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III. Alfred Nobel And The Nobel Prizes Alfred Nobel is the man who invented dynamite. He is better known today, however, as the man who established some of the most prestigious prizes in the world. Born in 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden, Nobel from his youth had a dream of inventing an explosive so devastating it would deter humans from making war. Instead, his invention made war easier. Though he was a Swede by birth, he was very much an international man, being educated in St. Petersburg, Russia, where his family moved when he was a child. In St. Petersburg, he studied with private tutors, particularly showing interest in chemistry and languages. He mastered Swedish, Russian, English, French, and German. At the age of 17 he began two years of educational travel throughout Germany, France, Italy and to the United States. Then at the age of 19 he became a chemist, working with his father in St. Petersburg. The family returned to Sweden and in 1863 he was a chemist in his father's explosives factory at Heleneborg near Stockholm. In 1864 Nobel received a patent covering detonating charges and percussion caps. Called "The Nobel Igniter," it was to be called at a later time "the greatest discovery ever made in both the principle and practice of explosives." His 1866 invention of dynamite revolutionized mining, road building and tunnel blasting. In 1875 a later improvement was patented as blasting gelatine. In 1887 he patented ballistite, the first of the nitroglycerine smokeless powders. This was to serve as the basis for cordite which was eventually to change the use of firearms. Alfred Nobel was operating laboratories in Krummel, Germany; in Paris, France; in Ardeer, Scotland; in San Remo, Italy; and in Bjorkborn, Karlskoga, Sweden. Furthermore, he was working on more than explosives. Nobel was a developer of various synthetic materials for rubber and leather. He worked on new methods of telecommunications, safety, and alarm systems, and he eventually became the owner of 355 patents. He built 90 factories and companies in 20 countries on five continents for the production of his products. He was a leader in the founding of multinational companies, and Nobel saw his enterprises grow into a world industry which became the sources of his vast fortune. Yet, for all his wealth, he never seemed to have found happiness. He never married and never had a true home or family of his own. He was a self-proclaimed expatriate who was always on the move. He was described once as "the wealthiest vagabond in Europe" who owned many houses. He said once, "My home is where I work--and I work everywhere." Though he never had a wife, he had a lasting friendship with the Austrian Baroness Bertha von Suttner, a pioneer in the peace movement and eventual winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. She was Nobel's secretary for a while, and Nobel wished to marry her, but she wed, instead, another man. Nobel also had an 18-year liaison with a woman 23 years younger than he. Her name was Sophie Hess; she was from Vienna. Nobel tried to raise her to his intellectual and social levels, but the relationship did not end in marriage, and they finally parted ways. He was melancholy the last years of his life, but his mind remained creative and inventive. A year before his death on December 10, 1896, he wrote his last will and testament. Approximately nine million dollars of his estate was left to "constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, in the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind." He identified five fields in which he wished to stimulate progress. He wanted to honor individuals "who shall have made the most important discovery or invention" within the fields of physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine. And he also established an award "to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work of an idealistic tendency; and one [award] to the person who shall have done the most or best work for fraternity among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses." He made it clear in his will that the award should go to the most worthy individuals regardless of their nationality: "It is my express wish that in awarding the prizes no consideration whatever be given to the nationality of the candidates, so that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not." The prizes for physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, and literature are awarded by three Swedish academies. A committee of five persons selected by the Norwegian Storting, or Parliament awards the prize for peace. He died in his house in San Remo, Italy, on December 10, 1896. The Nobel Prizes are awarded each year on the anniversary of his death, or on a date as close to the anniversary as possible. In 1968, on its tercentenary, the Bank of Sweden instituted a Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences was entrusted the role of prize-awarding institution in accordance with the Nobel Prize rules, and the award is given on December 10, the Nobel Day, and is known commonly as the Nobel Prize for Economics. Each October, the world awaits word of the Nobel Prize winners. Each award is of particular interest perhaps, but for many it is the Peace Prize which takes on special significance. The task of awarding it falls, as stated above, to the Norwegian national assembly. The reasons why are not quite clear. Norway and Sweden had been united under the same sovereign since 1814, but towards the end of the 19th century Norwegian agitation for the dissolution of that union became increasingly strong. It may well be that this gesture on the part of Nobel was an attempt to defuse a conflict that threatened to explode. But, on the other hand, there is nothing to indicate that Nobel was particularly involved in this constitutional crisis, living outside of Sweden as he did for much of his life. He may have chosen the Norwegian Storting simply because of his admiration for their work in the international field. It had, for example, favored in 1880 international arbitration and it was an active supporter of the interparliamentary movement. The procedure for selecting the Peace Prize winner is one vested by The Storting in a five-member committee it appoints. The Committee is a completely independent body and The Storting takes no responsibility for nor interferes in the decisions the Committee makes. While the announcement of the recipient arouses great interest throughout the world, nominations may be made only by certain individuals. The right to put forward candidates is restricted to the following:
Nominations must be submitted by February 1 of the year for which the prize is being awarded. Peace prizes may be awarded to institutions or organizations as well as to individuals. The main task of the Nobel Institute is to organize the preparations. Its Director is also secretary of the Nobel Committee, and it is his responsibility to provide the Committee with the constant flow of information necessary to fulfill its duties, as laid down in its statutes: ". . .to follow developments in the international field, especially as regards the peaceful solution of conflicts, in order to tender advice to the Committee regarding the award." Once the names of the proposed candidates have been submitted, the Director compiles a list incorporating the personal data of each candidate. (Recently the average number of candidates has been 100.) At a further Committee meeting more information will be required about candidates who have been shortlisted. It is up to the Director and the advisers of the Institute to obtain this information. The Institute's library¾ which is open to the public¾ assists in this process. These findings are forwarded to the Committee members for consideration. After a series of meetings, the Committee makes a final decision, usually in the first half of October. If the committee has agreed on a candidate (on several occasions no award has been made), the prizewinner and the media are notified. The award ceremony always takes place on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death, and ceremonies are held on that date in both Stockholm and Oslo. The Peace Prize has been awarded 79 times. However, the number of prizewinners exceeds the number of prize-giving ceremonies because of the times in which the prize has been shared. In alphabetical order, the prize recipients have been: Addams, Jane 1931 The American Friends Service Committee 1947 Amnesty International 1977 Angell, Sir Norman 1933 Arafat, Yasser 1994 Arnoldson, Klas Pontus 1908 Asser, Tobias Michael Carel 1911 Bajer, Fredrik 1908 Balch, Emily Green 1946 Beernaert, Auguste Marie Francois 1909 Begin, Menachem 1978 Belo, Carlos Felipe Ximenes 1996 Borlaug, Norman 1970 Bourgeois, Leon Victor Auguste 1920 Brandt, Willy 1971 Branting, Karl Hjalmar 1921 Boyd-Orr Of Brechin, Lord John 1949 Briand, Aristide 1926 Bride, Sean Mac 1974 Buisson, Ferdinand 1927 Bunche, Ralph 1950 Butler, Nicholas Murray 1931 Cassin, Rene 1968 Cecil, Lord Edgar Algernon Robert Gascoyne 1937 Chamberlain, Sir Austen 1925 Constant, Paul Henribenjamin Balluet D'estournelles De 1909 Corrigan, Mairead 1976 Cremer, Sir William Randal 1903 Dalai Lama 1989 Dawes, Charles Gates 1925 De Klerk, Fredrik Willem 1993 Ducommun, Elie 1902 Dunant, Jean Henri 1901 Esquivel, Adolfo Perez 1980 Fontaine, Henri La 1913 Fried, Alfred Hermann 1911 The Friends Service Council 1947 Gobat, Charles Albert 1902 Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich 1990 Hammarskjoeld, Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl 1961 Henderson, Arthur 1934 Hull, Cordell 1945 Hume, John 1998 Institute of International Law 1904 International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) 1997 International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War, Inc. 1985 International Committee of the Red Cross 1944 International Committee of the Red Cross 1917 International Committee of the Red Cross 1963 International Labour Organization 1969 Jouhaux, Leon 1951 King, Martin Luther Jr. 1964 Kellogg, Frank Billings 1929 Kissinger, Henry A. 1973 Kyi, Aung San Suu 1991 Lamas, Carlos Saavedra 1936 Lange, Christian Lous 1921 League of Red Cross Societies 1963 Lutuli, Albert John 1960 Mandela, Nelson 1993 Marshall, George Catlett 1953 Moneta, Ernesto Teodoro 1907 Mother Teresa 1979 Mott, John Raleigh 1946 Myrdal, Alva 1982 Nansen, Fridtjof 1922 Nansen International Office for Refugees 1938 Noel-Baker, Philip J. 1959 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees1954 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees1981 Ossietzky, Carl Von 1935 Passy, Frederic 1901 Pauling, Linus Carl 1962 Pearson, Lester Bowles 1957 Peres, Shimon 1994 Permanent International Peace Bureau 1910 Pire, Georges Henri 1958 Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs 1995 Quidde, Ludwig 1927 Rabin, Yitzhak 1994 Ramos-Horta, Jose 1996 Renault, Louis 1907 Robles, Alfonso Garcia 1982 Roosevelt, Theodore 1906 Root, Elihu 1912 Rotblat, Joseph 1995 Sadat, Mohamed Anwar El 1978 Sakharov, Andrei Dmitrievich 1975 Sanchez, Oscar Arias 1987 Sato, Eisaku 1974 Schweitzer, Albert 1952 Soederblom, Lars Olof Nathan 1930 Stresemann, Gustav 1926 von Suttner, Baroness Bertha Sophie Felicita 1905 Tho, Le Duc 1973 Trimble, David 1998 Tum, Rigoberta Menchu 1992 Tutu, Desmond Mpilo 1984 United Nations Children's Fund 1965 The United Nations Peace-keeping Forces 1988 Walesa, Lech 1983 Wiesel, Elie 1986 Williams, Betty 1976 Williams, Jody 1997 Wilson, Thomas Woodrow 1919 |