Don Cossacks in Nobel Prize literature & film

The list of candidates for the Nobel Prize 1965 in Literature revealed after 50 years by the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences.

Mikhail Sholokhov(1905-1984)

90 writers competed for the prize, which was awarded to Russian writer Mikhail Sholokhov (1905-1984).

The list include those who eventually got it later, for example Samuel Beckett (1969) and Pablo Neruda (1971)

Also on the list there are Anna Akhmatova, Vladimir Nabokov, Konstantin Paustovskii, Jorge Luis Borges, Ezra Pound, Georges Simenon, Heinrich Boll, W.H. Auden, Louis Aragon, Maria Dabrowska, Yasunari Kawabata,

There was a suggestion for Sholokhov and Achmatova sharing the prize. But it was declined by the chair of the committee Anders Esterling .

As the committee described it, Sholokhov received this prize for the artful and comprehensive description of the Don cossacks fortitude during the crucial time in Russian history in his epic novels “And quiet flows the Don” and “Virgin Soil upturned”. All members voted for Sholokhov in unity.

Sholokhov became the only Soviet writer, who received this prize with an agreement from the Soviet Government.

The names of the runners for the prize kept in secret by the Academy. It is only 50 years later after the granting the prize when the documents revealed to the public.

It was revealed in 2014, that Vladimir Nabokov was running for the prize in 1963, but he didn’t receive it because of the “amoral” nature of the novel “Lolita”.

Russian writers - winners of Nobel Prize:

1933 Ivan Bunin (1870–1953)

1958 Boris Pasternak (1890–1960)

1965 Michail Sjolochov(1905-1984)

1973 Aleksandr Solsjenitsyn (1918–2008)

1987 Joseph Brodsky (1940–1996)

2015 Svetlana Alexievich (1948–)

//Based on materials from Alexander Baklanov “Snob”, Svenska Dagbladet and 

translated by ZenaV_1.0 © for KarlosDJX©

See  "And quiet flows the Don" and other Russian language movies in my playlist 

Noted: this version is from 1957, and it has English subs (as well as most of the films  on the playlist)...There is an earlier version, it is on the list, too, from 1931, with Russian subs only.