receive an award. He accepted it with gratitude, but did not participate in the award ceremony. Solzhenitsyn received his diploma only four years later - in 1974, when he was expelled from the USSR to the FRG.
The writer's wife, Natalya Solzhenitsyna, is still convinced that the Nobel Prize saved her husband's life and made it possible to write. She noted that if he had published The Gulag Archipelago without being a Nobel Prize winner, he would have been killed. By the way, Solzhenitsyn was the only winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, who took only eight years from the first publication to the award.
1987, Joseph Alexandrovich Brodsky
Joseph Brodsky became the fifth Russian writer to win the Nobel Prize. This happened in 1987, at the same time his large book of poems, Urania, was published. But Brodsky received the award not as a Soviet, but as an American citizen who had lived in the USA for a long time. The Nobel Prize was awarded to him "for a comprehensive work imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity." Receiving the award in his speech, Joseph Brodsky said: “For a private person, this whole life is any public role preferring, for a person who has gone quite far in this preference - and in particular from his homeland, for it is better to be the last loser in a democracy than a martyr or ruler of thoughts in a despotism - to suddenly appear on this podium is a great embarrassment and test.
It should be noted that after Brodsky was awarded the Nobel Prize, and this event just happened during the beginning of perestroika in the USSR, his poems and essays began to be actively published at home.
Ever since the Nobel Prize has been awarded Russian writers awarded 5 times. The Nobel Prize winners were 5 Russian writers and one Belarusian writer Svetlana Aleksievich, the author of such works: “ War has no woman's face», « Zinc Boys"and other works written in Russian. The wording for the award was: For the many-voiced sound of her prose and perpetuation of suffering and courage»
2.1. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin (1870-1953) The prize was awarded in 1933 " for the truthful artistic talent with which he recreated in an artistic rose a typical Russian character, 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).
2.2. Boris Pasternak- Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1958. Awarded the " for outstanding services in modern lyric poetry and in the field of great Russian prose» . For Pasternak himself, the award brought nothing but problems and a campaign under the slogan “ I haven't read it, but I do!". The writer 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.
Nobel Prize I disappeared like an animal in a pen. Somewhere people, will, light, And behind me the noise of the chase, I can't go outside. Dark forest and the shore of the pond, Fir felled log. The path is cut off from everywhere. Whatever happens, it doesn't matter. 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. But even so, almost at the coffin, I believe, the time will come - The strength of meanness and malice Will overcome the spirit of good.
B. Pasternak
2.3. Mikhail Sholokhov. The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded in 1965. Awarded " 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 " exalt a nation of workers, builders and heroes».
2.4. Alexander Solzhenitsyn- Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970. « for the moral strength gleaned from the tradition of great Russian literature». The government of the Soviet Union considered the decision of the Nobel Committee " politically hostile”, and Solzhenitsyn, fearing that after his trip he would not be able to return to his homeland, accepted the award, but did not attend the award ceremony.
2.5. Joseph Brodsky- Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1987. Awarded « for multifaceted creativity, marked by the sharpness of thought and deep poetry». In 1972 he was forced to emigrate from the USSR and lived in the USA.
2.6. In 2015, a Belarusian writer and journalist sensationally receives the award Svetlana Aleksievich. She wrote such works as "War does not have a 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.
3. Nobel Prize nominees
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?
Half a century later, the Nobel Committee reveals its secrets, so today it is known not only who received awards in the first half of the 20th century, but also who did not receive them, remaining among the nominees.
The first hit in the number of nominees for the literary " Nobel"Russians" refers to 1901 - then Leo Tolstoy was nominated for the award among other nominees, but he did not become the owner of the prestigious award for several more years. Leo Tolstoy would be present in the nominations annually until 1906, and the only reason why the author " War and peace"did not become the first Russian laureate" Nobel”, became his own decisive refusal of the award, as well as a request not to award it.
M. Gorky was nominated in 1918, 1923, 1928, 1930, 1933 (5 times)
Konstantin Balmont was nominated in 1923,
Dmitry Merezhkovsky -1914, 1915, 1930, 1931 - 1937 (10 times)
Shmelev - 1928, 1932
Mark Aldanov - 1934, 1938, 1939, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951 - 1956.1957 (12 times)
Leonid Leonov -1949,1950.
Konstantin Paustovsky -1965, 1967
How many geniuses Russian literature Bulgakov, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Mandelstam, Yevgeny Yevtushenko were not even announced among the nominees ... Everyone can continue this brilliant series with the names of their favorite writers and poets.
Why are Russian writers and poets so rarely among the laureates?
It's no secret that the prize is often awarded for political reasons. , - says Philip Nobel, a descendant of Alfred Nobel. But there is another important reason as well. In 1896, Alfred left a condition in his will: the capital of the Nobel Fund must be invested in shares of strong companies that give a good profit. In the 20-30s of the last century, the fund's money was invested primarily in American corporations. Since then, the Nobel Committee and the US have had very close ties.”
Anna Akhmatova could have received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1966, but she. died March 5, 1966, so her name was not later considered. According to the rules of the Swedish Academy, the Nobel Prize can only be awarded to living writers. Only those writers who quarreled with the Soviet authorities received the prize: Joseph Brodsky, Ivan Bunin, Boris Pasternak, Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
The Swedish Academy of Sciences did not favor Russian literature: at the beginning of the 20th century, it rejected L.N. Tolstoy and did not notice the brilliant A.P. Chekhov, passed by no less significant writers and poets of the twentieth century: M. Gorky, V. Mayakovsky, M. Bulgakov and others. It should also be noted that I. Bunin, as well as other Nobel laureates later (B. Pasternak, A. Solzhenitsyn , I. Brodsky) was in a state of acute conflict with the Soviet authorities.
Be that as it may, the great writers and poets, Nobel Prize winners, whose creative way was thorny, with their ingenious creations they themselves built a pedestal. The personality of these great sons of Russia is enormous not only in Russian, but also in the world literary process. And in the memory of people they will remain as long as humanity lives and creates.
« Exploded heart»… This is how you can characterize the state of mind of our compatriot writers who have become Nobel Prize winners. They are our pride! And our pain and shame for what we did with I.A. Bunin and B.L. Pasternak, A.I. Solzhenitsyn and I.A. Brodsky by official authorities, for their forced loneliness and exile. In St. Petersburg there is a monument to Nobel on the Petrovskaya embankment. True, this monument is a sculptural composition " exploded tree».
Fantasy about Nobel. There is no need to dream about the Nobel, After all, it is awarded by chance, And someone, alien to the highest standards, Keeps joyless secrets. I have never been to distant Sweden, As in dreams of snow-covered Nepal, And Brodsky wanders around Venice And silently looks into the canals. He was an outcast, who did not know love, He slept in a hurry and ate unsweetened, But, having changed plus for minus, He married an aristocrat.
Sitting in Venetian bars And talking to counts, He mixed cognac with resentment, Antiquity with the age of the Internet. Rhymes were born from the surf, They were strong enough to write down. But what are poems? They are empty, Nobel came out of the grave again. I asked: - Let the genius - Brodsky. Let him shine in a pair of tailcoats, But Paustovsky lived somewhere, Not Sholokhov in pairs of cognac. Zabolotsky lived, fell into the abyss, And resurrected, and became great. There lived Simonov, gray-haired and sober, Tashkent counted ditches. But what about Twardowski? Glorious sidekick, That's who perfectly sculpts the lines! Where are you, Uncle Nobel, looking? Mendel.
Dedicated to the great Russian writers.
From October 21 to November 21, 2015, the Library and Information Complex invites you to an exhibition dedicated to the work of Nobel laureates in literature from Russia and the USSR.
The Nobel Prize in Literature in 2015 was awarded to a Belarusian writer. The award was given to Svetlana Aleksievich with the following wording: "For her many-voiced work - a monument to suffering and courage in our time." At the exhibition, we also presented the works of Svetlana Alexandrovna.
The exposition can be found at the address: Leningradsky Prospekt, 49, 1st floor, room 100.
The prizes established by the Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel are considered the most honorable in the world. They are awarded annually (since 1901) for outstanding work in the field of medicine or physiology, physics, chemistry, literary works, for his contribution to the strengthening of peace, the economy (since 1969).
The Nobel Prize in Literature is an award for literary achievement presented annually by the Nobel Committee in Stockholm on 10 December. According to the statute of the Nobel Foundation, the following persons can nominate candidates: members of the Swedish Academy, other academies, institutions and societies with similar tasks and goals; professors of the history of literature and linguistics of universities; laureates of the Nobel Prize in Literature; chairmen of authors' unions representing literary creativity in the respective countries.
Unlike the winners of other prizes (for example, in physics and chemistry), the decision to award the Nobel Prize in Literature is made by members of the Swedish Academy. The Swedish Academy brings together 18 figures from Sweden. The Academy is composed of historians, linguists, writers and one lawyer. They are known in the community as "The Eighteen". Membership in the academy is for life. After the death of one of the members, the academicians choose a new academician by secret ballot. The Academy elects from among its members the Nobel Committee. It is he who deals with the issue of awarding the prize.
Nobel laureates in literature from Russia and the USSR :
- I. A. Bunin(1933 "For the rigorous skill with which he develops the traditions of Russian classical prose")
- B.L. Parsnip(1958 "For significant achievements in modern lyric poetry, as well as for continuing the traditions of the great Russian epic novel")
- M. A. Sholokhov(1965 "For the artistic power and honesty with which he depicted the historical era in the life of the Russian people in his Don epic")
- A. I. Solzhenitsyn(1970 "For the moral strength with which he followed the immutable traditions of Russian literature")
- I. A. Brodsky(1987 "For a comprehensive work imbued with the clarity of thought and the passion of poetry")
Russian laureates in literature are people with different, sometimes opposing views. I. A. Bunin and A. I. Solzhenitsyn are staunch opponents of Soviet power, and M. A. Sholokhov, on the contrary, is a communist. However, the main thing they have in common is their undoubted talent, for which they were awarded the Nobel Prizes.
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin is a famous Russian writer and poet, an outstanding master of realistic prose, an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. In 1920 Bunin emigrated to France.
The most difficult thing for a writer in exile is to remain himself. It happens that, having left the Motherland because of the need to make dubious compromises, he is again forced to kill the spirit in order to survive. Fortunately, this fate passed Bunin. Despite any trials, Bunin always remained true to himself.
In 1922, Ivan Alekseevich's wife, Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva, wrote in her diary that Romain Rolland nominated Bunin for the Nobel Prize. Since then, Ivan Alekseevich lived in hopes that someday he would be awarded this prize. 1933 All newspapers in Paris on November 10 came out with large headlines: "Bunin - Nobel laureate." Every Russian in Paris, even a loader at the Renault factory, who had never read Bunin, took this as a personal holiday. For the compatriot turned out to be the best, the most talented! In Parisian taverns and restaurants that evening there were Russians who sometimes drank for "their own" for their last pennies.
On the day of awarding the prize on November 9, Ivan Alekseevich Bunin watched "merry stupidity" - "Baby" in the "cinema". Suddenly, a narrow beam of a flashlight cut through the darkness of the hall. They were looking for Bunin. He was called by phone from Stockholm.
“And my whole old life immediately ends. I go home pretty quickly, but feeling nothing but regret that I didn’t manage to watch the film. But no. You can’t not believe it: the whole house is lit up with lights. ... Some kind of turning point in my life," recalled I. A. Bunin.
Exciting days in Sweden. IN concert hall in the presence of the king, after the report of the writer, member of the Swedish Academy Peter Galstrem on the work of Bunin, he was awarded a folder with a Nobel diploma, a medal and a check for 715 thousand French francs.
When presenting the award, Bunin noted that the Swedish Academy acted very boldly by awarding the émigré writer. Among the contenders for this year's prize was another Russian writer, M. Gorky, however, largely due to the publication of the book "The Life of Arseniev" by that time, the scales still tipped in the direction of Ivan Alekseevich.
Returning to France, Bunin feels rich and, sparing no money, distributes "allowances" to emigrants, donates funds to support various societies. Finally, on the advice of well-wishers, he invests the remaining amount in a "win-win business" and is left with nothing.
Bunin's friend, poetess and prose writer Zinaida Shakhovskaya, in her memoir book "Reflection", noted: "With skill and a small amount of practicality, the prize should have been enough to the end. But the Bunins did not buy either an apartment or a villa ..."
Unlike M. Gorky, A. I. Kuprin, A. N. Tolstoy, Ivan Alekseevich did not return to Russia, despite the exhortations of the Moscow "messengers". He never came to his homeland, even as a tourist.
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (1890-1960) was born in Moscow into a family famous artist Leonid Osipovich Pasternak. Mother, Rosalia Isidorovna, was a talented pianist. Maybe that's why in childhood the future poet dreamed of becoming a composer and even studied music with Alexander Nikolaevich Scriabin. However, the love of poetry won. Glory to B. L. Pasternak was brought by his poetry, and bitter trials - "Doctor Zhivago", a novel about the fate of the Russian intelligentsia.
The editors of the literary magazine, to which Pasternak offered the manuscript, considered the work anti-Soviet and refused to publish it. Then the writer sent the novel abroad, to Italy, where in 1957 it was published. The very fact of publication in the West was sharply condemned by Soviet colleagues in the creative workshop, and Pasternak was expelled from the Writers' Union. However, it was Doctor Zhivago that made Boris Pasternak a Nobel laureate. The writer was nominated for the Nobel Prize starting in 1946, but was awarded it only in 1958, after the release of the novel. The conclusion of the Nobel Committee says: "... for significant achievements both in modern lyric poetry and in the field of the great Russian epic tradition."
In his homeland, the award of such an honorary prize to an "anti-Soviet novel" aroused the indignation of the authorities, and under the threat of expulsion from the country, the writer was forced to refuse the award. Only 30 years later, his son, Yevgeny Borisovich Pasternak, received a diploma and a medal for his father. Nobel laureate.
The fate of another Nobel laureate, Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn, is no less dramatic. He was born in 1918 in Kislovodsk, and his childhood and youth were spent in Novocherkassk and Rostov-on-Don. After graduating from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Rostov University, A. I. Solzhenitsyn taught and at the same time studied in absentia at the Literary Institute in Moscow. When did the Great Patriotic War, the future writer went to the front.
Shortly before the end of the war, Solzhenitsyn was arrested. The reason for the arrest was the critical remarks about Stalin found by military censorship in Solzhenitsyn's letters. He was released after Stalin's death (1953). In 1962, the Novy Mir magazine published the first story, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, which tells about the life of prisoners in the camp. Literary magazines refused to print most of the subsequent works. There was only one explanation: anti-Soviet orientation. However, the writer did not back down and sent the manuscripts abroad, where they were published. Alexander Isaevich was not limited literary activity- he fought for the freedom of political prisoners in the USSR, spoke out with sharp criticism of the Soviet system.
The literary works and political position of AI Solzhenitsyn were well known abroad, and in 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Prize. The writer did not go to Stockholm for the award ceremony: he was not allowed to leave the country. Representatives of the Nobel Committee, who wanted to present the prize to the laureate at home, were not allowed into the USSR.
In 1974 A. I. Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the country. He first lived in Switzerland, then moved to the United States, where he was, with a considerable delay, awarded the Nobel Prize. In the West, such works as "In the First Circle", "The Gulag Archipelago", "August 1914", "The Cancer Ward" were printed. In 1994, A. Solzhenitsyn returned to his homeland, having traveled through all of Russia, from Vladivostok to Moscow.
The fate of Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, the only one of Russian laureates the Nobel Prize in Literature, who were supported by government agencies. M. A. Sholokhov (1905-1980) was born in the south of Russia, on the Don - in the center of the Russian Cossacks. He later described his small homeland - the farm Kruzhilin of the village of Vyoshenskaya - in many works. Sholokhov graduated from only four classes of the gymnasium. He actively participated in the events of the civil war, led the food detachment, which selected the so-called surplus grain from wealthy Cossacks.
Already in his youth, the future writer felt a penchant for literary creativity. In 1922, Sholokhov arrived in Moscow, and in 1923 he began to publish his first stories in newspapers and magazines. In 1926, the collections "Don Stories" and "Azure Steppe" were published. Work on "Quiet Don" - a novel about the life of the Don Cossacks in the era of the Great Break (First World War, revolutions and Civil War) - began in 1925. In 1928, the first part of the novel was published, and Sholokhov completed it in the 30s. "Quiet Don" became the pinnacle of the writer's work, and in 1965 he was awarded the Nobel Prize "for the artistic strength and completeness with which he depicted a historical phase in the life of the Russian people in his epic work about the Don." "Quiet Flows the Don" has been translated into several dozen languages in 45 countries.
By the time of receiving the Nobel Prize in the bibliography of Joseph Brodsky, there were six collections of poems, the poem "Gorbunov and Gorchakov", the play "Marble", many essays (written mainly in English). However, in the USSR, from where the poet was expelled in 1972, his works were distributed mainly in samizdat, and he received the award, already being a citizen of the United States of America.
For him, the spiritual connection with the homeland was important. As a relic, he kept the tie of Boris Pasternak, he even wanted to wear it to the Nobel Prize, but the rules of the protocol did not allow it. Nevertheless, Brodsky still came with Pasternak's tie in his pocket. After perestroika, Brodsky was repeatedly invited to Russia, but he never came to his homeland, which rejected him. "You can't step into the same river twice, even if it's the Neva," he said.
From Brodsky's Nobel lecture: “A person with taste, in particular literary, is less susceptible to repetition and rhythmic incantations, characteristic of any form of political demagoguery. It's not so much that virtue is no guarantee of a masterpiece, but that evil, especially political evil, is always a bad stylist. The richer the aesthetic experience of the individual, the firmer his taste, the clearer his moral choice, the freer he is - although perhaps not happier. It is in this rather applied than Platonic sense that Dostoyevsky's remark that "beauty will save the world" or Matthew Arnold's saying that "poetry will save us" should be understood. The world will probably not be saved, but an individual person can always be saved.
