Нобелевская премия и ее лауреаты

INTRODUCTION  

NobelPrizes,annual monetary awards granted to individuals or institutions foroutstanding contributions in the fields of physics, chemistry,physiology or medicine, literature, international peace, and economicsciences. The Nobel prizes are internationally recognized as the mostprestigious awards in each of these fields. The prizes wereestablished by Swedish inventor and industrialist Alfred BernhardNobel, who set up a fund for them in his will. The first Nobel prizeswere awarded on December 10, 1901, the fifth anniversary of Nobel’sdeath.

Inhis will, Nobel directed that most of his fortune be invested to forma fund, the interest of which was to be distributed annually "inthe form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shallhave conferred the greatest benefit on mankind." He stipulatedthat the interest be divided into five equal parts, each to beawarded to the person who made the most important contribution in oneof five different fields. In addition to the three scientific awardsand the literature award, a prize would go to the person who had done"the most or the best work for fraternity among nations, for theabolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding andpromotion of peace congresses." Nobel also specified certaininstitutions that would select the prizewinners. The will indicatedthat “no consideration whatever shall be given to thenationality of the candidates, but that the most worthy shall receivethe prize.”

A

lfredNobel
Afterhis own experiments led him to the lucrative invention of dynamite,Alfred Nobel established a fund to reward other innovators“contributing most materially to the benefit of mankind.”The Nobel Prizes are awarded in the fields of chemistry, physics,physiology or medicine, literature, international peace, and economicsciences. The awards reflect Nobel’s interests; in addition toperforming valuable chemical research, he spoke several languages,traveled widely, and wrote poetry.

In1968 the Riksbank, the central bank of Sweden, created an economicsprize to commemorate the bank's 300th anniversary. This prize, calledthe Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, was first awarded in1969. The bank provides a cash award equal to the other Nobel prizes.

IINOBELFOUNDATION  
In 1900 the Nobel Foundation was establishedto manage the fund and to administer the activities of theinstitutions charged with selecting winners. The fund is controlledby a board of directors, which serves for two-year periods andconsists of six members: five elected by the trustees of the awardingbodies mentioned in the will, and the sixth appointed by the Swedishgovernment. All six members are either Swedish or Norwegian citizens.

Inhis will, Nobel stated that the prizes for physics and chemistrywould be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences, the prize forphysiology or medicine by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, theliterature prize by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm, and the peaceprize by a five-person committee elected by the Norwegian Storting(Parliament). After the economics prize was created in 1968, theSwedish Academy of Sciences has held the responsibility of selectingthe winners of that award.

Allthe prize-awarding bodies have set up Nobel committees consisting ofthree to five people who make recommendations in the selectionprocess. Additional specialists with expertise in relevant fieldsassist the committees. The Nobel committees examine nominations andmake recommendations to the prize-awarding institutions. Afterdeliberating various opinions and recommendations, the prize-awardingbodies vote on the final selection, and then they announce thewinner. The deliberations and voting are secret, and prize decisionscannot be appealed.

IIIPRIZES 
Aprize for achievement in a particular field may be awarded to anindividual, divided equally between two people, or awarded jointlyamong two or three people. According to the Nobel Foundation’sstatutes, the prize cannot be divided among more than three people,but it can go to an institution. A prize may go unawarded if nocandidate is chosen for the year under consideration, but each of theprizes must be awarded at least once every five years. If the NobelFoundation does not award a prize in a given year, the prize moneyremains in the trust. Likewise, if a prize is declined or notaccepted before a specified date, the Nobel Foundation retains theprize money in its trust.

Theprize amounts are based on the annual yield of the fund capital. In1948 Nobel prizes were about $32,000 each; in 1997 they were about $1million each. In addition to a cash award, each prizewinner alsoreceives a gold medal and a diploma bearing the winner's name andfield of achievement. Prizewinners are known as Nobellaureates.

IVSELECTIONOF PRIZEWINNERS 
Nominationsof candidates for the prizes can be made only by those who havereceived invitations to do so. In the fall of the year preceding theaward, Nobel committees distribute invitations to members of theprize-awarding bodies, to previous Nobel prize winners, and toprofessors in relevant fields at certain colleges and universities.In addition, candidates for the prize in literature may be proposedby invited members of various literary academies, institutions, andsocieties. Upon invitation, members of governments or certaininternational organizations may nominate candidates for the peaceprize. The Nobel Foundation’s statutes do not allow individualsto nominate themselves. Invitations to nominate candidates and thenominations themselves are both confidential.

Nominationsof candidates are due on February 1 of the award year. Then, Nobelcommittee members and consultants meet several times to evaluate thequalifications of the nominees. The various committees cast theirfinal votes in October and immediately notify the laureates that theyhave won.

VPRIZECEREMONIES  
Theprizes are presented annually at ceremonies in Stockholm, Sweden, andin Oslo, Norway, on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death. InStockholm, the king of Sweden presents the awards in physics,chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and economic sciences.The peace prize ceremony takes place at the University of Oslo in thepresence of the king of Norway. After the ceremonies, Nobel Prizewinners give a lecture on a subject connected with theirprize-winning work. The winner of the peace prize lectures in Oslo,the others in Stockholm. The lectures are later printed in the NobelFoundation's annual publication, LesPrix Nobel(The Nobel Prizes)

Some of the recipients

Recipent of the Nobel prize for chemistry

M

arieCurie was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize and also the firstperson to win the Nobel Prize twice. Curie coined the term“radioactive” to describe the uranium emissions sheobserved in early experiments. With her husband, she later discoveredthe elements polonium and radium. A dedicated and respectedphysicist, her brilliant work with radioactivity eventually cost herher life; she died from overexposure to radiation.

Recipientof the Nobel Prize for economics

Hayek,Friedrich August von(1899-1992), Austrian-born economist and Nobel laureate. Born inVienna, von Hayek earned a doctorate at Vienna University in 1927 andspent some years in public service. He began a long academic careerby holding the post of professor of economics and statistics at theUniversity of London (1931-50); subsequently he was professor ofmoral and economic science at the University of Chicago (1950-62). Aneconomic traditionalist, von Hayek won a wide reputation with TheRoad to Serfdom(1944), in which he argued that governments should not intervene inthe control of inflation or other economic matters. He retired in1962 but was later appointed professor of economics at the Universityof Freiburg, in West Germany (now part of Germany). Returning toAustria in 1969, he became visiting professor at the University ofSalzburg. In 1974 he and the Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal receivedthe Nobel Prize in economic science for their “pioneering workin the theory of money and economic luctuationsand for their pioneering analysis of the interdependence of economic,social, and institutional phenomena.

TheRecipientof the Nobel Prize for literature

Galsworthy,John(1867-1933), English novelist and playwright, who was one of the mostpopular English novelists and dramatists of the early 20th century.He was born in Kingston Hills, Surrey, and educated at Harrow Schooland the University of Oxford. He was admitted to the bar in 1890 butsoon abandoned law for writing. Galsworthy wrote his early worksunder the pen name John Sinjohn. His fiction is concerned principallywith English upper middle-class life; his dramas frequently findtheir themes in this stratum of society, but also often deal,sympathetically, with the economically and socially oppressed andwith questions of social justice. Most of his novels deal with thehistory, from Victorian times through the first quarter of the 20thcentury, of an upper middle-class English family, the Forsytes. Theprincipal member of the family is Soames Forsyte, who exemplifies thedrive of his class for the accumulation of material wealth, a drivethat often conflicts with human values. The Forsyte series includesTheMan of Property(1906), the novelette “Indian Summer of a Forsyte” (pub.in the collection FiveTales,1918),InChancery(1920), Awakening (1920), and ToLet(1921). These five titles were published as TheForsyte Saga(1922). The Forsyte story was continued by Galsworthy in TheWhite Monkey(1924), TheSilver Spoon(1926), and SwanSong(1928), which were published together under the title AModern Comedy(1929). These were followed in turn by Maidin Waiting(1931), FloweringWilderness(1932), and Overthe River(1933), published together posthumously as Endof the Chapter(1934). Among the plays by Galsworthy are Strife(1909), Justice (1910), ThePigeon(1912), OldEnglish(1924), and TheRoof(1929). Galsworthy was awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize in literature.

TheRecipientof the Nobel Prize for physics

Landau,Lev Davidovich(1908-68), Soviet theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate, notedchiefly for his pioneer work in low-temperature physics (cryogenics).He was born in Baku, and educated at the universities of Baku andLeningrad. In 1937 Landau became professor of theoretical physics atthe S. I. Vavilov Institute of Physical Problems in Moscow. Hisdevelopment of the mathematical theories that explain how superfluidhelium behaves at temperatures near absolute zero earned him the 1962 Nobel Prize in physics. His writings on a wide variety of subjectsrelating to physical phenomena include some 100 papers and manybooks, among which is the widely known nine-volume Courseof Theoretical Physics,published in 1943 with Y. M. Lifshitz. In January 1962, he wasgravely injured in an automobile accident; he was several timesconsidered near death and suffered a severe impairment of memory. Bythe time of his death he had been able to make only a partialrecovery.

Therecipientof the Nobel Prize for peace

D

alaiLama,spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism and formerly the ruler of Tibet.The Dalai Lama is believed to be a reincarnation of the Buddha. Whenhe dies, his soul is thought to enter the body of a newborn boy, who,after being identified by traditional tests, becomes the new DalaiLama.

The first to bearthe title of Dalai Lama was Sonam Gyatso, grand lama of the Drepungmonastery and leader of the Gelugpa (Yellow Hat) sect, who receivedit in 1578 from the Mongol chief Altan Khan; it was then appliedretroactively to the previous leaders of the sect. In 1642 anotherMongol chief, Gushri Khan, installed the fifth Dalai Lama as Tibet'sspiritual and temporal ruler. His successors governed Tibet—firstas tributaries of the Mongols, but from 1720 to 1911 as vassals ofthe emperor of China.

Whenthe Chinese Communists occupied Tibet in 1950, they came intoincreasing conflict with Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama. He leftthe country after an unsuccessful rebellion in 1959 and thereafterlived in India. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for leadingthe nonviolent opposition to continued Chinese rule in Tibet. In 1995the Dalai Lama came into conflict with Chinese authorities over theidentification of a new Panchen Lama (the second most senior Tibetanreligious authority). In 1996 he published Violenceand Compassion,in which he and French screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriиreconsider topics of political and spiritual interest.