Soviet writers are Nobel Prize laureates. Nobel Prize winners in literature: list. Nobel Prize laureates in literature from the USSR and Russia

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 strict 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, in a telegram sent to Soviet ambassador in Sweden, it was said: “it would be desirable, through cultural figures close to us, to make it clear to 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 artistic power and the integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a turning point for Russia.” By this time his famous “ Quiet Don».

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 building" and "In the first circle." 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. 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 it was published big Book poems - "Urania". 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 and the particularity of this whole life public role preferred, 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 the ruler of thoughts in a despotism - to suddenly find himself 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.

The most prestigious literary prize world, which is awarded annually by the Nobel Foundation for achievements in the field of literature. Laureates of the Nobel Prize in Literature, as a rule, are world-famous writers recognized in their homeland and abroad.

The first Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded on December 10, 1901. Its laureate was the French poet and essayist Sully Prudhomme. Since then, the date of the award ceremony has not changed, and every year on the day of the death of Alfred Nobel, in Stockholm, one of the most significant in literary world awards from the hands of the King of Sweden are received by a poet, essayist, playwright, prose writer, whose contribution to world literature, according to the Swedish Academy, is worthy of such high praise. This tradition was broken only seven times - in 1914, 1918, 1935, 1940, 1941, 1942 and 1943 - when the prize was not awarded and no awards were given.

As a rule, the Swedish Academy prefers not to evaluate separate work, and all the work of the nominated writer. In the entire history of the prize, specific works have been awarded only a few times. Among them: “Olympic Spring” by Karl Spitteler (1919), “The Juices of the Earth” by Knut Hamsun (1920), “The Men” by Vladislav Reymont (1924), “Buddenbrooks” by Thomas Mann (1929), “The Forsyte Saga” by John Galsworthy ( 1932), “The Old Man and the Sea” by Ernest Hemingway (1954), “Quiet Don” by Mikhail Sholokhov (1965). All these books were included in the Golden Fund of World Literature.

To date, the list of Nobel laureates consists of 108 names. Among them there are Russian writers. The first Russian writer to receive the Nobel Prize, in 1933, was the writer Ivan Alekseevich Bunin. Later, in different years, The Swedish Academy appreciated the creative merits of Boris Pasternak (1958), Mikhail Sholokhov (1965), Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1970) and Joseph Brodsky (1987). In terms of the number of Nobel laureates (5) in the field of literature, Russia is in seventh place.

The names of candidates for the Nobel Prize in Literature are kept secret not only during the current award season, but also for the next 50 years. Every year, experts try to guess who will become the owner of the most prestigious literary award, and especially gambling people place bets in bookmakers. In the 2016 season, the main favorite to receive literary Nobel consider the famous Japanese prose writer Haruki Murakami.

Premium amount- 8 million crowns (approximately 200 thousand dollars)

date of creation- 1901

Founders and co-founders. The Nobel Prize, including the Prize for Literature, was created by the will of Alfred Nobel. The award is currently administered by the Nobel Foundation.

Dates. Applications must be submitted by January 31st.
Identification of 15-20 main candidates - April.
Determination of 5 finalists - May.
Announcement of the winner's name - October.
Award ceremony - December.

Objectives of the award. According to Alfred Nobel's will, the Literature Prize is awarded to the author who has created the most significant literary work of an idealistic orientation. However, in most cases, the prize is awarded to writers based on their combined merits.

Who can participate? Any nominated author who receives an invitation to participate. It is impossible to nominate yourself for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Who can nominate? In accordance with the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, members of the Swedish Academy, other academies, institutes and societies with similar tasks and goals, professors of literature and linguistics at higher educational institutions, Nobel Prize laureates in literature, chairmen of authors' unions representing literary creativity in different countries.

Expert council and jury. Once all applications have been submitted, the Nobel Committee selects candidates and presents them to the Swedish Academy, which is responsible for determining the laureate. The Swedish Academy consists of 18 members, including respected Swedish writers, linguists, literature teachers, historians and lawyers. Nominations and prize fund

. Nobel Prize winners receive a medal, a diploma, and a monetary award, which varies slightly from year to year. Thus, in 2015, the entire Nobel Prize prize fund was 8 million Swedish kronor (approximately $1 million), which was divided among all laureates. South African John Maxwell Coetzee is the first writer to be awarded the Booker Prize twice (1983 and 1999). In 2003, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature "for creating countless guises of amazing situations involving outsiders." Coetzee's novels are characterized by well-crafted composition, rich dialogue, and analytical skill. He mercilessly criticizes cruel rationalism and artificial morality Western civilization

. At the same time, Coetzee is one of those writers who rarely talks about his work, and even less often about himself. However, Scenes from Provincial Life, an amazing autobiographical novel, is an exception. Here Coetzee is extremely frank with the reader. He talks about his mother's painful, suffocating love, about the hobbies and mistakes that followed him for years, and about the path he had to go through to finally start writing.

"The Humble Hero" by Mario Vargas Llosa Mario Vargas Llosa is a distinguished Peruvian novelist and playwright who received the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature “for his cartography of power structures and his vivid images of resistance, rebellion and the defeat of the individual.” Continuing the line of greats such as Jorge Luis Borges, Garcia Marquez, Julio Cortazar, he creates amazing novels balancing on the brink of reality and fiction. In the new book by Vargas Llosa, “The Humble Hero,” the Marinera masterfully twists two parallel storylines. The hard worker Felicito Yanaque, decent and trusting, becomes a victim of strange blackmailers. At the same time, successful businessman Ismael Carrera, in the twilight of his life, seeks revenge on his two slacker sons who want his death. And Ismael and Felicito, of course, are not heroes at all. However, where others cowardly agree, these two stage a quiet rebellion. Old acquaintances also appear on the pages of the new novel - characters from the world created by Vargas Llosa.

"The Moons of Jupiter" by Alice Munro

Canadian writer Alice Munro is a master of the modern short story, winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature. Critics constantly compare Munro to Chekhov, and this comparison is not without reason: like the Russian writer, she knows how to tell a story in such a way that readers, even those belonging to a completely different culture, recognize themselves in the characters. These twelve stories, presented in seemingly simple language, reveal amazing plot abysses. In just twenty pages, Munro manages to create a whole world - alive, tangible and incredibly attractive.

"Beloved" Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison received the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature as a writer “who, in her dreamy and poetic novels, brought to life an important aspect of American reality" Her most famous novel, Beloved, was published in 1987 and received a Pulitzer Prize. The book is based on real events that took place in Ohio in the 80s of the nineteenth century: this amazing story the black slave Sethe, who decided on a terrible act - to give freedom, but take her life. Sethe kills her daughter to save her from slavery. A novel about how difficult it can sometimes be to tear out the memory of the past from the heart, about difficult choice who change fate, and people who remain loved forever.

"The Woman from Nowhere" by Jean-Marie Gustave Leclezio

Jean-Marie Gustave Leclezio, one of the largest living French writers, won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2008. He is the author of thirty books, including novels, stories, essays and articles. In the presented book, for the first time in Russian, two stories by Leclezio are published at once: “The Storm” and “The Woman from Nowhere.” The action of the first takes place on an island lost in the Sea of ​​Japan, the second - in Cote d'Ivoire and the Parisian suburbs. However, despite such a vast geography, the heroines of both stories are very similar in some ways - these are teenage girls who are desperately striving to find their place in an inhospitable, hostile world. The Frenchman Leclezio, who lived for a long time in the countries South America, in Africa, South-East Asia, Japan, Thailand and on his native island of Mauritius, writes about how a person who grew up in the lap of pristine nature feels in the oppressive space of modern civilization.

"My Strange Thoughts" Orhan Pamuk

Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006 “for his search for the melancholy soul hometown found new symbols for the clash and interweaving of cultures.” “My Strange Thoughts” is the author’s latest novel, on which he worked for six years. Main character, Mevlut, works on the streets of Istanbul, watching as the streets fill with new people and the city gains and loses new and old buildings. Before his eyes, coups take place, authorities change each other, and Mevlut still wanders the streets winter evenings, wondering what distinguishes him from other people, why he has strange thoughts about everything in the world, and who really is his beloved, to whom he has been writing letters for the last three years.

“Legends of our time. Occupation essays" Czeslaw Milosz

Czeslaw Miłosz is a Polish poet and essayist who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1980 “for showing with fearless clairvoyance the vulnerability of man in a world torn by conflict.” “Legends of Modernity” is the first translated into Russian “confession of the son of the century”, written by Milosz on the ruins of Europe in 1942–1943. It includes essays on outstanding literary (Defoe, Balzac, Stendhal, Tolstoy, Gide, Witkiewicz) and philosophical (James, Nietzsche, Bergson) texts, and polemical correspondence between C. Milosz and E. Andrzejewski. Exploring modern myths and prejudices, appealing to the tradition of rationalism, Milos tries to find a foothold for European culture humiliated by two world wars.

Photo: Getty Images, press service archive

On December 10, 1933, King Gustav V of Sweden awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature to the writer Ivan Bunin, who became the first Russian writer to receive this high award. In total, the prize, established by the inventor of dynamite Alfred Bernhard Nobel in 1833, was received by 21 people from Russia and the USSR, five of them in the field of literature. True, historically it happened that for Russian poets and writers, the Nobel Prize was fraught with big problems.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin distributed the Nobel Prize to friends

It is known that Nobel laureates have the right to decide for themselves how to spend the money they receive. Some people invest in the development of science, some in charity, some in own business. Bunin, a creative person and devoid of “practical ingenuity,” disposed of his bonus, which amounted to 170,331 crowns, completely irrationally. Poet and literary critic Zinaida Shakhovskaya recalled: “ Returning to France, Ivan Alekseevich... in addition to money, began to organize feasts, distribute “benefits” to emigrants, and donate funds to support various societies. Finally, on the advice of well-wishers, he invested the remaining amount in some “win-win business” and was left with nothing».

Ivan Bunin is the first emigrant writer 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 works, stories and poems, were published in his homeland only in the 1990s.

Dear God, why are you
Gave us passions, thoughts and worries,
Do I thirst for business, fame and pleasure?
Joyful are cripples, idiots,
The leper is the most joyful of all.
(I. Bunin. September, 1917)

Boris Pasternak refused the Nobel Prize

The writing community in the poet’s homeland took this news extremely negatively and on October 27, Pasternak was unanimously expelled from the Union of Writers of the USSR, at the same time filing a petition to deprive Pasternak of Soviet citizenship. In the USSR, Pasternak's receipt of the prize was associated only with his novel Doctor Zhivago. The literary newspaper wrote: “Pasternak received “thirty pieces of silver,” for which the Nobel Prize was used. He was awarded 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: “ Due to the importance that the award given to me has received in the society to which I belong, I must refuse it. Please don't take my voluntary refusal as an insult.».

It is worth noting that in the USSR until 1989, even in school curriculum There were no references to Pasternak’s work in the literature. The first to decide to introduce en masse Soviet people with the creative work of Pasternak, director Eldar Ryazanov. 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, which was performed by the bard Sergei Nikitin. Ryazanov later included in his film “ Love affair at work» excerpt from another poem by Pasternak - “To love others - heavy cross..." (1931). True, it 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.

It's easy to wake up and see clearly,
Shake out the verbal trash from the heart
And live without getting clogged 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

Award presenter Soviet writer Gustav Adolf VI called him "one of the most outstanding writers our time". Sholokhov did not bow to the king, as prescribed by the rules of etiquette. Some sources claim that he did this intentionally with the words: “We Cossacks do not bow to anyone. In front of the people, please, but I won’t do it in front of the king...”

Alexander Solzhenitsyn was deprived of Soviet citizenship because of the Nobel Prize

On October 8, 1970, “for the moral strength drawn from the tradition of great Russian literature,” Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize. This became the reason for 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, a Decree was issued by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, which deprived Alexander Solzhenitsyn of Soviet citizenship and deported him from the USSR for systematically committing actions incompatible with belonging to USSR citizenship and causing damage to the USSR.

The writer’s citizenship was returned only in 1990, and in 1994 he and his family returned to Russia and actively became involved in public life.

Nobel Prize winner Joseph Brodsky was convicted of parasitism in Russia

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, 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 creativity, imbued with clarity of thought and 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 language.

The sea was not visible. In the whitish darkness,
swaddled on all sides, absurd
it was thought that the ship was heading towards land -
if it was a ship at all,
and not a clot of fog, as if poured
who whitened it in milk?
(B. Brodsky, 1972)

Interesting fact
For the Nobel Prize in different time nominated, but never received it, such famous personalities like Mahatma Gandhi, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Franklin Roosevelt, Nicholas Roerich and Leo Tolstoy.

Literature lovers will definitely be interested in this book, which is written with disappearing ink.

Nobel Prize– one of the most prestigious world prizes is awarded annually for outstanding Scientific research, revolutionary inventions or major contributions to culture or society.

On November 27, 1895, A. Nobel drew up a will, which provided for the allocation of certain Money for award awards in five areas: physics, chemistry, physiology and medicine, literature and contributions to world peace. And in 1900, the Nobel Foundation was created - a private, independent, non-governmental organization with an initial capital of 31 million Swedish crowns. Since 1969, on the initiative of the Swedish Bank, awards have also been made prizes in economics.

Since the establishment of the awards, strict rules for selecting laureates have been in place. Intellectuals from all over the world participate in the process. Thousands of minds work to ensure that the most worthy candidate receives the Nobel Prize.

In total, to date, five Russian-speaking writers have received this award.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin(1870-1953), Russian writer, poet, honorary academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1933 “for the strict skill with which he develops the traditions of Russian classical prose.” In his speech when presenting the prize, Bunin noted the courage of the Swedish Academy, which honored the emigrant writer (he emigrated to France in 1920). Ivan Alekseevich Bunin is the greatest master of Russian realistic prose.

Boris Leonidovich Pasternak(1890-1960), Russian poet, laureate of the 1958 Nobel Prize in Literature “for outstanding services to modern lyric poetry and to the field of great Russian prose.” He was forced to refuse the award 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.

Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov(1905-1984), Russian writer, winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Literature “for the artistic strength and integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a turning point for Russia.” In his speech during the awards ceremony, Sholokhov said his goal was to “extol the nation of workers, builders and heroes.” Having started out as a realistic writer who was not afraid to show deep life contradictions, Sholokhov in some of his works found himself captive of socialist realism.

Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn(1918-2008), Russian writer, winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the moral strength derived from the tradition of great Russian literature." The Soviet government considered the decision of the Nobel Committee “politically hostile,” and Solzhenitsyn, fearing that after his trip, returning to his homeland would be impossible, accepted the award, but did not attend the award ceremony. In their artistic literary works touched upon, as a rule, acute socio-political issues, actively opposed communist ideas, political system The USSR and the policies of its authorities.

Joseph Alexandrovich Brodsky(1940-1996), poet, laureate of the 1987 Nobel Prize in Literature “for his multifaceted creativity, marked by acuteness of thought and deep poetry.” In 1972 he was forced to emigrate from the USSR and lived in the USA ( world encyclopedia calls it American). I.A. Brodsky is the youngest writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. The peculiarities of the poet's lyrics are the understanding of the world as a single metaphysical and cultural whole, the identification of the limitations of man as a subject of consciousness.

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