Russian writers are Nobel Prize laureates in literature. Russian Nobel Prize Laureates in Literature

During the entire period of the Nobel Prize, Russian writers were awarded 5 times. Nobel Prize laureates included 5 Russian writers and one Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich, author of the following works: “ War does not have a woman's face», « Zinc boys"and other works written in Russian. The wording for the award was: “ For the polyphonic sound of her prose and the perpetuation of suffering and courage»

2.2. Boris Pasternak- Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1958. Awarded " for outstanding services in modern lyric poetry and in the field of great Russian prose» . For Pasternak himself, the prize brought nothing but problems and a campaign under the slogan “ I haven’t read it, but I condemn it!" The writer was forced to refuse the prize under threat of expulsion from the country. The Swedish Academy recognized Pasternak's refusal of the prize as forced and in 1989 awarded a diploma and medal to his son.

Nobel Prize I was lost, like an animal in a pen. Somewhere there are people, freedom, light, And behind me there is the sound of a chase, I can’t go outside. Dark forest and the shore of a pond, Spruce felled log. The path is cut off from everywhere. Whatever happens, it doesn't matter. What kind of dirty trick have I done? Am I a murderer and a villain? I made the whole world cry over the beauty of my land. But even so, almost at the grave, I believe the time will come - The power of meanness and malice will be overcome by the spirit of good.
B. Pasternak

2.3. Mikhail Sholokhov. The Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded in 1965. The award was presented to " for the artistic power and integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a turning point for Russia». In his speech during the award ceremony, Sholokhov said that his goal was " extol the nation of workers, builders and heroes».

2.4. Alexander Solzhenitsyn– laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature 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 was not present at the award ceremony.

2.5. Joseph Brodsky- laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1987. Prize awarded « for his multifaceted creativity, marked by 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, the prize was sensationally received by a Belarusian writer and journalist Svetlana Alexievich. She wrote such works as “War Doesn’t Have a Woman’s Face”, “Zinc Boys”, “Enchanted by Death”, “Chernobyl Prayer”, “Second Hand Time” and others. It’s quite a rare event in recent years when a prize was given to a person who writes in Russian.

3. Nobel Prize nominees

The Nobel Prize in Literature is the most prestigious award, which has been awarded annually by the Nobel Foundation for achievements in the field of literature since 1901. A writer who has been awarded the prize appears in the eyes of millions of people as an incomparable talent or genius who, with his creativity, managed to win the hearts of readers from all over the world.

However, there are a number of famous writers who were bypassed by the Nobel Prize for various reasons, but they were no less worthy of it than their fellow laureates, and sometimes even more. Who are they?

Half a century later, the Nobel Committee reveals its secrets, so today we know not only who received awards in the first half of the 20th century, but also who did not receive them, remaining among the nominees.

First time among the literary nominees Nobel“Russians” dates back to 1901 - then Leo Tolstoy was nominated for the award among other nominees, but he did not become the winner of the prestigious award for several more years. Leo Tolstoy would be present in the nominations every year 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

And how many geniuses of Russian literature were not even declared among the nominees Bulgakov, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Mandelstam, Yevgeny Yevtushenko... Everyone can continue this brilliant series with the names of their favorite writers and poets.

Why were Russian writers and poets so rarely among the laureates?

It is 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. In 1896, Alfred left a condition in his will: the capital of the Nobel Foundation must be invested in shares of strong companies that provide good profits. 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 United States have had very close ties.”

Anna Akhmatova may have received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1966, but she... died on 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. The prize was received only by those writers who quarreled with the Soviet regime: Joseph Brodsky, Ivan Bunin, Boris Pasternak, Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

The Swedish Academy of Sciences did not favor Russian literature: at the beginning of the twentieth 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, like later other Nobel laureates (B. Pasternak, A. Solzhenitsyn , I. Brodsky) was in a state of acute conflict with the Soviet regime.

Be that as it may, the great writers and poets, Nobel Prize laureates, whose creative path was thorny, built a pedestal for themselves with their brilliant creations. The personality of these great sons of Russia is enormous not only in the Russian, but also in the world literary process. And they will remain in people’s memory as long as humanity lives and creates.

« Exploded Heart»… This is how we can characterize the state of mind of our compatriot writers who became Nobel Prize laureates. They are our pride! And our pain and shame for what was done to I.A. Bunin and B.L. Pasternak, A.I. Solzhenitsyn and I.A. Brodsky by the official authorities, for their forced loneliness and exile. In St. Petersburg there is a monument to Nobel on 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 not been to distant Sweden, As in the 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, slept in a hurry and ate unsweetened, but, having changed the plus for the minus, he married an aristocrat.

Sitting in Venetian bars and having conversations with counts, He mixed cognac with resentment, Antiquity with the Internet age. Rhymes were born from the surf, I had the strength to write them down. But what about poetry? They are empty, Once again Nobel came out of the grave. I asked: - Let the genius be Brodsky. Let him shine in a pair of tails, But Paustovsky lived somewhere, Not Sholokhov in a pair of cognac. Zabolotsky lived, fell into the abyss, and was resurrected, and became great. Once upon a time Simonov lived, gray-haired and sober, counting the Tashkent ditches. Well, what about Tvardovsky? Nice sidekick, that's the one who molds the lines so well! Where are you looking, Uncle Nobel? Mendel.

In Alfred Nobel's will, the prize for the creation of the most outstanding literary work was mentioned fourth among five prizes. The will was announced in 1897, and the first laureate in this category in 1901 was the Frenchman Sully-Prudhomme. 32 years later, a native of Russia received this honor. Let's look through the history of presenting the prestigious world award, and in our review there are Russian writers who are laureates of the Nobel Prize in Literature. So who are they, Russian Nobel laureates in literature?

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin

An aesthetically subtle and talented Russian writer, a native of the city of Voronezh, began his literary career with poetry. In 1887 he published his first poem, and in 1902 he was awarded the Pushkin Prize for the book “Falling Leaves.”

In 1909 he again became a laureate of the prestigious Russian prize. He did not accept the changes that occurred in Russia after October 1917 and emigrated to France. The separation from his homeland was hard for him, and during the first years of his life in Paris he practically did not write.

In 1923, Romain Rolland proposed to the Nobel Committee the candidacy of an emigrant from Russia for the Nobel Prize, but the award went to a Scottish poet. But 10 years later, in 1933, the Russian emigrant writer entered the list of literary figures, becoming the first Russian writer to receive the Nobel Prize.

The boy was brought up in an intelligent, creative family. Boris's father was a talented artist, for which he was awarded the title of academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, and the poet's mother was a pianist.

At the age of 23, the gifted young man had already published his first poems, and in 1916 the first collection of his works was published. After the revolution, the poet’s family left for Berlin, and he remained to live and work in the USSR. In the late 20s and early 30s he was called the best poet of the Soviet state, and he takes an active part in the literary life of the country.

In 1955, one of Pasternak’s best works, Doctor Zhivago, was published. In 1958, the Nobel Committee awarded him the Nobel Prize, but under pressure from the Soviet leadership, Leonid Pasternak refused it. Real persecution began, and in 1960, having become seriously ill, Leonid Pasternak died in Peredelkino near Moscow.

By the way, there is an article on the site about the world. We highly recommend watching it.

Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov

The village of Veshenskaya is famous for the fact that the legendary Cossack writer Mikhail Sholokhov was born here in 1905, who glorified it throughout the world.

As a boy, he learned to read and write, but the war and revolutionary events interrupted the young man’s education. In 1922, he was almost shot by a revolutionary tribunal for abuse of power. But the father bought his son and sent him to Moscow. In 1923 he began publishing his first works, and in 1940 his most famous and widely read work, Quiet Don, was published.

In 1964, Jean-Paul Sartre made a grand gesture and refused the prize, saying that it was awarded only to Western writers, ignoring the great masters of words from Soviet Russia. The following year, members of the Royal Committee unanimously voted for Mikhail Sholokhov.

A native of Kislovodsk became famous not only for his literary works, but also for his sharp journalistic articles on the history of Russia.

Already at school, a rebellious character appeared when Alexander, despite the ridicule of his peers, wore a cross and did not want to join the pioneers. Under pressure from the Soviet school, he accepted the Marxist-Leninist ideology, became a member of the Komsomol and carried out active social work.

Even before the war, he became interested in history and began literary activity. He fought heroically and was awarded the highest orders and military medals. After the war, he began to criticize the Soviet system, and in 1970 he became a Nobel Prize laureate. After the publication of the resonant work “The Gulag Archipelago,” Solzhenitsyn was deprived of citizenship in 1974 and forcibly expelled from the USSR. Only in 1990 will the writer be able to restore his citizenship.

Joseph Alexandrovich Brodsky

The Russian prose writer and poet received the Nobel Prize in 1987 as a citizen of the United States of America, because he was expelled from the USSR with the wording “for parasitism.”

Joseph was born in Leningrad, and his childhood occurred during the war years. Together with their mother, they survived the blockade winter of 1941-1942, and then were evacuated to Cherepovets. He dreamed of becoming a submariner, a doctor, worked on geological expeditions, and in the early 60s he became famous as a poet.

The aspiring poet did not work anywhere, and cases were repeatedly brought against him for parasitism. Working as a translator, he managed to temporarily subdue the agility of the authorities, but in the end, in 1972, Brodsky left the USSR. The prize was awarded to him in November 1987 as a Russian writer with a US passport.

Ivan Bunin received 170,331 Swedish crowns, and upon returning from Sweden to Paris, he began to organize dinner parties, distributed money to Russian emigrants without counting, and donated to various emigrant organizations and unions. Then he got involved in a financial scam, losing the remaining money.

Leonid Pasternak refused the prize, sending a telegram to the Royal Committee with a refusal, and so that they would not consider it an insult. In 1989, the medal and diploma of the laureate were solemnly presented to the writer’s son Evgeniy. In the same year, Pasternak's works appeared in the school curriculum of Soviet schools.

Mikhail Sholokhov donated two Soviet prizes to the state. In 1941, he donated the highest Stalin Prize in the USSR to the defense fund, and donated the Lenin Prize to the restoration of his native school. Using the funds from the world's highest literary award, the writer showed his children the world. They traveled all over Europe by car, and then visited Japan with their children. By the way, we have a useful article on the most popular ones on our website.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn received the prize only after he was expelled from the USSR. With this money he bought a house in the American state of Vermont. There were even two houses, one of which the writer used only for work.

Joseph Brodsky used the prize he received to open a restaurant in the Manhattan area with the poetic name “Russian Samovar”, which became a kind of center of Russian culture. The restaurant still operates in New York.

Curiosities

Mikhail Sholokhov, receiving his diploma and medal, pointedly did not bow to the Swedish monarch Gustav Adolf VI. Some media outlets indicated that he did this with the words “I bow to the people, but we Cossacks have never bowed our heads before kings.”

Alexander Solzhenitsyn wanted to go on stage to receive his medal and diploma not in a tailcoat, but in his prison uniform. The Soviet authorities did not allow the writer to leave the country, and he was not present at the ceremony. For well-known reasons, Boris Pasternak was not at the ceremony.

Leo Tolstoy could become the first Russian writer to receive the prestigious award. In 1901, the Committee sent an apology to the writer that they had not chosen him, to which the writer thanked them for saving him from the difficulties of spending money, which undoubtedly constitutes an evil. In 1906, having learned that he was on the list of candidates, Tolstoy wrote to his friend, a writer from Finland, not to vote for him. Everyone considered this to be just another count’s quirk of an outstanding writer, and the “block of Russian literature” was no longer nominated as a candidate.

In a whirlwind of anti-Soviet propaganda, the Committee wanted to present an award to the Soviet defector Igor Guzenko, who worked as the head of the encryption department at the Soviet embassy in Ottawa. In the West, he unexpectedly took up literature and actively criticized the Soviet system. But his opuses did not reach the level of literary masterpieces.

Candidates from the USSR and Russia for the literary prize

Only 5 Russian writers were awarded the high award, but other equally famous and talented figures of Russian and Soviet literature also had this opportunity.

The Russian and Soviet literary and public figure was nominated five times as a candidate for the prestigious award. The first time this happened was in 1918, and the last time in 1933, but that year the author of the “Garnet Bracelet” was awarded. Dmitry Merezhkovsky was nominated along with them. They didn’t give “Petrel” an award with the wording “collaborating with the Bolsheviks.”

Anna Akhmatova

Along with Boris Pasternak, the name of the famous Russian poetess Anna Akhmatova was also on the list of nominees for the Royal Award. The committee, choosing between prose and poetry, chose prose.

In 1963, the infamous Vladimir Nabokov, whose “Lolita” is admired by the whole world, was nominated for the prize. But the Committee considered it too immoral. In 1974, at the instigation of Solzhenitsyn, he was again on the list, but the prize was given to two Swedes, whose names no one will remember. Outraged by this circumstance, one of the American critics wittily declared that it was not Nabokov who did not deserve the prize, but the prize that Nabokov did not deserve.

👨🏽‍🎓

Summarize

Russian literature is distinguished by the aesthetic content of its works and its moral core. And if European culture quickly reoriented itself towards a mass, entertaining nature, true Russian writers remained faithful to the established traditions that were laid down by recognized world classics, Russian poets and writers of the 19th century. Russian Nobel laureates in literature have made a significant contribution to the development of world culture. This concludes the article. The editors of TopCafe are waiting for your comments!

On December 10, 1901, the world's first Nobel Prize was awarded. Since then, five Russian writers have received this prize in the field of literature.

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 already been living in exile in Paris for several years. The prize was awarded to Ivan Bunin "for the rigorous skill with which he develops the traditions of Russian classical prose." We were talking about the writer’s largest work - the novel “The Life of Arsenyev”.

Accepting the award, Ivan Alekseevich said that he was the first exile to be awarded the Nobel Prize. Along with his diploma, Bunin received a check for 715 thousand French francs. With the Nobel money he could live comfortably until the end of his days. But they quickly ran out. Bunin spent it very easily and generously distributed it to his fellow emigrants in need. He invested part of it in a business that, as his “well-wishers” promised him, would be a win-win, and went broke.

It was after receiving the Nobel Prize that Bunin’s all-Russian fame grew into worldwide fame. Every Russian in Paris, even those who had not yet read a single line of this writer, took this as a personal holiday.

1958, Boris Leonidovich Pasternak

For Pasternak, this high award and recognition turned into 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 responded “extremely grateful, touched and proud, amazed and embarrassed.” But after it became known that he had been awarded the prize, the newspapers “Pravda” and “Literary Gazette” attacked the poet with indignant articles, awarding him with the 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: “Due to the significance that the award given to me received in the society to which I belong, I must refuse it. Do not consider my voluntary refusal an insult.”

Boris Pasternak's Nobel Prize was awarded to his son 31 years later. In 1989, the permanent 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, was presenting his medal to his son, regretting that The laureate 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 USSR leadership. Back in 1958, when a delegation of the USSR Writers Union visited Sweden and learned that Pasternak and Shokholov were among those nominated for the prize, a telegram sent to the Soviet ambassador in Sweden said: “it would be desirable to give through cultural figures close to us "To understand the Swedish public that the Soviet Union would highly appreciate the award of the Nobel Prize to Sholokhov." But then the prize was given to Boris Pasternak. Sholokhov received it in 1965 - “for the artistic strength and integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a turning point for Russia.” By this time his famous “Quiet 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 of Solzhenitsyn as “Cancer Ward” and “In the First Circle” had already been written. Having learned about the award, the writer stated that he intended to receive the award “personally, on the appointed day.” But after the announcement of the award, the persecution of the writer in his homeland gained full force. The Soviet government considered the decision of the Nobel Committee "politically hostile." Therefore, the writer was afraid to go to Sweden to receive the 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 Germany.

The writer’s wife, Natalya Solzhenitsyna, is still confident that the Nobel Prize saved her husband’s life and gave her the opportunity to write. She noted that if he had published “The Gulag Archipelago” without being a Nobel Prize laureate, he would have been killed. By the way, Solzhenitsyn was the only Nobel Prize laureate in literature for whom only eight years passed from the first publication to the award.

1987, Joseph Alexandrovich Brodsky

Joseph Brodsky became the fifth Russian writer to receive 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 his comprehensive creativity, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity." Receiving the award in his speech, Joseph Brodsky said: “For a private person who has preferred this whole life to some public role, 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 democracy than a martyr or a ruler of thoughts in a despotism, to suddenly appear on this podium is a great awkwardness and test.”

Let us note 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 in his homeland.

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

A native of Nagasaki, he moved with his family to Britain in 1960. The writer’s first novel, “Where the Hills Are in the Haze,” was published in 1982 and was dedicated specifically to his hometown and new homeland. The novel tells the story of a Japanese woman who, after the suicide of her daughter and moving to England, cannot shake off haunting dreams of the destruction of Nagasaki.

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

dedicated to the fate of the former butler, who served one noble house all his life. For this novel, Ishiguro received the Booker Prize, and the jury voted unanimously, which is unprecedented for this award. In 1993, an American director filmed this book with and starring.

The writer's fame was greatly supported by the release in 2010 of the dystopian film Never Let Me Go, which takes place in an alternative Britain at the end of the twentieth century, where children who donate organs for cloning are raised in a special boarding school. The film stars Keira Knightley and others.

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

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

This year's award amount is $1.12 million. The award ceremony will take place at the Stockholm Philharmonic on December 10, the day of the death of the founder of the award.

Literary rate

Every year, it is the Nobel Prize in Literature that arouses particular interest among bookmakers - in no other discipline in which the award is given does such a stir occur. The list of this year's favorites, according to the bookmaker companies Ladbrokes and Unibet, included the Kenyan Ngugi Wa Thiong'o (5.50), the Canadian writer and critic (6.60), and the Japanese writer (odds 2.30). The current laureate’s fellow countryman, the author of “The Sheep Hunt” and “After Dark,” however, has been promised a Nobel for many years, just like another “eternal” literary Nobel nominee, the famous Syrian poet Adonis. However, both of them remain without a reward year after year, and the bookmakers are slightly perplexed.

Other candidates this year included: Chinese Ian Leanke, Israeli, Italian Claudio Magris, Spaniard, American singer and poetess Patti Smith, from Austria, South Korean poet and prose writer Ko Eun, Nina Buraoui from France, Peter Nadas from Hungary, American rapper Kanye West and others.

In the entire history of the award, bookmakers have made no mistakes only three times:

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

“It is unknown what the bookmakers are guided by when determining the favorites,” says the literary expert, editor-in-chief of the Gorky Media resource, “we only know that a few hours before the announcement, the odds for whoever turns out to be the winner then drop sharply to unfavorable values.” Whether this means that someone is supplying bookmakers with information several hours before the announcement of the winners, the expert refused to confirm. According to Milchin,

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

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

The name of the future laureate is traditionally kept in the strictest confidence until the announcement. The list of candidates compiled by the Swedish Academy is also classified and will only become known after 50 years.

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

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

The company chosen was very worthy: Samuel Beckett, Louis Aragon, Alberto Moravia, Jorge Luis Borges, Pablo Neruda, Yasunari Kawabata, Graham Greene, Wysten Hugh Auden. The Academy awarded the prize that year to Guatemalan writer Miguel Angel Asturias "for his living literary achievements, deeply rooted in the national characteristics and traditions of the indigenous peoples of Latin America."


The name of Konstantin Paustovsky was proposed by a member of the Swedish Academy, Eivind Jonsson, but the Nobel Committee rejected his candidacy with the wording: “The Committee would like to emphasize its interest in this proposal for a Russian writer, but for natural reasons it should be put aside for now.” It is difficult to say what “natural causes” we are talking about. All that remains is to cite the known facts.

In 1965, Paustovsky was already nominated for the Nobel Prize. This was an unusual year, because among the nominees for the award were four Russian writers - Anna Akhmatova, Mikhail Sholokhov, Konstantin Paustovsky, Vladimir Nabokov. The prize was eventually awarded to Mikhail Sholokhov, so as not to irritate the Soviet authorities too much after the previous Nobel laureate Boris Pasternak, whose award caused a huge scandal.

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

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


The award was presented with the wording “for the strict skill with which he develops the traditions of Russian classical prose.”

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


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

In 1965, Mikhail Sholokhov became the third laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature “for the artistic strength and integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a turning point for Russia.”


This was the “correct” prize from the point of view of the USSR, especially since the writer’s candidacy was directly supported by the state.

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


The Nobel Committee spent a long time justifying itself by saying that its decision was not political, as the Soviet authorities claimed. Supporters of the version about the political nature of the award note two things: only eight years passed from the moment of Solzhenitsyn’s first publication to the presentation of the award, which cannot be compared with other laureates. Moreover, by the time the prize was awarded, neither “The Gulag Archipelago” nor “The Red Wheel” had been published.

The fifth winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1987 was the émigré poet Joseph Brodsky, awarded “for his comprehensive creativity, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity.”


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

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


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

Thus, almost all decisions of the Nobel Committee concerning writers from Russia had political or ideological background. This began back in 1901, when Swedish academics wrote a letter to Tolstoy, calling him “the deeply revered patriarch of modern literature” and “one of those powerful, soulful poets who should be remembered first of all in this case.”

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

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


Today, the opinions of those experts who excommunicated Tolstoy from the prize have become the property of history. Among them is Professor Alfred Jensen, who believed that the philosophy of the late Tolstoy contradicted the will of Alfred Nobel, who dreamed of an “idealistic orientation” in his works. And “War and Peace” is completely “devoid of understanding of history.” Secretary of the Swedish Academy Karl Wirsen formulated his point of view even more categorically about the impossibility of awarding the prize to Tolstoy: “This writer condemned all forms of civilization and insisted in their place to accept a primitive way of life, divorced from all the establishments of high culture.”

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


Maxim Gorky (1918, 1923, 1928, 1933)


Konstantin Balmont (1923)


Pyotr Krasnov (1926)


Ivan Shmelev (1931)


Mark Aldanov (1938, 1939)


Nikolai Berdyaev (1944, 1945, 1947)


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


Vladimir Nabokov (1962)


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


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

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

The further history of the Nobel nominations will certainly reveal many more interesting things to us.