Tolstoj refuses the Nobel Prize...!


In 1901, the Nobel Prizes were awarded for the first time.

The Nobel Prize Committee intends to honor the French poet Sully Prudhomme (1839 – 1907) as the first ever Nobel Prize winner for literature...:



When word got out, Swedish writers, poets and artists, including August Strindberg…



...and Selma Lagerlöf…



... immediately start a campaign against this decision.

In an "open letter" published worldwide, the official election was sharply criticized and the Russian writer Lew Tolstoj (1851 - 1910)…



...described as the only worthy candidate - which was certainly right.

But when Tolstoj found out about the campaign, he immediately wrote to Lagerlöf on October 8, 1901 that he would refuse the prize if he did receive it!

His reasoning:



Any organization - be it humanitarian, be it national, be it international - is now suspect to him.
He also wanted to lead a life without fame and fortune.

The letter of rejection literally says: "I am happy not to have received the award, because money only causes pain and suffering anyway."

Prudhomme gets the first Nobel Prize in literature after all...

Although Tolstoj was nominated again and again in the following years, the honor always failed because Tolstoj stuck to his opinion.

The first Russiin (and Soviet citizen) to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature is Ivan Alexeyevich Bunin in 1933...:



Thus Bunin and the two Russian writers Mikhail Sholokhov ( 1965 )…



…and Aleksandr Solschenizyn (1970)…



… remain the only Russian literature Nobel Prize winners until today.

Boris Pasternak...



... who should also be awarded the Nobel Prize (for his novel "Doctor Zhivago")...



... had to refuse the prize on the instructions of the Soviet authorities...:



... but he is now generally considered the fifth Russian winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

How Tolstoj would have liked to be immortalized on a piece of money in 1988 remains to be seen...



Cheers

But the very best, that was written about the catastrophe for the Russian Army in East Prussia.

Russia and Ukraine have produced some of the best literature in the world.Amazing authors came from these two countries.So terribly sad to see and experience the current state of affairs.

Oda.

Indeed