Novels that received the Nobel Prize. Nobel Prize winners in literature: list. Nobel Prize laureates in literature from the USSR and Russia. Equivalents to the Nobel Prize in Literature
HISTORY OF RUSSIA
“Prix Nobel? Oui, ma belle". This is what Brodsky joked long before receiving the Nobel Prize, which is the most important award for almost any writer. Despite the generous scattering of Russian literary geniuses, only five of them managed to receive the highest award. However, many, if not all, of them, having received it, suffered enormous losses in their lives.
Nobel Prize 1933 "For the truthful artistic talent with which he recreated in prose the typical Russian character."
Bunin became the first Russian writer to receive the Nobel Prize. This event was given a special resonance by the fact that Bunin had not appeared in Russia for 13 years, even as a tourist. Therefore, when he was notified of a call from Stockholm, Bunin could not believe what had happened. In Paris, the news spread instantly. Every Russian, regardless of financial status and position, squandered their last pennies in a tavern, rejoicing that their compatriot turned out to be the best.
Once in the Swedish capital, Bunin was almost the most popular Russian person in the world; people stared at him for a long time, looked around, and whispered. He was surprised, comparing his fame and honor with the glory of the famous tenor. 
Nobel Prize ceremony.
I. A. Bunin is in the first row, far right.
Stockholm, 1933
Nobel Prize 1958 "For significant achievements in modern lyric poetry, as well as for continuing the tradition of the great Russian epic novel"
Pasternak's candidacy for the Nobel Prize was discussed by the Nobel Committee every year, from 1946 to 1950. After a personal telegram from the head of the committee and Pasternak’s notification of the award, the writer responded with the following words: “Grateful, glad, proud, embarrassed.” But after some time, after the planned public persecution of the writer and his friends, public persecution, sowing an impartial and even hostile image among the masses, Pasternak refused the prize, writing a letter of more voluminous content.
After the award of the prize, Pasternak bore the full burden of the “persecuted poet” firsthand. Moreover, he carried this burden not at all for his poems (although it was for them, for the most part, that he was awarded the Nobel Prize), but for the “anti-conscience” novel “Doctor Zhivago”. Nes, even refusing such an honorable prize and a substantial sum of 250,000 crowns. According to the writer himself, he still would not have taken this money, having sent it to another, more useful place than his own pocket.
On December 9, 1989, in Stockholm, Boris Pasternak's son, Evgeniy, was awarded a diploma and the Nobel Medal to Boris Pasternak at a gala reception dedicated to the Nobel Prize laureates of that year. 
Pasternak Evgeniy Borisovich
Nobel Prize 1965 “for the artistic strength and integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a turning point for Russia”.
Sholokhov, like Pasternak, repeatedly appeared in the field of view of the Nobel Committee. Moreover, their paths, like their offspring, involuntarily, and also voluntarily, crossed more than once. Their novels, without the participation of the authors themselves, “prevented” each other from winning the main award. There is no point in choosing the best of two brilliant, but very different works. Moreover, the Nobel Prize was (and is) given in both cases not for individual works, but for the overall contribution as a whole, for a special component of all creativity. Once, in 1954, the Nobel Committee did not award Sholokhov only because the letter of recommendation from Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences Sergeev-Tsensky arrived a couple of days later, and the committee did not have enough time to consider Sholokhov’s candidacy. It is believed that the novel (“Quiet Don”) was not politically beneficial for Sweden at that time, and artistic value always played a secondary role for the committee. In 1958, when Sholokhov’s figure looked like an iceberg in the Baltic Sea, the prize went to Pasternak. Already gray-haired, sixty-year-old Sholokhov was awarded his well-deserved Nobel Prize in Stockholm, after which the writer read a speech as pure and honest as all his work. 
Mikhail Alexandrovich in the Golden Hall of Stockholm City Hall
before the start of the Nobel Prize presentation.
Nobel Prize 1970 "For the moral strength gleaned from the tradition of great Russian literature."
Solzhenitsyn learned about this prize while still in the camps. And in his heart he strived to become its laureate. In 1970, after he was awarded the Nobel Prize, Solzhenitsyn replied that he would come “personally, on the appointed day” to receive the award. However, as twelve years earlier, when Pasternak was also threatened with deprivation of citizenship, Solzhenitsyn canceled his trip to Stockholm. It's hard to say that he regretted it too much. Reading the program for the gala evening, he kept coming across pompous details: what and how to say, a tuxedo or tailcoat to wear at this or that banquet. “...Why does it have to be a white bow tie,” he thought, “but not in a camp padded jacket?” “And how can we talk about the main task of our whole life at the “feast table”, when the tables are laden with dishes and everyone is drinking, eating, talking...”
Nobel Prize 1987 "For a comprehensive literary activity distinguished by clarity of thought and poetic intensity."
Of course, it was much “easier” for Brodsky to receive the Nobel Prize than for Pasternak or Solzhenitsyn. At that time, he was already a persecuted emigrant, deprived of citizenship and the right to enter Russia. The news of the Nobel Prize found Brodsky having lunch at a Chinese restaurant near London. The news practically did not change the expression on the writer’s face. He only joked to the first reporters that now he would have to wag his tongue for a whole year. One journalist asked Brodsky who he considers himself to be: Russian or American? “I am a Jew, a Russian poet and an English essayist,” Brodsky replied.
Known for his indecisive character, Brodsky took two versions of the Nobel lecture to Stockholm: in Russian and in English. Until the last moment, no one knew in what language the writer would read the text. Brodsky settled on Russian.
On December 10, 1987, Russian poet Joseph Brodsky was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for his comprehensive creativity, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity.”
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, W. H. 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 there 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 Wiersen 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 the Nobel lecture were 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.
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 to the Swedish public that the Soviet Union would highly appreciate awarding 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 published.
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 child organ donors are raised in a special boarding school for cloning. 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 - no other discipline in which the award is awarded has such a stir. 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.
Only five Russian writers have received the prestigious international Nobel Prize. For three of them, this brought not only worldwide fame, but also widespread persecution, repression and expulsion. Only one of them was approved by the Soviet government, and its last owner was “forgiven” and invited to return to his homeland.
Nobel Prize- one of the most prestigious awards, which is awarded annually for outstanding scientific research, significant inventions and significant contributions to culture and the development of society. There is one comical, but not accidental story connected with its establishment. It is known that the founder of the prize, Alfred Nobel, is also famous for the fact that it was he who invented dynamite (pursuing, however, pacifist goals, since he believed that opponents armed to the teeth would understand the stupidity and senselessness of the war and stop the conflict). When his brother Ludwig Nobel died in 1888, and newspapers mistakenly “buried” Alfred Nobel, calling him a “merchant of death,” the latter seriously wondered how society would remember him. As a result of these thoughts, Alfred Nobel changed his will in 1895. And it said the following:
“All my movable and immovable property must be converted by my executors into liquid assets, and the capital thus collected must be placed in a reliable bank. The income from the investments should belong to a fund, which will distribute them annually in the form of bonuses to those who, during the previous year, have brought the greatest benefit to humanity... The said interest must be divided into five equal parts, which are intended: one part - to the one who makes the most important discovery or invention in the field of physics; the other - to the one who makes the most important discovery or improvement in the field of chemistry; the third - to the one who makes the most important discovery in the field of physiology or medicine; the fourth - to the one who creates the most outstanding literary work of an idealistic direction; fifth - to the one who will make the most significant contribution to the unity of nations, the abolition of slavery or the reduction of the size of existing armies and the promotion of peaceful congresses ... It is my special desire that in awarding prizes, no consideration will be given to the nationality of the candidates ... ".
Medal awarded to a Nobel laureate
After conflicts with Nobel’s “deprived” relatives, the executors of his will - his secretary and lawyer - established the Nobel Foundation, whose responsibilities included organizing the presentation of bequeathed prizes. A separate institution was created to award each of the five prizes. So, Nobel Prize in literature came under the purview of the Swedish Academy. Since then, the Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded annually since 1901, except for 1914, 1918, 1935 and 1940-1943. It is interesting that upon delivery Nobel Prize Only the names of the laureates are announced; all other nominations are kept secret for 50 years.
Swedish Academy building
Despite the apparent disinterest Nobel Prize, dictated by the philanthropic instructions of Nobel himself, many “left” political forces still see obvious politicization and some Western cultural chauvinism in the awarding of the prize. It is difficult not to notice that the vast majority of Nobel laureates come from the USA and European countries (more than 700 laureates), while the number of laureates from the USSR and Russia is much smaller. Moreover, there is a point of view that the majority of Soviet laureates were awarded the prize only for criticism of the USSR.
Nevertheless, these five Russian writers are laureates Nobel Prize according to literature:
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin- laureate of 1933. The prize was awarded “for the strict mastery with which he develops the traditions of Russian classical prose.” Bunin received the prize while in exile.
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak- laureate of 1958. The prize was awarded “for significant achievements in modern lyric poetry, as well as for continuing the traditions of the great Russian epic novel.” This prize is associated with the anti-Soviet novel “Doctor Zhivago”, therefore, in conditions of severe persecution, Pasternak is forced to refuse it. The medal and diploma were awarded to the writer’s son Evgeniy only in 1988 (the writer died in 1960). It is interesting that in 1958 this was the seventh attempt to present Pasternak with the prestigious prize.
Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov- laureate of 1965. The prize was awarded “For the artistic strength and integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a turning point for Russia.” This award has a long history. Back in 1958, a delegation of the USSR Writers' Union that visited Sweden contrasted the European popularity of Pasternak with the international popularity of Sholokhov, and in a telegram to the Soviet ambassador in Sweden dated April 7, 1958 it was said:
“It would be desirable to make it clear to the Swedish public through cultural figures close to us that the Soviet Union would highly appreciate the award Nobel Prize Sholokhov... It is also important to make it clear that Pasternak as a writer is not recognized by Soviet writers and progressive writers of other countries.”
Contrary to this recommendation, Nobel Prize in 1958, it was nevertheless awarded to Pasternak, which resulted in severe disapproval of the Soviet government. But in 1964 from Nobel Prize Jean-Paul Sartre refused, explaining, among other things, his personal regret that Sholokhov was not awarded the prize. It was this gesture of Sartre that predetermined the choice of the laureate in 1965. Thus, Mikhail Sholokhov became the only Soviet writer to receive Nobel Prize with the consent of the top leadership of the USSR.
Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn- laureate of 1970. The prize was awarded “for the moral strength with which he followed the immutable traditions of Russian literature.” Only 7 years passed from the beginning of Solzhenitsyn’s career to the award of the prize - this is the only such case in the history of the Nobel Committee. Solzhenitsyn himself spoke about the political aspect of awarding him the prize, but the Nobel Committee denied this. However, after Solzhenitsyn received the prize, a propaganda campaign was organized against him in the USSR, and in 1971, an attempt was made to physically destroy him when he was injected with a toxic substance, after which the writer survived, but was ill for a long time.
Joseph Alexandrovich Brodsky- laureate of 1987. The prize was awarded “for comprehensive creativity, imbued with clarity of thought and passion of poetry.” Awarding the prize to Brodsky no longer caused such controversy as many other decisions of the Nobel Committee, since Brodsky by that time was known in many countries. In his first interview after he was awarded the prize, he himself said: “It was received by Russian literature, and it was received by an American citizen.” And even the weakened Soviet government, shaken by perestroika, began to establish contacts with the famous exile.
