The Nobel Prize (Nagroda Nobla) is the most distinguished and coveted global honour. First awarded in 1901, it has recognized individuals and groups from over 30 countries or territories. The Nobel Laureates can be groups or individuals. There have even been multiple time nominees and awards. The highest number of recognitions has been given to the International Committee of the Red Cross. It has received the Peace prize three times in history.
The Nobel Prize was created through the final will of Alfred Nobel, an accomplished Swedish inventor. Although Nobel’s will was read after his death in 1895, it was highly controversial and took six years before the awards came into being. The Nobel Prize recognizes significant contributions to the advancement of various aspects of culture, science and academics. In Alfred Nobel’s will, he dictated that the interest from his estate fund will be awarded to those recognized in Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Medicine and Peace. In 1968, a further category of Economics was introduced after the Central Bank of Sweden made a donation to the Nobel Foundation.
The first multiple recipient of the Nobel Prize was Marie Curie (Maria Skłodowska Curie). Physics 1903, Chemistry 1911. Born in Warsaw, Maria left occupied Poland at age 23 for the freedom to pursue the study of science. Settling in Paris, she married Pierre Curie and the couple discovered the phenomenon of radioactivity and the elements Polonium (named for Poland) and Radium. For this they received the Physics prize in 1903. Madame Curie also achieved the isolation of pure Radium, and for this was awarded the Nobel for Chemistry in 1911. She is considered to be the greatest female scientist of all time.Curie’s awards were also unique because she received the prizes in two different categories. In 1903, Marie Curie alongside her husband and another physicist were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. This was in recognition of their achievements in studying radioactive behaviour of elements and successfully isolating isotopes. She repeated the feat in 1911 by winning the prize in Chemistry after isolating pure radium. The Curie family in total has had five Nobel Laurates.
Image credit Wikipedia.org. Pierre and Marie Curie in the laboratory
Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846-1916) – Literature 1905 – Born into a family involved in the fight against Russia for Polish independence, those ideals are reflected in much of Sienkiewicz’s work. Best known for his Deluge trilogy as well as Quo Vadis, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1905. He traveled to America and his impressions of this country were published in Polish newspapers. A prolific writer, his complete works encompass 60 volumes.
Władysław Reymont (1868-1925) – Literature 1924 – Like Sienkiewicz, Reymont (original family name Rejment) was born into a family involved in the struggle against Russia. His parents were well to do but he split with them over their strict conservatism, traveled with an acting troupe and worked as a railroad clerk. These experiences provided fodder for his socially-tinged writings, and he received the Nobel in Literature in 1924 for his epic Chłopi (The Peasants), a groundbreaking novel depicting rural Polish life.
Irene Joliet-Curie (1897-1956) – Chemistry 1935 – Irene Curie was born in Paris, the elder daughter of Pierre and Marie Curie. A brilliant scientist in her own right, she became her mother’s assistant in 1918. She married Frederick Joliet and together they discovered artificial radioactivity. They were awarded the Nobel for Chemistry in 1935. Irene Curie became involved in the social issues concerning the use of radioactivity.
Czesław Miłosz (1911-2005) – Literature 1980 – Miłosz was a Polish Lithuanian author who worked as a diplomat in New York for Poland’s communist government in the 1940s. He was suspected of harboring anti-communist views and was arrested and sent into exile in 1951, settling in California where he became Professor of Slavic Literature for UC Berkeley. His poetry was translated into English and world renown followed. His work The Captive Mind led to the Nobel Prize. Miłosz later returned to Poland where he died in 2005.
Lech Wałęsa (1943- ) – Peace 1983 – In 1980 this Gdańsk shipyard electrician in the free trade union movement in Poland led a strike for expanded workers’ rights which spread throughout the entire country and changed the world. The strikes crippled the government, which was forced to agree to the strikers’ demands. Later Wałęsa was arrested, martial law was declared and the newly won rights rescinded. But for his efforts in leading non-violent democratic change in Poland, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983. Eventually Poland, followed by the rest of communist Europe, became free. Wałęsa was elected president in 1990.
Wisława Szymborska (1923- 2012) – Literature 1996 – Writing beautiful, moving poetry since 1945, Szymborska’s works were published in dozens of languages and she became one of Poland’s most famous poets with admirers throughout the world. Her collective works won for her the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996.
Gunter Grass (1927- 2015) – Literature 1999 – Gunter Grass was born in the German dominated Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) of a German father and a Polish Kashubian mother. He is best known for his novel The Tin Drum, set in Poland and Danzig during the Nazi era. Though a German writer and citizen, many of his works are set in Danzig-Gdansk. He became dedicated to the peace and environmental movements. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999. In 2006, after decades of urging Germans to confront their Nazi past, he admitted that he had been a soldier in the SS.
Frank Wilczek (1951- )- Physics 2004 – Frank Wilczek is a physics professor at MIT and a third generation Polish-Italian American whose grandfather was in Haller’s Army. With two other scientists he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2004 for his theories related to subatomic particles and the forces holding them together.
