Romanians and the Nobel Prizes for Science and Literature

In: Revista română de studii baltice şi nordice, Band 4, Heft 1, S. 83-104

Abstract

There is much to be said about the Nobel Prizes. Numerous pages are written each year to promote, describe, analyze and criticize the prizes, their initiator and their evolution since 1901. The purpose of this study is to bring back to light from the dust of the archives information about those Romanians who were ahead of their times through their outstanding thinking and understanding of the world. Little has been written about those nominated, since it has been considered more relevant to focus on the winners. There were plentiful creative minds who only needed an opportunity to be known to the world. Famous Romanian names show up from the archives and the nomination database provided by the Nobel Institution and enable us to get a broad perspective of the nominators and the nominees. Ironically, as in the case of the Nobel Peace Prize, most of those who genuinely had a chance to win were never nominated.