Why did Alexievich receive the Nobel Prize? Which of the Nobel Prize laureates has Belarusian roots? Nobel Prize laureate for literature Alekseevich.

No comments: Interview with Noviopskaya Nobel laureate Alexievich

No comments: interview with Noviopsy Nobel laureate Alexievich, Regnum news agency. It turned out so colorful that the laureate forbade its publication

Interview: Sergey Gurkin, columnist for Regnum news agency

For some reason, it turns out that interviews are usually done with people with whom they generally agree. Relatively speaking, you won’t be invited to Channel One because they don’t agree with you...

...and they’ll call you to “Rain”...

...and they’ll call you to Dozhd, but they won’t argue with you. I want to honestly tell you that on the overwhelming majority of issues I completely disagree with your position.

Come on, I think this should be interesting.

That's it. Because this is dialogue.

Yes, it’s interesting to find out the image of the person on the other side, to find out what’s in his head.

Fine. Some time ago you gave a sensational interview about how a religious war could break out in Belarus between Orthodox Christians and Catholics, because “you can put everything into a person’s head.” Can you invest too?

My profession is to make sure that they don’t invest. Some people live consciously, are able to protect themselves, are able to understand what is happening around them. But most people just go with the flow, and they live in banality.

Do you imagine that there are more such people in our part of the world?

I think it’s like everywhere else here. And it’s the same in America, otherwise where would Trump come from? When you're dealing with the average person, you listen to what he says. It doesn't always make people love you. So, it’s like this everywhere, it’s not just a Russian trait.

We are simply in a state now where society has lost its bearings. And since we are a country of wars and revolutions, and, most importantly, we have a culture of war and revolutions, then any historical failure (such as perestroika, when we rushed, wanted to be like everyone else) - as soon as failure happened, because society was not ready for it , where did we return? We are back to what we know. Into a military, militaristic state. This is our normal state.

To be honest, I don't notice this. Neither in acquaintances, nor in strangers I don't see any aggression or belligerence. What is meant by militarism?

If people were different, they would all take to the streets, and there would be no war in Ukraine. And on the day of Politkovskaya’s memory there would be as many people as I saw on the day of her memory on the streets of Paris. There were 50, 70 thousand people there. But we don’t. And you say that we have a normal society. We have a normal society thanks to the fact that we live in our own circle. Militarism is not when everyone is ready to kill. But nevertheless it turned out that they were ready.

My father is Belarusian, and my mother is Ukrainian. I spent part of my childhood with my grandmother in Ukraine and I love Ukrainians very much, I have Ukrainian blood. And in nightmare it was impossible to imagine that the Russians would shoot at Ukrainians.

First there was a coup d'état.

No, it was not a coup. This is nonsense. You watch a lot of TV.

I was born there.

This was not a coup d'etat. It works well Russian television. The Democrats should have used television like this, they underestimated it. Today's government puts into consciousness what it needs. This was not a coup. You can’t imagine how much poverty there was around...

I present.

...how they stole there. A change of power was the desire of the people. I was in Ukraine, went to the “Heavenly Hundred” museum, and simple people they told me about what happened there. They have two enemies - Putin and their own oligarchy, a culture of bribery.

In Kharkov, three hundred people took part in the rally in support of the Maidan, and one hundred thousand against the Maidan. Then fifteen prisons were opened in Ukraine, housing several thousand people. And Maidan supporters walk around with portraits of obvious fascists.

Are there no people in Russia who walk around with portraits of fascists?

They are not in power.

In Ukraine they are also not in power. Poroshenko and others are not fascists. You understand, they want to separate from Russia and go to Europe. This also exists in the Baltic states. Resistance takes on fierce forms. Then, when they really become an independent and strong state, this will not happen. And now they are tearing down communist monuments, which we should also tear down, and banishing television programs. What, will they watch Solovyov and Kiselev?

They look on the Internet. And the traffic has not decreased at all.

No, some part of the people are watching, but not the people.

How can I tell you: traffic Russian channels exceeds the traffic of Ukrainian ones.

So what are they watching? Not political programs.

Life in Ukraine has become poorer - that's a fact. And freedom of speech there has become much less - this is also a fact.

Don't think.

Do you know who Oles Buzina is?

Who was killed?

And there are hundreds of such examples.

But what he said also caused bitterness.


sputnikipogrom.com/russia/ua/34738/buzina/

Does this mean they need to be killed?

I'm not saying that. But I understand the motives of the people who did it. Just as I don’t like at all that Pavel Sheremet, who loved Ukraine, was killed. Apparently there was some kind of showdown or something.

You find a lot of excuses for them.

These are not excuses. I just imagine that Ukraine wants to build its own state. By what right does Russia want to restore order there?

Have you been to Donbass after the war started there?

No. I have not been there. When the war began, you no longer looked for justice. I think Strelkov said that in the first week it was very difficult for people to shoot at each other, that it was almost impossible to force people to shoot. And then the blood started. The same can be said about Chechnya.

Even if we agree with the position (although I completely disagree with it) that people in Kiev “came out on their own”: after that, people in Donetsk also came out on their own, without weapons, they did not listen to them, they tried to disperse them, and then they came out with weapons. Both those and others came out to defend their ideas about what is right. Why are the actions of the former possible, but not the latter?

I'm not a politician. But when the integrity of the state is called into question, this is a problem of politics. When foreign troops are brought in and begin to restore order on foreign territory. By what right did Russia enter Donbass?

You weren't there.

I, too, like you, watch TV and read those who write about it. Honest people. When Russia entered there, what did you want - to be greeted there with bouquets of flowers? So that the authorities will be happy with you there? When you entered Chechnya, where Dudayev wanted to create his own order, his own country - what did Russia do? I ironed it out.

You said that you are not a politician. You are a writer. It seems self-evident to me that the present struggle Ukrainian state with the Russian language - this is the main complaint that will be made against them. Ten years ago, Gallup conducted a study on what percentage of the Ukrainian population thinks in Russian...

I know all this. But now they are learning Ukrainian and English.

...They did it very simply: they distributed questionnaires in two languages, Ukrainian and Russian. Whoever takes what language is the one who thinks in that language. 83% of Ukrainians think in Russian.

What are you trying to say? They were Russified in seventy years, just like the Belarusians.

Do you want to say that people who lived in Odessa or Kharkov ever thought in Ukrainian?

I don’t know about you, but in Belarus, out of ten million people, after the war there were only six million left. And about three million Russians moved in. They're still there. And there was this idea that there was no Belarus, that all this was great Russia. It’s exactly the same in Ukraine. I know what people taught then Ukrainian language. Just like now they learn Belarusian with us, believing that someday new times will come.

Well, you banned speaking Belarusian in Russia.

Who banned?

Well, of course! You only know your top piece. Since 1922, the intelligentsia in Belarus was constantly exterminated.

What does 1922 have to do with it? You and I live today, in 2017.

Where does everything come from? Where did Russification come from? Nobody spoke Russian in Belarus. They spoke either Polish or Belarusian. When Russia entered and appropriated these lands, Western Belarus, the first rule was the Russian language. And not a single university, not a single school, not a single institute in our country speaks the Belarusian language.

So, in your understanding, this is revenge for the events of a hundred years ago?

No. This was an effort to Russify, to make Belarus part of Russia. And in the same way, make Ukraine part of Russia.

Half of the territory that is now part of Ukraine has never been any “Ukraine”. This was the Russian Empire. And after the revolution of 1917, on the contrary, Ukrainian culture was implanted there.

Well, you don’t know anything except your little piece of time that you found and in which you live. Half of Belarus was never Russia, it was Poland.

But was there another half?

The other half was there, but never wanted to be there, you were forcibly held. I don’t want to talk about it, it’s such a set of militaristic platitudes that I don’t want to listen to it.

You say that when Russian culture was implanted a hundred years ago (in your opinion), it was bad, but when Ukrainian culture is implanted today, it is good.

It is not imposed. This state wants to enter Europe. It doesn't want to live with you.

Do you need to cancel the Russian language for this?

No. But maybe for a while, yes, to cement the nation. Please speak Russian, but that's it educational establishments They will, of course, be in Ukrainian.

That is, it is possible to prohibit people from speaking the language in which they think?

Yes. It's always like that. That's what you were doing.

I didn't do this.

Russia. This is all she did in the occupied territories; even in Tajikistan she forced people to speak Russian. You will learn more about what Russia has been doing for the last two hundred years.

I'm not asking you about two hundred years. I'm asking you about today. We live today.

There is no other way to make a nation.

It's clear. You have said in many interviews that your friends looked and are looking at what is happening on the Maidan with apprehension and that the evolutionary path of development is certainly better. You probably meant Belarus first of all, but probably Russia too? How do you imagine this evolutionary path should look like, what is required here?

The movement of time itself is required. Looking at the generations that came after the generation that waited for democracy, I see that a very servile generation came, completely unfree people. There are a lot of fans of Putin and the military path. So it is difficult to say in how many years Belarus and Russia will turn into free countries.

But I do not accept revolution as a path. It’s always blood, and the same people will come to power. There are no other people yet. What is the problem of the nineties? There were no free people. These were the same communists, only with a different sign.

What are free people?

Well, let's say, people with a European view of things. More humanitarian. Who didn’t think it was possible to tear the country apart and leave the people with nothing. Do you want to say that Russia is free?

I'm asking you.

How free is it? A few percent of the population owns all the wealth, the rest are left with nothing. Free countries are, for example, Sweden, France, Germany. Ukraine wants to be free, but Belarus and Russia do not. How many people come to Navalny's protests?

That is, people who adhere to the European view of things are free?

Yes. Freedom has come a long way there.

And if a person does not adhere to European painting peace? For example, it contains the concept of tolerance, and can an Orthodox Christian who does not believe that tolerance be right be free?

No need to be so primitive. A person's faith is his problem. When I went to see a Russian church in France, there were many Orthodox people. Nobody touches them, but they also do not impose their view of life on others, as happens here. The priests there are completely different; the church does not try to become the government and does not serve the government. Talk to any European intellectual and you will see that you are a chest full of superstitions.

I lived for a year in Italy, and ninety percent of the intellectuals I met had great sympathy for leftist ideas and for the Russian President.

There are such people, but not in such numbers. They reacted to you this way because they saw a Russian with radical views. Putin doesn't have as much support there as you might think. There's just a problem with the left. This does not mean that Le Pen is what France wanted and wants. Thank God France won.

Why did France win? And if Le Pen had won, would France have lost?

Certainly. It would be another Trump.

But why did “France lose” if the majority of the French voted for it?

Read her program.

I've read both of them. There is nothing in Macron’s program other than general words that “we must live better.”

No. Macron is truly free France. And Le Pen is nationalist France. Thank God that France did not want to be like that.

Nationalist cannot be free?

She just suggested an extreme option.

In one of your interviews, you said: “Yesterday I walked along Broadway - and it’s clear that everyone is an individual. And you walk around Minsk, Moscow - you see that the people’s body is walking. General. Yes, they changed into different clothes, they drive new cars, but only they heard the battle cry from Putin “ Great Russia“- and again this is the people’s body.” Did you really say that?

I won't throw anything away.

But there, indeed, you walk and see free people walking. But here, even here in Moscow, it is clear that people are having a very hard time living.

So you agree with this quote as of today?

Absolutely. This can be seen even in the plastic.

This girl, the bartender in the cafe where we are sitting - is she not free?

Stop what you're talking about.

Here's a real person.

No, she is not free, I think. She cannot, for example, tell you to your face what she thinks about you. Or about this state.

Why do you think so?

No, she won't tell. And there - any person will say. Let's take my case. When I was given the Nobel Prize, then (this is the etiquette in all countries), I received congratulations from the presidents of many countries. Including from Gorbachev, from the President of France, the Chancellor of Germany. Then they told me that a telegram from Medvedev was being prepared.

But at the first press conference, when I was asked about Ukraine, I said that Crimea was occupied, and in Donbass Russia started a war with Ukraine. And that such a war can be started anywhere, because there are a lot of hot coals everywhere. And they told me that there would be no telegram, because this quote of mine was broadcast by Ekho Moskvy.

Before Trump, this was impossible in America. You could have been against the Vietnam War, against anything, but when you received the Nobel Prize, the president congratulates you because it is the pride of this culture. And they ask us whether you are in this camp or that camp.

You sometimes talk about Russia as “we”, and sometimes as “they”. So is it “us” or “they”?

Still, “they”. Already “they”, unfortunately.

But then this is not the prime minister of your state, why should he certainly congratulate you?

But we are considered a Union State. We are still very closely connected. We haven't pulled away yet, and who will let us go? At least we wanted to break away.

So, “they” then?

For now - “we”. I am still a person of Russian culture. I wrote about this time, about all this in Russian, and I, of course, would have been glad to receive his telegram. According to my understanding, he should have sent it.

You were awarded the Nobel Prize almost two years ago. What do you think now - why exactly did you receive it?

You need to ask them. If you fell in love with some woman, and she fell in love with you, the question of “why she fell in love with you” would sound funny. This would be a stupid question.

But here, nevertheless, the decision was made not at the level of feelings, but rationally.

They told me: “Well, you’ve probably been waiting for the Nobel Prize for a long time.” But I wasn't such an idiot as to sit and wait for her.

What if Nobel Committee I once asked you which other authors who write in Russian should be given a prize, who would you name?

Olga Sedakova. This is a person who matches my understanding of what a writer is. Today he is a very important figure in Russian literature. Her views, her poetry, her essays - everything she writes shows that she is a very great writer.

In connection with your books, I want to return to the Donbass topic, but not in political terms. Many of your books are about war and about people at war. But you are not going to this war.

I haven’t gone and won’t go. And I didn’t go to Chechnya. Once we talked about this with Politkovskaya. I told her: Anya, I won’t go to war anymore. First of all, I no longer have physical strength to see a murdered person, to see human madness. Besides, I have already said everything I understood about this human madness. I have no other ideas. And to write again the same thing that I have already written - what’s the point?

Don't you think that your view of this war might change if you go there?

No. There are Ukrainian and Russian writers who write about this.

But you answer questions, talk about these events.

This is happening in another country. And I can answer these questions as an artist, not as a participant. In order to write books like I write, you need to live in a country about which we're talking about. This should be your country. Soviet Union- this was my country. And there I don’t know many things.

I don't mean writing books so much as understanding what's going on there.

Are you trying to tell me that it's scary there? It's the same thing there as in Chechnya.

You weren't there.

Then, thank God, they showed the whole truth on TV. No one doubts that there is blood there and that they are crying there.

I'm talking about something else. People who live in Donbass are confident that they are right. This ordinary people, and they support the power of the militias. Maybe if you saw them, you would understand them somehow differently? They are people too.

The Russians might as well send their troops into the Baltic states, since there are many disgruntled Russians there. Do you think it was right that you went and entered a foreign country?

I think it is correct that for 23 years the unwritten law in the state of Ukraine was the recognition that there is both Russian and Ukrainian culture there. And this balance was more or less maintained under all presidents...

That's how it was until you walked in there.

It is not true. In the winter of 2013−2014, before Crimea, we heard where the “Moskalyak” should be sent. And in February 2014, immediately after the coup d’etat, before any Crimea, we saw draft laws against the use of the Russian language. People who live in [the southeastern part of the country] consider themselves Russian and do not consider Bandera a hero. They came out to protest. And for some reason you think that people who live in Kyiv have the right to protest, but those who live further east do not have such a right.

Weren't there Russian tanks there? Russian weapons, not Russian contract soldiers? All this is bullshit. If it weren't for your weapons, there wouldn't be a war. So don't fool me with this nonsense that fills your head. You succumb so easily to all propaganda. Yes, there is pain, there is fear. But this is on your conscience, on Putin’s conscience. You invaded another country, on what grounds? There are a million pictures on the Internet of Russian equipment going there. Everyone knows who shot down [the Boeing] and everything else. Let's end your idiotic interview already. I no longer have the strength for him. You are just a bunch of propaganda, not a reasonable person.

Fine. In an interview with the El Pais newspaper, you said that even Soviet propaganda was not as aggressive as it is now.

Absolutely. Listen to this idiocy of Solovyov and Kiselev. I don't know how this is possible. They themselves know that they are telling lies.

In the same interview, you said that the church is not limited to prohibition theatrical works and books.

Yes, she climbs into places where she has no business. It’s not her problem what plays to stage, what to film. Soon we will ban children's fairy tales because they supposedly contain sexual moments. It’s very funny to look at the madness you are in from the outside.

The State Duma deputies who are fighting against feature films, and what exact prohibitions from the church do you mean?

Yes, as much as you like. All these Orthodox Christians who think that Serebrennikov is doing something wrong, Tabakov is doing something wrong. Don't pretend you don't know. The performance was banned in Novosibirsk.

Do you think this is a general church position?

I think it even comes from below. From this darkness, from this foam that has risen today. You know, I don’t like our interview, and I forbid you to publish it.

Nobel laureate in literature Svetlana Alexievich continues to accuse Russia of occupying Crimea and justify the Kyiv authorities. She expressed her position on June 19 in an interview with a correspondent IA REGNUM.

Regarding the events that led to the change of power in Ukraine, Alexievich stated:“No, it was not a coup. This is nonsense. You watch a lot of TV."

Alexievich stated the following about the pro-fascist orientation of Maidan supporters and repression by the authorities: “Poroshenko and others are not fascists. You understand, they want to separate from Russia and go to Europe. This also exists in the Baltic states. Resistance takes on fierce forms. Then, when they really become an independent and strong state, this will not happen. And now they are tearing down communist monuments, which we should also tear down.”

Alexievich commented on the murder of the Ukrainian writer Olesya Buzina as follows:“But what he said also caused bitterness.”

True, Alexievich recovered in time: “These are not excuses. I just imagine that Ukraine wants to build its own state.”

During the interview, the correspondent pointed to a Gallup study, which found that 83% of Ukrainians think in Russian. When asked whether it is possible to abolish the Russian language taking this into account, Alexievich replied:"No. But maybe for a while, yes, to cement the nation.”

At the end of the interview, commenting on the right of Donbass residents to protest against the abolition of the Russian language and their reluctance to praise Bandera, the writer “reminded” of Russian tanks, Russian weapons, Russian contract soldiers and the downed Boeing:“If it weren’t for your weapons, there would be no war. So don't fool me with this nonsense that fills your head.

You succumb so easily to all propaganda. Yes, there is pain, there is fear. But this is on your conscience, on Putin’s conscience. You invaded another country, on what grounds? There are a million pictures on the Internet of Russian equipment going there. Everyone knows who shot down [the Boeing] and everything else. Let's end your idiotic interview already. I no longer have the strength for him. You are just a bunch of propaganda, not a reasonable person."

Let us remind you that Svetlana Alexievich won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2015 with the wording “for her polyphonic work - a monument to suffering and courage in our time.”

The REGNUM correspondent asked questions that Alexievich herself was uncomfortable answering, because she still had remnants of her Soviet conscience, and this irritated her.

It is clear that she was given a prize for her anti-communist views. Monuments to suffering instead of communist ones - is this her ideal? You repent, suffer, but do not be indignant; this turns out to be the essence of Alexievich’s worldview.

Of course, the West will applaud such a position.

Sorry, but at one time the ideas of communism were advanced, a natural development of philosophical thought. All the best that is in a person was put at the forefront and this was proclaimed. What can Alexievich or anyone else offer now - pity for oneself and for others or freedom to worship the whims of one’s body.

Of course, this direction can be endlessly procrastinated and shown that this is the knowledge of the truth. But practice, as a criterion of truth, shows that the world is sliding towards global aggression under the slogan of everything, against everyone. Her ideological position, in fact, of not resisting the growing evil leads to a world catastrophe, and this “chicken” Alexievich sees nothing beyond her literary views and Russophobia.

Original taken from vlad1_74

Photo: Zhores Alferov, Nobel Prize laureate in physics

The Belarusian land has given the world many outstanding scientists. Some spent their childhood in Sineokaya, others were born into immigrant families.

Zhores Alferov, Nobel Prize in Physics, 2000

The strength of Belarus lies in its people, who create the future with their labor. And the first feeling when you come to Belarus: you are in a well-groomed, modern, civilized European country,” Alferov said recently during his visit to the country.

The parents of the Nobel laureate were born here; he himself was born in Vitebsk in 1930, and lived here for several years. Then there were numerous moves - before the war and during it, and after the family moved to Minsk, where Alferov graduated from the local school with a gold medal and studied at the Polytechnic for several semesters. And then there was a transfer to the Leningrad Electrotechnical Institute and a brilliant scientific career. Candidate's, doctor's, title of professor, post of vice-president of the USSR Academy of Sciences, half a thousand (!) scientific works, fifty inventions, a mandate as a State Duma deputy and, finally, a Nobel Prize for the development of semiconductor heterostructures.

The modern development of nanotechnology is based on the developments of Alferov and his followers and would be impossible without his research. Even many ordinary things in our lives became possible only thanks to him. "Alferov laser" is used in CD players and mobile phones, other inventions - in car headlights, traffic lights and cash registers in stores all over the world.

Alferov does not forget his homeland - he takes an active part in the life of the Belarusian scientific community, in the 90s he became a foreign member of the local Academy of Sciences.

Belarus is my homeland. My parents lived here permanently until 1963; I always came home on holidays and on vacation. And now I want to come to the Vitebsk region, to my land, to bow to my native places.

Simon Kuznets, Nobel Prize in Economics, 1971

One of the most outstanding economists of the 20th century was born in Pinsk in 1901, but connected his life with another country - the USA, and even changed his name to the American way. Before emigrating, his name was Semyon, and he managed to graduate from the 4th grade of the city real school before moving to Ukraine with his mother and brothers. There the future genius studied at the Kharkov Commercial Institute. Kuznets came to the USA in the 20s, completed his studies at Columbia University, and taught for many years at Hopkins University and Harvard.

He was reluctant to talk about his early years, - the scientist’s son Paul told the researchers in response to a question about what he said about Pinsk. - When I was still a child I asked him about early period life, he discovered that he did not want to talk about it. I suspect that the hardships associated with the First World War and the Revolution were the reason.

Simon Kuznets is the man who made economics a science. It was he who coined and coined the term “gross national product.” It was Kuznets who proved the now-considered truism that income inequality is greater in poor countries than in rich ones. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for his “empirically grounded interpretation of economic growth, which led to a new, deeper understanding of economic and social structure and the development process as a whole."

Menachem Begin, Nobel Peace Prize, 1978

It is curious that in the same Pinsk city real school, a decade and a half before Kuznets, another great scientist, Chaim Weizmann, studied very successfully. He, like several other people from these places, will head the state of Israel decades later and become its first president.

He was born in Brest-Litovsk (now simply Brest), graduated from a Jewish religious school and a state gymnasium here. In total, Begin lived in Brest for 18 years.

Later there were radical views, arrests, prisons, underground struggle and completely open struggle, participation in the Israeli War of Independence, victory in it, years in opposition and, finally, victory in the elections at the head of the Likud movement.

A radical oppositionist became prime minister. He turned the country's history around by carrying out the most ambitious economic reform. He prevented a major military conflict by signing the Camp David Accords and returning the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt (Egypt responded by recognizing Israel's right to a state). For Camp David, Begin received the Nobel Prize together with Egyptian President Sadat.

He recalled his native places rather with bitterness - so many trials befell him and his family in Brest. But the city itself is proud of such an outstanding native. A few years ago, a monument to Menachem Begin was erected in Brest.

Richard Phillips Feynman, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1965

His paternal grandparents - Jacob and Anna - lived in Minsk, from where they left for the USA in late XIX century, Richard's dad was only five years old at the time. He did not remember life in Minsk, and history did not preserve the memories of his grandfather himself.

Feynman himself, in his half-joking memoirs, does not talk about the homeland of his ancestors, but pays tribute to his grandfather: thanks to him, even during the years of the Great Depression, they lived better than many:

"We lived in big house; My grandfather left it to his children, but apart from this house we didn’t have too much money. It was a huge wooden house, which I covered with wires on the outside, I had plugs in all the rooms, so I could listen to my radios everywhere, which were upstairs in my laboratory.”

Feynman devoted a significant part of his life to theoretical physics; he is the creator of quantum electrodynamics. It was this direction that formed the basis of physics elementary particles. For this research he received the Nobel Prize in 1965 (together with two other scientists), but Feyman had something to brag about both before and after this award. He was often called a “Renaissance man” - for his total interest in everything that surrounds a person. The authoritative magazine Physics World included the scientist in the top 10 most outstanding physicists of all time, putting him on a par with Newton, Galileo and Einstein.

Feynman, by the way, worked with the latter as part of the Manhattan Project: from 1943 to 1945, a group of outstanding physicists created nuclear weapons in an atmosphere of special secrecy. The work led by Robert Oppenheimer resulted in three atomic bombs. The explosion of "Thing" at a test site in New Mexico ushered in the nuclear age, "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima, and "Fat Man" was dropped on Nagasaki.

Interestingly, while working in the Manhattan Project, Feynman liked to... break into the safes of his colleagues with secret documentation. He did this out of boredom, but he still irritated America’s top military leadership.

Shimon Peres, Nobel Peace Prize 1994

In the village of Vishnevo, in the Minsk region, no more than five thousand people now live. In 1941, a terrible tragedy took place here. The Nazis herded the village residents into the local synagogue and set it on fire. Hundreds of Jews died in the fire, including all the relatives of Shimon Peres who remained in Belarus.

One of the most prominent Israeli politicians has many memories of these places. His family repatriated with him to Palestine 7 years before that fire - Shimon was already 11.

At home they spoke Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian and Polish. It was here that, under the influence of his grandfather, he began to write poetry - at the age of four!

As I grew up, I studied the Talmud with my grandfather. He knew how to play the violin and read Dostoevsky and Tolstoy to me in Russian,” Peres told me about the Belarusian period of his life, already being an accomplished politician.

Even its main milestones political career It will take quite a long time to list. Shimon Peres was a member of 12 (!) governments and headed all key ministries - from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (three times) and the Ministry of Defense (twice) to the Ministry of Religious Affairs. He was prime minister twice and, from 2007 to 2014, president of the country. By the time he left this position, Perez was 90 years old, a record for world politics.

Perez has come to his native Vishnevo twice since the early 90s. He drank from the very well to which he once ran for water when he was very little. There was nothing left of the old house except this well and the foundation. It was built on it after the war new house, and its owners are now often disturbed by tourists.

Peres received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for his “efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East.” Interestingly, it was shared with him by Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin (twice prime minister of the country, killed by a lone right-wing extremist a year after the award was presented). Rabin’s mother, Rosa Cohen, by the way, was born and lived a significant part of her life in Mogilev.

Svetlana Alexievich, Nobel Prize in Literature 2015

“For her polyphonic work - a monument to suffering and courage in our time” - with this wording they awarded the Belarusian writer a prize in the field of literature. Aleksievich was born in Ivano-Frankovsk in 1948 in the family of a Belarusian serviceman. Then they moved to Minsk, and the BSU student went from teacher to journalist, and then from journalist to prose-documentary writer.

Your work has not left indifferent not only Belarusians, but also readers in many countries of the world,” President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko congratulated the laureate.

Alexievich responded by confessing her love for Russia and noting that this victory is not only hers, but that of the entire people and country.

The most famous artistic and documentary works of the Nobel Prize winner are “Chernobyl Prayer”, “War Has No woman's face", "Zinc Boys".

WHO ELSE

Many Nobel Prize laureates have distant Belarusian roots. As a rule, these are children or grandchildren of people who left the Belarusian land in search of better life on turn of the 19th century and XX centuries or during the First World War.

Sheldon Lee Glashow, Nobel Prize in Physics 1979

This scientist is, in fact, not Glashow, but Glukhovsky. He changed his surname following his father Lewis, who, together with his wife Bella, left for the United States from Bobruisk. Sheldon was born much later and devoted his life to the theory of elementary particles. He received the highest scientific award for his theory of the unification of electromagnetism and the predicted existence of weak neutral currents between elementary particles.

Alan Heeger, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2000

Another son of emigrants from Russian Empire. His parents moved to Iowa from Vitebsk. Then there were many more moves in the life of the young scientist, but he never left America. The prize was awarded for the discovery of polymers, some of whose properties replicate the properties of metals.

Leonid Kantorovich, Nobel Prize in Economics - 1975

This outstanding scientist was born and lived almost his entire life in Russia. Leningrad, Novosibirsk, Moscow - in these cities he was engaged in developments that would bring him global recognition. But his parents spent almost their entire lives on Belarusian soil. His father, Vitaly Moiseevich, came from Nadneman, and his mother, Pavlina Grigorievna, was a native Minsk resident.

Kantorovich worked on nuclear weapons, and before that he became the creator of linear programming. He was unusually strong in physics, chemistry and mathematics, but he was awarded the prize for economic ideas– “for his contribution to the theory of optimal resource allocation.”

Martin Lewis Perl and Frederic Reines, Nobel Prize in Physics 1995

An amazing case - two laureates with Belarusian roots received one prize between them! Martin’s father, Oscar Pearl, lived for many years in the town of Pruzhany, which now belongs to the Brest region. And his colleague Raines is the son of immigrants from another Belarusian city - Lida.

They shared the Nobel Prize for their discoveries of elementary particles - the tau lepton (Pearl) and the neutrino (Reines).

Stanley Prusiner, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine - 1997

His great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers lived in several cities of modern Belarus - Minsk, Pruzhany, Mogilev, Shklov and Mir. The Russian part of this family’s journey ended in Moscow, from where Prusiner’s distant ancestor left for the USA before the beginning of the 20th century.

The scientist made an outstanding discovery by discovering prions - harmless proteins contained in the human body, which at a certain point become aggressive and cause brain death.

It is believed that Prusiner's discovery could lead to the creation of a cure for Alzheimer's disease.

Veniamin Lykov

Farewell, unwashed Russia, hello, blessed Europe, which became even more blessed after receiving the Nobel Prize.

I am not a professional philologist, and I evaluate books solely from the point of view of like or dislike. Moreover, after presenting the Peace Prize to Barack Obama, my confidence in the Nobel Prize was, to put it mildly, undermined. Alekseevich’s personality only confirmed these doubts.

So, the prize was awarded with the wording “for polyphonic creativity - a monument to suffering and courage in our time.” The last phrase - "in our time" - in my opinion, is the most relevant. The fact is that Alexievich, the author of the “Chernobyl Prayer” and the famous book “War Has Not a Woman’s Face,” in last years became the source of many controversial statements about Russia, its history, people and political development.

A small selection of quotes:

About Victory and Emptiness
Millions burned in the fire of war, but millions also lie in the permafrost of the Gulag, and in the soil of our city parks and forests. Great, undoubtedly Great Victory immediately betrayed. It shielded us from Stalin's crimes. And now they are using the victory so that no one will guess what kind of emptiness we find ourselves in.
About joy after the return of Crimea
The rally for victory in Crimea brought together 20 thousand people with posters: “The Russian spirit is invincible!”, “We will not give Ukraine to America!”, “Ukraine, freedom, Putin.” Prayer services, priests, banners, pathetic speeches - some kind of archaic. There was a storm of applause after the speech of one speaker: “Russian troops in Crimea have captured all the key strategic objects...” I looked around: rage and hatred on their faces....
About the Ukrainian conflict
How can you flood the country with blood, carry out the criminal annexation of Crimea and generally destroy this entire fragile post-war world? There is no excuse for this. I just came from Kyiv and was shocked by the faces and people I saw. People want a new life and they are determined to new life. And they will fight for it.
Impressive? But these are still flowers. Let's look at the writer's attitude towards Russians:

About the President's supporters
It's even scary to talk to people. All they keep repeating is “Crimea-nash”, “Donbass-nash” and “Odessa was unfairly given away”. And it's all different people. 86% of Putin's supporters are real figure. After all, many Russian people simply fell silent. They are scared, just like us, those who are around this huge Russia.

About the feeling of life
One Italian restaurateur posted a notice “We do not serve Russians.” This is a good metaphor. Today the world is again beginning to fear: what is there in this pit, in this abyss, which has nuclear weapons, crazy geopolitical ideas and has no concept of international law. I live with a feeling of defeat.
About Russian people
We are dealing with a Russian man who has fought for almost 150 years over the past 200 years. And I never lived well. Human life for him it is worth nothing, and the concept of greatness is not that a person should live well, but that the state should be large and stuffed with missiles. In this vast post-Soviet space, especially in Russia and Belarus, where the people were first deceived for 70 years, then robbed for another 20 years, very aggressive people who are dangerous to the world have grown up.

ABOUT free life
Take a look at the Baltics - life there today is completely different. It was necessary to consistently build that very new life that we talked so much about in the 90s. We so wanted a truly free life, to enter this common world. Now what? Second hand is complete.

About new points of support for Russia
Well, certainly not Orthodoxy, autocracy and what have you... nationality? This is also a second-hand item. We need to look for these points together, and to do this we need to talk. How the Polish elite spoke to its people, how the German elite spoke to its people after fascism. We have been silent for these 20 years.
Naturally, she could not ignore the personality of Vladimir Putin

About Putin and the church
But Putin seems to be here to stay. He threw people into such barbarism, such archaism, the Middle Ages. You know, this will last a long time. And the church is also involved in this... This is not our church. There is no church.
Society believes that the Nobel Prize is the world's main prize, awarded for the highest achievements. But isn't this a fallacy? Why was Alekseevich awarded the prize? Without a doubt, she is very talented, but, you see, if she had not acted against Russia, nothing like this would have happened.

And how can one expect anything objective from a prize established with money from the sale of explosives? Weapons only value other weapons. Proza Alekseevich is the same weapon directed against Russia as the “peace fighter” Obama is against the whole world.

The winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature was announced today in Stockholm. Svetlana Alexievich! The Belarusian writer, whose books are read all over the world in dozens of languages, received the most prestigious world award.

This news has been awaited for the last three years: Alexievich was nominated back in 2013. Just like this year, bookmakers then named her among the leaders.

Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy Sarah Danius says today: Alexievich did not immediately understand that she was calling from the Nobel Committee

“I have already contacted Svetlana,” Sarah Danius, chairman of the jury for the Nobel Prize in Literature, said in an interview (it was she who announced that the award went to Alexievich). “When she finally realized who was calling her, she was crazy with joy. And she commented: “Fantastic!”

We reached Alexievich.

Svetlana Aleksandrovna, Komsomolskaya Pravda congratulates you and all Belarusians on your victory! The entire editorial staff screamed with delight and overwhelming emotions! Your first word was: “Fantastic!” We believed and knew that justice would triumph in the end. What, did you doubt it?

You know, Einstein and Bunin waited 10 years - it’s noticeable that the writer is also overwhelmed with emotions and worried.

- That's what you've been waiting for!

But I only waited a couple of years. This news will always be unexpected, there are such great shadows around: Sholokhov, Brodsky. So that I would sit and know that I was so great and would definitely get it - no, there were no such thoughts.

- The bookmakers bet on your victory for the third time, was the hope stronger?

No, I treat these things as natural phenomena: I cannot influence them, these things must happen on their own. I didn't think about it much. ()

In an interview in Komsomolskaya Pravda in 2014, Svetlana Alexievich answered a question about the Nobel Prize:

Awards for me are a parallel life... I received in my life a large number of awards Just at the time when the Nobel Prize was awarded, I received International Prize world of German booksellers, this is a great award - the Peace Prize. And I was glad that the name of my little Belarus sounded. It was important for me to articulate at the award ceremony what I was doing. Formulate it in such a way that it is understandable in another world.

DOSSIER "KP"

Svetlana Aleksandrovna Alexievich was born on May 31, 1948 in Ivano-Frankovsk (Ukraine) in the family of a military man. The writer's father is Belarusian, her mother is Ukrainian. After his father’s demobilization from the army, the Alekseevich family moved to Belarus. Svetlana Alexievich graduated from the Faculty of Journalism of BSU in 1972.

Top 5 books by Alexievich

“War does not have a woman’s face”

"Chernobyl Prayer"

"Zinc Boys"

"The Wonderful Deer of the Eternal Hunt"

"Second hand time"