The Nobel Prize is the most prestigious award in the world. It symbolizes worldwide recognition and makes the laureate a famous and respected person. But there have been people in history who deliberately refused the Nobel Prize. Each of them had their own reasons.
Instructions
Step 1
Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, having learned that he had been nominated as a candidate for the Nobel Prize, on October 7, 1906, in a letter to his friend writer Arvid Yarnefelt, asked to make sure that this prize was not awarded to him. The great classic of Russian literature believed that money is an absolute evil, and receiving a Nobel Prize could put him in a difficult position. That year the Italian poet Giosué Carducci received the Nobel Prize.
Step 2
German scientists Richard Kuhn, Adolf Butenandt and Gerhard Domagk could not receive the Nobel Prize due to the ban of Adolf Hitler. In 1937, he banned German citizens from receiving this award. Hitler was outraged that Karl von Ossietzky, an ardent critic of the theory of Nazism, once received the Nobel Prize. German scientists received their well-deserved awards only after the end of the Second World War.
Step 3
In 1958, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Boris Pasternak. The Central Committee of the USSR Communist Party considered that the reason for such a high award was the novel Doctor Zhivago, banned in the USSR. Parsnip was subjected to real persecution. Offensive articles began to appear in the Soviet press, threats began to come to the writer, and his beloved Olga Ivinskaya was even fired from her job. Under the influence of unprecedented pressure, Pasternak was forced to send a telegram with the refusal of the award to Stockholm. In the Nobel Committee, the writer's refusal was considered forced. The medal and diploma were later awarded to Pasternak's son.
Step 4
Jean-Paul Sartre refused the Nobel Prize in defense of his beliefs. In a statement to reporters, he told reporters that only Western writers have received awards recently. He regretted that the Nobel Prize had once been awarded to Pasternak. And not to Mikhail Sholokhov. He declared to the whole world then that the Nobel Committee on Literature was too politicized and did not award awards to those who actually deserve them.
Step 5
In 1970, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Alexander Solzhenitsyn. In the USSR, this news was received extremely negatively. Solzhenitsyn was simply not allowed to leave the country for the ceremony. Alexander Isaevich received a diploma, a medal and a monetary award in 1975, after he was expelled from the USSR.
Step 6
In 1973, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to two people at once: US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, a member of the Politburo of the North Vietnamese Party, for their joint work to resolve the Vietnam conflict. Kissinger accepted the award, but Le Deck Tho did not. He said that the Paris ceasefire agreement did not stop the war, so he has no right to receive a peace prize. The Vietnam War ended only in 1975 with the victory of North Vietnam.
Step 7
In 2004, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek. Elfrida did not go to the award ceremony, but she still took the money. She stated that she did not deserve such a high award, but, apparently, she needed the money at that moment.
Step 8
Grigory Perelman, a mathematician from St. Petersburg, is worth mentioning on this list. He was not nominated for a Nobel Prize. In 2006, Perelman turned down the Fields Prize, the mathematical equivalent of the Nobel Prize. The main reason for his refusal, Grigory Yakovlevich called his disagreement with the organized mathematical community.
