Showing posts with label NOBEL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NOBEL. Show all posts

Sunday, 24 May 2020

Mikhail Sholokhov -RUSSIAN NOVELIST , WINNER OF NOBEL PRIZE 1905 MAY 24 - 1984 FEBRUARY 21




Mikhail Sholokhov -

RUSSIAN NOVELIST , WINNER OF NOBEL PRIZE 1905 MAY 24 - 1984 FEBRUARY 21

.1930 ஆம் ஆண்டைய புரட்சியின் எழுச்சி தோன் கிராமங்களிலும், பண்ணைகளிலும் கிளர்ச்சியைத் தோற்றுவித்தது. தனியார் நிலங்களைப் பிரிக்கும் எல்லைக் கோடுகள் வழியாகக் கூட்டுப்பண்ணையின் ஏர்கள் அகழ்ந்து சென்று, தங்களது வாழ்வைத் திட்டமிட கஸாக்குகளை எதிர்த்து நிற்க வைத்தது.
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ஷோலகவின் "கன்னி நிலம்" வெறுமனே ஈர்த்துப் பற்றுகின்ற நாவல் அல்ல. அது ருஷ்ய கிராமப் புறங்களில் புரட்சி பொங்கி எழுந்ததைக் கூறும் ஆவணக் குறிப்புமாகக் கருதப்படும்.


கதை மாந்தர்களும் நிகழ்ச்சிகளும் திருப்புக் கட்டத்தைத் துல்லியமாகக் சித்தரிக்கின்றன, போல்ஷெவிக்குகளான தவீதவ், நகூல்னவ், ரஸ்மியோத்னவ் ஏழை மற்றும் நடுத்தர விவசாயிகளான மய்தானிக்கவ், ஷ்சுக்கார் மற்றும் லூபிஷ்கின் இவர்களது எதிர்த்தரப்பினராகிய குலாக் ஒஸ்த்ரவ்னோவ், சார்ஜென்ட் மேஜர் பொலவ்த்ஸெவ் ஆகியோர் உண்மையான உயிருடன் பாத்திரங்களே ஆவர். இதிலிருந்து கிராமத்தில் இருந்த தொடர்பை நம்மால் உயிருடன் கண்டு கொள்ள முடிகிறது.

கூட்டுப்பண்ணை முறை தொடங்கப் பெற்று ஆரம்ப ஆண்டுகளில் தோன் பகுதியில் தீவிரமாக இருந்த வர்க்கப் போராட்டம், உயிர்த்துடிப்பான உச்சக் கட்டம் இவைகளை நூல் முக்கிய நோக்கங்களாகப் கொண்டும் , எஞ்சிய வர்க்க சக்திகளையும், கட்சியினுடைய வழிகாட்டுதலின் கீழ் தோன் விவசாயிகள் பெற்ற வெற்றியின் மகத்துவத்தையும் சித்தரிக்கிறது.
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தோன் ஸ்தொப்பியில் தோன்றிய புதிய புரட்சிகர மான கொள்கைகளைக் கொண்ட வாழ்க்கையைப் புரிந்து கொண்டவர்களையும், கூட்டுபண்ணை நிலங்களில் முதலாவது உழுசாலை ஓட்டியவர்களையும், உண்மையா வாழ்க்கையில் நம்பிக்கை கொண்ட ஷோலகவ் தனது நெஞ்சார ஆதரித்து நிற்கிறார்.

"கன்னி நிலம் "
மிகயீல் ஷோலகவ்


ருஷ்யப் படையில் டிரக் ஓட்டுநரான கதைசொல்லியும்  போர்க்கைதியாக மாட்டிக்கொண்ட ருஷ்யப் படைவீரர் அணி ஒன்றினை ஜெர்மானியத் துப்பாக்கிப் படையினர் ஆடுமாடுகளைப் போல் அடித்துத் தங்கள் நாட்டுக்கு ஓட்டிச்செல்கின்றனர். நடக்க முடியாமல் விழுந்தாலோ, தப்பி ஓட முயன்றாலோ உடனேயே சுட்டுக் கொல்கின்றனர். மழை வேறு கொட்டுகிறது. கைதிகள் அனைவரும் தொப்பலாக நனைந்துவிடுகிறார்கள். இரவாகிறது. வழியில் ஒரு சிற்றூர் எதிர்ப்படுகிறது. குண்டுகள் விழுந்து கோபுரம் தகர்ந்த மாதா கோயில் ஒன்றில் கைதிகளை அடைத்துக் கதவை வெளிப்புறமாகத் தாளிட்டுக் காவல் காக்கிறார்கள். இருட்டுக்குள் அகப்பட்ட கிடை ஆடுகளாகக் கைதிகள் நடுங்கும் குளிரில் விரிப்பு ஏதுமில்லாத கல் தளத்தில் கைதிகள் படுத்த நிலையிலும் சிலர் உட்கார்ந்த நிலையிலுமாக உழன்றுகொண்டிருக்கிறார்கள்.

நள்ளிரவில் கதைசொல்லியின் கையைத் தொட்டு, ”காயம் பட்டிருக்கிறதா, தோழா?” எனக் கேட்கிறான், ஒருவன். எதற்காகக் கேட்கிறாய்?” என எதிர்க் கேள்வி கேட்கிறான் கதைசொல்லி.
“நான் ஒரு மருத்துவன். ஏதாவது ஒரு வகையில் உனக்கு உதவக்கூடும்.”
“இடது தோள் வீங்கிப்போய் விண்விண் என்கிறது; வலி உயிர் போகிறது.”
“மேல்சட்டை, உள் சட்டை இரண்டையும் கழற்று.” என்கிறான் மருத்துவன்.
மெல்லிய விரல்களால் கதைசொல்லியின் தோளைத் தடவிப்பார்க்கத் தொடங்குகிறான், மருத்துவன். கதைசொல்லிக்கு வலி உயிர்போகுமளவுக்கு அதிகமாகிறது. “ ஏய், நீயெல்லாம் ஒரு டாக்டராடா, மாட்டு வைத்தியனாகத் தான் இருப்பாய், வலிக்கிற தோளைப்போட்டு இந்த அழுத்து, அழுத்துகிறாயே, பாவி” எனக் கடுகடுக்கிறான். தோள்ப்பட்டையில் நெருடிக்கொண்டேயிருந்த மருத்துவன், “ பல்லைக் கடித்துக்கொள், ஒரு டாக்டரிடம் இப்படியா பேசுவாய்? கொஞ்சம் பொறுத்துக்கொள், இப்போது இன்னும் அதிகமாக வலிக்கும் பார்,” என்று பேச்சுக்கொடுத்துக்கொண்டே கையைச் சுண்டி இழுக்கிறான். கதைசொல்லியின் கண்களில் பொறி பறந்தது; ஒரு கணம் நினைவு மயங்கித் தெளிந்ததும், ”பாசிஸ்ட் தேவடியா மகனே, கணுக்கணுவாய் வலிக்கிற கையைப் போய் இப்படி வெட்டி இழுக்கிறாயே” எனச் சீறிவிழுகிறான், கதைசொல்லி.

மருத்துவன் களுக்கென்று சிரிப்பது கதைசொல்லிக்குக் கேட்கிறது.
“நான் இடது கையை வெட்டி இழுக்கும்போது, உன் வலக்கையால் என் கன்னத்தில் அறைந்து விடுவாயோ என்றுதான் நினைத்தேன், பரவாயில்லை, நீ ஒரு சாதுதான். உன் கை முறியவில்லை, தோள் மூட்டு பிசகிக் கழன்றிருந்தது, இப்போது சரிசெய்துவிட்டேன், இப்போது வலி குறைந்திருக்குமே,” என்கிறான்.
கதைசொல்லி நன்றிகூற, மருத்துவன் எதுவும் பேசாமல்,  நகர்ந்து செல்கிறான்.
“தோழர்கள் யாராவது காயம் பட்டிருக்கிறீர்களா? நான் ஒரு மருத்துவன், நான் என்னாலான உதவியைச் செய்யமுடியும் “ என ஒவ்வொருவரிடமாகச் சென்று மெல்லக் கேட்பது கதைசொல்லியின் காதுகளில் விழுகிறது.
மருத்துவரென்றால் இவரல்லவோ மருத்துவர்! போர்க்கைதியாகச் சிறைப்பட்டிருந்தபோதும் அந்த மையிருட்டில் பெரும்பணியாற்றிக் கொண்டிருந்த அந்த மருத்துவத் தோழன் கடந்த நாற்பத்து நான்கு ஆண்டுகளாக என் நினைவில் வந்து அவ்வப்போது நலம் விசாரித்துச் செல்கிறான்.
இந்த டாக்டர், நோபெல் விருதாளர் மிகயீல் ஷோலகவின் `அவன் விதி’ என்ற குறுநாவலில் ஒரு மீச்சிறு துணைப் பாத்திரம்.



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புத்தகங்களுடனான சிநேகம்
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DISPASSIONATED DJ
'ரஷ்ய எழுத்தாளர்கள் என் கனவுகளைக் கவர்ந்தவர்கள் என்றே சொல்லவேண்டும். தாஸ்தாயெவ்ஸ்கி (மரணவீட்டின் குறிப்புகள்), டோல்ஸ்டோய், மிகயீல் ஷோலகவ் (கன்னி நிலம்), சிங்கிஸ் ஐத்மாத்தவ் (அன்னை வயல்), ஐவன் டெர்கனெவ் (அஸ்யா) ஆகியோர் என்னைப் பயங்கரமாகப் பாதித்தவர்கள். மற்றபடி அந்நியமொழி எழுத்தாளர்களென்றால்... விக்டர் ஹ்யூகோ (அவரது toilers of the sea யின் தாக்கத்திலிருந்து விடுபட பல வாரங்களாயின), மக்சீம் கோர்கி , அந்தோன் செகாவ் , ஒஸ்கர் வைல்ட், தோமஸ் போர்கே (இவரது சிறுகதைகள் மட்டும்தான் வாசித்திருக்கிறேன்), ஹெர்மன் ஹெஸ்ஸே (இவரது சித்தார்த்தா பலவிதத்திலும் என்னைச் சிந்திக்கத் தூண்டிய நாவல்), சினுவா ஆச்சிபி (சிதைவுகள்), சில இந்திய எழுத்தாளர்கள்.. தமிழ்மொழியல்லாதோர்.. (பெயர்கள் நினைவிலில்லை - சம்ஸ்காரா, நிழல்கோடுகள் என நாவல்கள் மட்டும் நினைவிருக்கின்றன). ...'
(நண்பரொருவரின் கடிதத்திலிருந்து....)


வீட்டில் அவ்வப்போது குடும்பத்தினரால் பொது அறிவு காணாது என்று நற்சான்றிதழ் பாத்திரம் பெற்றுக்கொண்டிருக்கின்றவன் நான். வலைப்பதிவிலாவது இந்தப் பலவீனத்தை மறைத்து கொஞ்சம் 'அறிவாளி' மாதிரி உரையாடலாம் என்ற ஆசையை அவ்வப்போது 'உனக்கெல்லாம் அரசியல் தெரியுமா?' என்று கேட்டு பலர் -'என்னை வளரவிடாது' - காலை வாரிக்கொண்டிருக்கின்றார்கள்.






அறிவு வளரவேண்டும் என்றால் என்ன செய்வது? புத்தகங்களைத் தான் நிரம்ப வாசிக்கவேண்டும். சில மாதங்களுக்கு முன், ஒரு அன்பர் திட்டோ திட்டென்று திட்டி -முடிவுறாத அனுமான் வாலாய்- பதிவொன்றை எழுதியிருந்தார். கூட்டத்தோடு கோவிந்தா பாடுவோம் என்று இன்னொரு நலன்விரும்பி பழைய கறளெல்லாம் சேர்த்து வைத்து வசைக் கவிதையை உடைப்புச்செய்து கூடவே எழுதியிருந்தார். அம்மா வளர்கின்றேன் என்று விளம்பரம் ஒன்றில் காட்டப்படுவதுபோல குட்டு விழுவதில் 'சந்தோசம்' என்பதைவிட, 'உங்களின் வட்டத்திற்குள் நானில்லை' என்பதே அந்தப்பொழுதுகளில் எனக்கு நிறைவாயிருந்தது.

வசைக் கவிதையில் நலன்விரும்பி எனக்கு இரண்டு தெரிவுகளைத் தந்திருந்தார். ஒன்று அரசியலை ஒழுங்காய்ப் பேசு; இல்லையெனில் அம்மாவுக்கு தோசை சுட உதவி செய் என்று. அன்பர் சொன்னதை சும்மா தட்டிக் கழிக்கமுடியாது. 'மூலதனத்தை' எல்லாம் கரைத்துக் குடித்தவர் சொன்னால் ஏதோ பெரும் பின்புலம் இருக்கத்தானே செய்யும்? எனவே இல்லாத என் மூளையைக் கசக்கத் தொடங்கினேன். புலம்பெயர் தேசமொன்றில் நான் உயிர் வாழ்ந்துக்கொண்டிருப்பற்கு எனக்கு அரசியல் பேசுவது அவசியமா? இல்லை தோசைக்கு மா கரைத்து ஊற்றுவது முக்கியமா? உயிர் வாழ்வதற்கு உணவே அவசியம் என்று மூன்றோ நான்காம் வகுப்பில் சுற்றாடல் கல்வியில் கற்பித்த 'மனிதருக்கு அத்தியாவசியமானது உணவு உடை உறையுள்' என்பது இன்னமும் எனக்குள் பதிவாயிருந்தது இந்த நேரத்தில் கைகொடுத்தது.

சரி, இப்படி 'அன்பர்கள்' பாராட்டு வழங்கும்போது என் மானம் ரோசம் பொங்கியெழுந்தல்லவா இருக்கவேண்டும்? மானம் ரோசம் வீரம் இல்லாது தமிழனாய் இருப்பதில் என்ன பயன்? இது போதாது என்று வைத்த புனைபெயரில் 'தமிழன்' என்றும் சேர்த்து வைத்தல்லவா படம் காட்டிக்கொண்டிருக்கின்றேன். திண்ணையிலோ பதிவுகளிலோ எனக்கு பரீட்சயமான ஒரு நண்பர் 'தம்பி நீர் டிசே தமிழன் என்றால் நாங்கள் என்ன டிசே சிங்களவனா இல்லை டிசே ஆங்கிலேயானா?' என்று கேட்டார். நான் சும்மா விடுவேனா என்ன? தமிழில் எழுதும்போது நான் டிசே தமிழன், சிங்களத்தில் எழுதும்போது டிசே சிங்களவன், ஆங்கிலத்தில் எழுதும்போது டிசே ஆங்கிலேயன் ஆவேன் என்றேன். அவரும் தான் ஊக்குவித்த பெடியன் நல்லாய்த்தான் 'வளர்ந்துவிட்டான்' என்று தலையிடித்துக் கொண்டிருப்பார் என்பது வேறு விடயம்.

இப்படி பதிவுகளில் சிலர் வசைக்கவிதை/பதிவுகள் எழுதிக்கூட ஏன் எனக்கு -பெண்களுக்கு அச்சம் நாணம் மடம் பயிர்ப்பு போல- ஆண்களுக்குரிய 'குணங்கள்' எதுவுமே ஊற்றெடுத்துக் கிளம்பவில்லை என்பதுதான் மிகுந்த கவலையாயிருந்தது. போற வாற இடமெல்லாம் சைட் அடிக்கின்ற ஸ்பானிய பெண்கள்தான் எனது தமிழ்க் கலாச்சாரத்துக்கு ஆப்பு வைத்துவிட்டார்களோ என்ற அச்சமே எனக்குள் எழுந்தது. ஆனால் இந்த மானம் ரோசம் எனக்கிருப்பின் அது வளாகத்தில் இருந்தபோதே பொங்கியிருக்கவேண்டும். பரீட்சைகளின்போது குறைய மார்க்ஸ் கிடைக்கும்போதெல்லாம், என் படிப்பில் பிழையில்லை prof ன் பேனையில்தான் தவறு என்று பெருந்தன்மையாக நினைப்பவன் நான். ஏன் பாடங்களில் சித்திபெறத் தவறினால் கூட.... அந்தப் பாடத்தைப் பழிவாங்கவேண்டும் என்று சிரத்தையாக திருப்பப் படிக்காமல், 'இடுக்கண் வருங்கால் நகுக' என்றுதான் நகர்ந்து போயிருக்கின்றேன். எனவே என் அடிப்படையில்தான் பிரச்சினை இருக்கின்றததே தவிர, எங்கள் தமிழ்க் கலாச்சாரத்தில் அல்ல என்று இப்போது புரிகின்றது.

சரி எதற்கும் இருக்கட்டும்; அன்பர்கள் அளவுக்க்குமீறி 'பாராட்டுப் பத்திரம்' வாசிக்கும்போது நானும் திருப்ப அவர்களுக்கு பா.பாத்திரம் கொடுப்பதற்கு உசாத்துணையாக இருக்கட்டும் என்று சில புத்தகங்களைத் தேடத் தொடங்கினேன். புத்தகங்களுக்கு ஓடர்செய்து பல மாதங்களாகியும் என் கைகளில் வந்து சேரவில்லை. கனடீய அரசாங்கம்தான் புத்தகங்களைத் தடை செய்து வைத்திருக்கின்றதோ என்ற ஜயம் வந்தது. கனடாவில் நாற்பதோ, ஜம்பதோ வருடங்களுக்கு முன் சின்னதாய்க் கட்டியமைக்கப்பட்ட கம்யூனிசக் கட்சியை ஆட்சியில் இருந்த அரசாங்கம் தடை செய்தது என்று எங்கையோ வாசித்திருந்தேன். அதுபோல் தமிழ் வாசிக்கத் தெரியாவிட்டாலும் - மார்க்ஸ், மாசேதுங், மல்கம் எக்ஸ், சேகுவேரா, காஸ்ரோ போன்றவர்களின் படங்களைப் பார்த்துவுடன் பதுக்கி வைத்துவிட்டாகளோ என்று நினைத்துக்கொண்டிருந்தேன். சுங்கத்திலிருந்த( customs?) யாரோ ஒரு நல்ல மனிதர்தான், எங்கள் கனடீய பிரதம உறங்கிக்கொண்டிருக்க்கும்போது இரவோடு இரவாய் அனுப்பியிருக்கவேண்டும். கைகளில் புத்தகங்கள் கிடைத்துவிட்டன.

இப்படியாக இன்னும் பல கிளைக்கதைகள் உண்டெனினும்-உண்மையான- காரணங்கள் இரண்டே. பெரியாரைப் பாதிக்கின்ற எவரையும் மார்க்ஸும் பாதிக்கவே செய்வார். பெரியாரை விளங்கிக்கொள்கின்ற எவராலும் தலித்தியத்தையும் பின் நவீனத்துவத்தையும் இலகுவாய் அரவணைக்க முடியும். அந்த ஆர்வமே இவ்வாறான புத்தகங்களை வாங்கி வாசிக்கச் செய்தது.

இதைவிட இன்னொரு காரணம் உண்டு. தோழர் ஒருவரிடம் உரையாடிக்கொண்டிருந்தபோது, பெரியாரைச் சிலாகித்த அளவுக்கு மார்க்ஸை சிலாகித்துப் பேசாதது அவருக்கு கவலை தந்திருக்கவேண்டும். அவர் இடதுசாரிப் பின்புலத்தில் வந்தவர். நான் பெரியாரை வியந்து கொண்டிருப்பதுபோல அவர் மார்க்ஸை வியந்துகொண்டிருப்பவர். பெரியாரைப் போலத்தான் மார்க்ஸும் சாதாரண மனிதர் என்று தெளிவுபடுத்தவோ என்னவோ மார்க்ஸ் எழுதிய காதற்கவிதைகளை எல்லாம் வாசிக்கத் தந்தார். 'மார்க்ஸை எங்கோ எட்டாத தொலைவுக்கு துரத்திவிட்டார்கள் நமது மார்க்சிசவாதிகள்...' என்றதற்கு 'மார்க்ஸை நேர்மையாக அணுகினால் அவர் நெருக்கமாகிவிடுவார்' என்றார். 'நிச்சயமாய் மார்க்ஸ் மீது காழ்ப்புணர்வில்லை; இன்றைய உலக அரசியலின் சிக்கலான சூழ்நிலைக்குள் கடைசி நம்பிக்கையாய் இருப்பது மார்க்ஸியமே தவிர வேறு எதுவுமல்ல; ஆனால் மார்க்ஸை வைத்து கொண்டாடுபவர்களே மார்க்ஸை நெருங்கவிடாது செய்துவிட்டார்கள்' என்றேன் (வசைக்கவிதை எழுதிய அன்பரும் யாரோ ஒரு எழுத்தாளரின் வாரிசு என்றுதான் பட்டமொன்று இறுதியில் தந்திருந்தவர்; தங்கள் மீதான விமர்சனத்தையே ஏற்றுக்கொள்ளாது வேறொருவருடன் சேர்த்து கழுவிலேற்றுபவர்களிடமிருந்து... எப்படி மார்க்ஸை கற்றுக்கொள்வதாம்?) மேலும் இணையத்துக்கு வந்ததன்பின் பெரியாரை ஆதர்சமாய் ஏற்றுக்கொண்ட நண்பர்கள் தங்கமணி, ரோசாவசந்த் போல, மார்க்ஸை தங்கள் சொந்தக் கருத்துக்களுக்கு முண்டு கொடுக்க உபயோகிக்காது- மார்க்ஸை மார்க்ஸாக முன்வைத்து உரையாடியவர்களை இணணயத்தில் நான் இன்னும் காணவில்லை. அத்தோடு இவர்களிடமிருந்து மார்க்ஸை கற்றுக்கொள்ளமுடியும் என்று நம்பிய சிலர் இன்னும் மிகமோசமான முறையில் மார்க்ஸை அணுகியதையும். தங்களுக்குள் இருக்கும் வலதுசாரி/சாதீய முகங்களைக் காட்டியதையும் பார்த்து 'தள்ளியிரும் பிள்ளாய்' என்று விலத்தித்தான் வரமுடிந்தது (கோபம் வருமென்றாலும் 'வறட்சியான மார்க்ஸியர்கள்' என்றுதான் அவர்களை அழைக்கமுடியும்).

மேலைத்தேய தத்துவாசிரியர்களை/ஆய்வாளர்களை எல்லாம் போகின்றபோக்கில் உதிர்த்துவிட்டு செல்லும் இவர்கள் எத்தகைதூரம் அந்த ஆய்வாளர்கள் கூறியதை உள்வாங்கிக்கொண்டார்கள் என்பது கேள்விக்குரியதே. Noam Chomskyயை -சொற்பமாய்- வாசித்தவளவில் அவர் விவாதித்த தேசியவாதம்/தேசிய இனங்களின் பிரச்சினையைக் கூட - ஈழ இடதுசாரிகள் என்று கூறிக்கொண்டிருப்பவர்கள்- உள்வாங்கி தமிழில் விவாதித்தமாதிரி காணக்கிடைக்கவில்லை என்பதுதான் கவலைக்குரிய விடயம். பல்வேறு இயக்கங்கள் வளர்ந்துகொண்டிருந்த காலத்தில் பல இயக்கங்கள் சோசலிச சமதர்மமே முடிவான தீர்வு என்று ஈழத்தில் கூறிக்கொண்டிருந்தார்களாம். விசுவானந்ததேவனிடம் சேரப்போன சில இளைஞர்கள் கேட்டிருக்கின்றார்கள், எமக்கான அரசு எப்படி இருக்கும் என்று....? இலங்கை போன்ற நாடுகளுக்கு முற்றுமுழுதான கொம்யூனிசம் என்றைக்குமே சாத்தியப்படாது என்றுதான் எடுத்தவுடனேயே கூறியிருக்கின்றார் (அவரோடு இயங்கிய தோழர் ஒருவர்தான் கூறியது). இத்தனைக்கும் விசுவின் பாதிப்பில்தான் எஸ்.வி.ஆரோ அல்லது அ.மார்க்ஸோ அரசியல் எழுத்து இயக்கத்துக்கு வந்தவர்கள் என்று எங்கையோ வாசித்திருக்கின்றேன். உடனே விசுவானந்ததேவன் இப்படிக்கூறிவிட்டார் எனவே அவர் கம்யூனிச துரோகி என்று அவரது காணாமற்போன உடலை கடலிலிருந்து கண்டுபிடித்து முத்திரை குத்தாதிருப்பார்களாக....!

இவற்றை ஏன் எழுதிக்கொண்டிருக்கின்றேன்....? வேறு ஒன்றுமில்லை, மீண்டும் சனி பிடித்துவிட்டது. அவ்வளவுதான்.

இனி இன்னும் இரண்டு பதிவுகள், நான்கு வசைக்கவிதைகள் பறந்து வரும். புன்னகைத்தபடியே, மார்க்ஸை மார்க்ஸின் பார்வையினூடாக மட்டும் பார் என்கின்ற தோழருடன் விவாதித்தபடி, வந்திருக்கும் புத்தகங்களை ஆறவமர வாசிக்கவேண்டியதுதான்.

.நியூ புக்லாண்டிலிருந்து வந்து சேர்ந்த புத்தகங்கள்:

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov (Russian: Михаил Александрович Шолохов, IPA: [ˈʂoləxəf];[1] 24 May [O.S. 11 May] 1905 – 21 February 1984) was a Soviet-Russian novelist and winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is known for writing about life and fate of Don Cossacks during the Russian Revolution, the civil war and the period of collectivization, primarily in his most famous novel, And Quiet Flows the Don.
Life and work
Sholokhov was born in Russia, in the "land of the Cossacks" – the Kruzhilin hamlet, part of stanitsa Vyoshenskaya, in the former Administrative Region of the Don Cossack Army.

His father, Aleksander Mikhailovich Sholokhov (1865–1925), was a member of the lower middle class, at different times a farmer, a cattle trader, and a miller. Sholokhov's mother, Anastasia Danilovna Chernikova (1871–1942), the widow of a Cossack, came from Ukrainian peasant stock (her father was a peasant in the Chernihiv oblast). She did not become literate until a point in her life when she wanted to correspond with her son.

Sholokhov attended schools in Karginskaya [ru], Moscow, Boguchar, and Veshenskaya until 1918, when he joined the Bolshevik side in the Russian Civil War at the age of 13. He spent the next few years fighting.
story "The Birthmark", at 19.

Sholokhov began writing at 17. He completed his first literary work, the short 
In 1922 Sholokhov moved to Moscow to become a journalist, but he had to support himself through manual labour. He was a stevedore, a stonemason, and an accountant from 1922 to 1924, but he also intermittently participated in writers' "seminars". His first published work was a satirical article, The Test (19 October 1923).[2]


Mikhail Sholokhov and his wife, 1924

New memorial to Mikhail Sholokhov on Gogol Boulevard in Moscow
In 1924 Sholokhov returned to Veshenskaya and began devoting himself entirely to writing. In the same year he married Maria Petrovna Gromoslavskaia (1901 -1992), the daughter of Pyotr Gromoslavsky, the ataman of Bukanovskaya village. They had two daughters and two sons.

Sholohov's first book Tales from the Don, a volume of stories largely based on his personal experiences in his native region during World War I and the Russian Civil War, was published in 1926. The story "Nakhalyonok", partly based on his own childhood, was later made into a popular film.

In the same year, Sholokhov began writing And Quiet Flows the Don, which took him fourteen years to complete (1926–1940). It became the most-read work of Soviet fiction and was heralded as a powerful example of socialist realism, and it earned him both a Stalin Prize and the 1965 Nobel Prize in Literature. It deals with the experiences of the Cossacks before and during World War I and the Russian Civil War.

Another novel, Virgin Soil Upturned, which earned a Lenin Prize, took 28 years to complete. It is composed of two parts, Seeds of Tomorrow (1932) and Harvest on the Don (1960), and reflects life during collectivization in the Don area.

The short story "The Fate of a Man" (1957) was made into a popular Russian film.


During World War II Sholokhov wrote about the Soviet war effort for various journals. He also covered the devastation caused by Wehrmacht troops along the Don. His mother was killed when Veshenskaya was bombed in 1942.

Sholokhov's unfinished novel They Fought for Their Country is about World War II (known in the Soviet Union, and now in Russia, as the Great Patriotic War).

Sholokhov's collected works were published in eight volumes between 1956 and 1960.

Authorship of texts
First rumors of Sholokhov's supposed plagiarism appeared in 1928 following the success of the first two volumes of And Quiet Flows the Don: it was speculated that the author stole the manuscript from a dead White Army officer.[3] Sholokhov asked the Pravda newspaper to prove his authorship, submitted his manuscripts of the first three volumes of And Quiet Flows the Don and the plan of the fourth one. In 1929 a special commission was formed that accepted Sholokhov's authorship. In the conclusion signed by four experts, the commission stated that there was no evidence of plagiarism on the one hand, and on the other hand the manuscripts' style was close to that of Sholokhov's previous book, Tales from the Don.[4]

The allegations resurfaced in the 1960s with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as a notable proponent, possibly in retaliation for Sholokhov's scathing opinion of Solzhenitsyn's novella One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.[5] Several other writers have been proposed as the 'original' author, although Fyodor Kryukov, a Cossack and Anti-Bolshevik who had died in 1920 has emerged as the leading candidate.[6][7]

In 1984 Norwegian Slavicist and mathematician Geir Kjetsaa, in a monograph written with three other colleagues, provided statistical analyses of sentence lengths showing that Mikhail Sholokhov was likely the true author of And Quiet Flows the Don,[8][9]

The debate focused on the published book, because Sholokhov's archive was destroyed in a bomb raid during the Second World War and no manuscript material or drafts were known. 143 pages of the manuscript of the 3rd & 4th books were later found and returned to Sholokhov; since 1975, they have been held by the Pushkin House in St Petersburg.[5] Then, in 1987, several hundred pages of notes and drafts of the work were discovered, including chapters excluded from the final draft. The writing paper dates back to the 1920s: 605 pages are in Sholokhov's own hand, and 285 are transcribed by his wife, Maria, and sisters.[10][5] Sholokhov had had his friend Vassily Kudashov look after it, and after he was killed at war his widow took possession of the manuscript, but she never disclosed it. The manuscript was finally obtained by the Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1999 with assistance from the Russian government.

In 1999 the Russian Academy of Science carried out an analysis of the manuscript and came to the conclusion that And Quiet Flows the Don had been written by Sholokhov himself.[11] A lengthy analysis by Felix Kuznetsov of the creative process visible in the papers provides detailed support for Sholokhov's authorship.[5]

Political and social activity
Sholokhov met Joseph Stalin in 1930 and must have made a good impression, because he was one of very few people who could give the dictator a truthful account of what was happening in the country without risk to himself. In the 1930s, he wrote several letters to Stalin from his home in Veshenskaya about the appalling conditions in the kolkhozes and sovkhozes along the Don, requesting assistance for the farmers.[12] In January 1931, he warned: "Comrade Stalin, without exaggeration, conditions are catastrophic!"[13] On 4 April 1933, he sent a long letter in which, among many other details, he named two OGPU officers whom he accused of torturing prisoners from his district. Stalin reacted by sending a senior official, Matvei Shkiryatov, to investigate. The two officers were arrested and sentenced to death; their sentences were later revoked, but they were banned from working in Sholokhov's home village.[14] Stalin also arranged for extra food to be sent to Veshenskaya and the neighbouring district.[15]

Sholokhov joined the CPSU in 1932, and in 1937 he was elected to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. In August 1937, his best friend, the secretary of the Veshenskaya party committee, P.K. Lugovoi, was arrested. Sholokohov was due to take part in an international writers' conference, but he refused to leave the country while Lugovoi was being held. Stalin sent another official, Vladimir Stavsky, to investigate, and invited Sholokhov to visit him in the Kremlin. After their meeting, on 4 November 1937, Lugovoi and two other prisoners on whose behalf Sholokhov had interceded were released, but in a subsequent letter to Stalin, he complained that the people responsible for wrongfully arresting them had not been punished.

On a visit to Moscow in 1938, Sholokhov met Yevgenia Yezhova, wife of Nikolai Yezhov, the chief of police, and checked into a hotel room with her, unaware that the room was bugged. Yezhov heard the recording and attacked Yezhova. On 23 October 1938, Sholokhov met Stalin in the Kremlin to complain that he had been put under surveillance in Veshenskaya, but when Yezhov was summoned to explain, he claimed not to know why. They met again on 31 October: this time the officer who had been investigating Sholokhov was also summoned. He said his orders had come from Moscow, but Yezhov again denied giving the order.[16] Sholokhov claimed that he completed the fourth and last volume of And Quiet Flows the Don and its sequel on 21 December 1939, the day when the USSR was celebrating what was supposedly Stalin's 60th birthday, and celebrated by opening a bottle of wine that Stalin had given him. He then wrote to Stalin to say how he had marked the special day.[17]

In 1959 he accompanied Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev on a trip to Europe and the United States. He became a member of the CPSU Central Committee in 1961, Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1939, and was a member of the USSR Supreme Soviet. He was twice awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor, and later became vice president of the Union of Soviet Writers.

He commented on the Sinyavsky–Daniel trial at the 23rd Congress by saying that the prison terms meted out to Sinyavsky and Daniel had been much too lenient compared to the "revolutionary understanding of what is right" during the 1920s, which turned part of the Soviet intelligentsia against him and resulted in two open letters by Lydia Chukovskaya and Yuri Galanskov addressed to Sholokhov.[18][19]

Late years
Sholokhov almost stopped writing after 1969 and spent the late years at the Vyoshenskaya stanitsa. He used his Order of Lenin money to build a local school and his Nobel Prize — to take the family on a road trip over Europe and Japan.[20] In 1972 he became a vocal critic of Alexander Yakovlev, then a head of the Central Committee Propaganda Department, and his article "Against Antihistoricism" which attacked Russian nationalism; this resulted in a Politburo meeting and removal of Yakovlev from his position (he was then sent as an ambassador to Canada).[21]

Mikhail Sholokhov died on 21 February 1984 from laryngeal cancer. He was buried on the territory of his house at the Vyoshenskaya stanitsa along with his wife Maria Petrovna Sholokhova (nee Gromoslovskaya, 1902—1992).[22]

Friday, 21 October 2016

ALFRED NOBEL , CHEMICAL ENGINEER DISCOVERED DYNAMITE BORN 1833 OCTOBER 21

ALFRED NOBEL , CHEMICAL ENGINEER 
DISCOVERED DYNAMITE 
BORN 1833 OCTOBER 21




Alfred Bernhard Nobel (/noʊˈbɛl/; Swedish: [ˈalfrɛd nʊˈbɛl] About this sound listen (help·info); 21 October 1833 – 10 December 1896) was a Swedish chemist, engineer, inventor, businessman, and philanthropist.
Alfred Nobel
Alfred Nobel3.jpg
Alfred Nobel
BornAlfred Bernhard Nobel
21 October 1833
StockholmSwedenSweden–Norway
Died10 December 1896 (aged 63)
SanremoItaly
Resting placeNorra begravningsplatsenStockholm, Sweden
59°21′24.52″N 18°1′9.43″E
OccupationChemist, engineer, inventor, businessman, philanthropist
Known forInvention of dynamite, Benefactor of the Nobel Prize
Signature
Alfred Nobel Signature.svg
Known for inventing dynamite, Nobel also owned Bofors, which he had redirected from its previous role as primarily an iron and steel producer to a major manufacturer of cannon and other armaments. Nobel held 355 different patents, dynamite being the most famous. After reading a premature obituary which condemned him for profiting from the sales of arms, he bequeathed his fortune to institute the Nobel Prizes.[1][2]

 The synthetic element nobelium was named after him.[3] His name also survives in modern-day companies such as Dynamit Nobel and AkzoNobel, which are descendants of mergers with companies Nobel himself established.

Life and career

Alfred Nobel at a young age

Alfred Nobel at a young age

Born in Stockholm, Alfred Nobel was the third son of Immanuel Nobel (1801–1872), an inventor and engineer, and Carolina Andriette (Ahlsell) Nobel (1805–1889).[4] The couple married in 1827 and had eight children. The family was impoverished, and only Alfred and his three brothers survived past childhood.[4][5] 

Through his father, Alfred Nobel was a descendant of the Swedish scientist Olaus Rudbeck (1630–1702),[6] and in his turn the boy was interested in engineering, particularly explosives, learning the basic principles from his father at a young age. Alfred Nobel's interest in technology was inherited from his father, an alumnus of Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.[7]

Following various business failures, Nobel's father moved to Saint Petersburg in 1837 and grew successful there as a manufacturer of machine tools and explosives. He invented modern plywood and started work on the "torpedo".[8] In 1842, the family joined him in the city. 

Now prosperous, his parents were able to send Nobel to private tutors and the boy excelled in his studies, particularly in chemistry and languages, achieving fluency in English, French, German and Russian.[4] For 18 months, from 1841 to 1842, Nobel went to the only school he ever attended as a child, the Jacobs Apologistic School in Stockholm.[5]


As a young man, Nobel studied with chemist Nikolai Zinin; then, in 1850, went to Paris to further the work. There he met Ascanio Sobrero, who had invented nitroglycerin three years before. Sobrero strongly opposed the use of nitroglycerin, as it was unpredictable, exploding when subjected to heat or pressure. But Nobel became interested in finding a way to control and use nitroglycerin as a commercially usable explosive, as it had much more power than gunpowder. 



At age 18, he went to the United States for four years to study chemistry, collaborating for a short period under inventor John Ericsson, who designed the American Civil War ironclad USS Monitor. Nobel filed his first patent, an English patent for a gas meter, in 1857, while his first Swedish patent, which he received in 1863, was on 'ways to prepare gunpowder'.[5][9][4][10]

The family factory produced armaments for the Crimean War (1853–1856); but, had difficulty switching back to regular domestic production when the fighting ended and they filed for bankruptcy.[4] In 1859, Nobel's father left his factory in the care of the second son, Ludvig Nobel (1831–1888), who greatly improved the business.

 Nobel and his parents returned to Sweden from Russia and Nobel devoted himself to the study of explosives, and especially to the safe manufacture and use of nitroglycerine (discovered in 1847 by Ascanio Sobrero, one of his fellow students under Théophile-Jules Pelouze at the University of Paris). Nobel invented a detonator in 1863; and, in 1865, he designed the blasting cap.[4]

On 3 September 1864, a shed, used for the preparation of nitroglycerin, exploded at the factory in Heleneborg, Stockholm, killing five people, including Nobel's younger brother Emil.[5] Dogged but unfazed by more minor accidents, Nobel went on to build further factories, focusing on improving the stability of the explosives he was developing.[5] 

Nobel invented dynamite in 1867, a substance easier and safer to handle than the more unstable nitroglycerin. Dynamite was patented in the US and the UK and was used extensively in mining and the building of transport networks internationally.[4] In 1875 Nobel invented gelignite, more stable and powerful than dynamite, and in 1887 patented ballistite, a predecessor of cordite.[4]

Nobel was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1884, the same institution that would later select laureates for two of the Nobel prizes, and he received an honorary doctorate from Uppsala University in 1893.


Alfred Nobel's death mask, at Bjorkborn,

Alfred Nobel's death mask, at Bjorkborn, Nobel's residence in Karlskoga, Sweden.

 Nobel's residence in Karlskoga, Sweden.
Nobel's brothers Ludvig and Robert exploited oilfields along the Caspian Sea and became hugely rich in their own right. Nobel invested in these and amassed great wealth through the development of these new oil regions. During his life Nobel issued 355 patents internationally and by his death his business had established more than 90 armaments factories, despite his belief in pacifism.[11][4]

In 1888, the death of his brother Ludvig caused several newspapers to publish obituaries of Alfred in error. A French obituary stated "Le marchand de la mort est mort" ("The merchant of death is dead").[4]

Death

Accused of “high treason against France” for selling Ballistite to Italy, Nobel moved from Paris to Sanremo, Italy in 1891.[12][13] On December 10, 1896, Alfred Nobel succumbed to a lingering heart ailment, suffered a stroke, and died.[13] Unbeknownst to his family, friends or colleagues, he had left most of his wealth in trust, in order to fund the awards that would become known as the Nobel Prizes.[4] He is buried in Norra begravningsplatsen in Stockholm.

Personal life

Through baptism and confirmation Alfred Nobel was Lutheran and during his Paris years he regularly attended the Church of Sweden Abroad led by pastor Nathan Söderblom who would in 1930 also be the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.[14][15] However, he became an agnostic at youth and was an atheist later in life.[16][17][18]

Nobel travelled for much of his business life, maintaining companies in various countries in Europe and North America and keeping a permanent home in Paris from 1873 to 1891.[5] He remained a solitary character, given to periods of depression. [4] Though Nobel remained unmarried, his biographers note that he had at least three loves. 

Nobel's first love was in Russia with a girl named Alexandra, who rejected his proposal. 

In 1876 Austro-Bohemian Countess Bertha Kinsky became Alfred Nobel's secretary, but after only a brief stay she left him to marry her previous lover, Baron Arthur Gundaccar von Suttner. 

Though her personal contact with Alfred Nobel had been brief, she corresponded with him until his death in 1896, and it is believed that she was a major influence in his decision to include a peace prize among those prizes provided in his will. 

Bertha von Suttner was awarded the 1905 Nobel Peace prize, 'for her sincere peace activities'.


Nobel's third and longest-lasting relationship was with Sofie Hess from Vienna, whom he met in 1876.[5] The liaison lasted for 18 years.[5] After his death, according to his biographers Evlanoff, Fluor and Fant, Nobel's letters were locked within the Nobel Institute in Stockholm. They were released only in 1955, to be included with other biographical data.

Despite the lack of formal secondary and tertiary level education, Nobel gained proficiency in six languages: Swedish, French, Russian, English, German and Italian. He also developed sufficient literary skill to write poetry in English. His Nemesis, a prose tragedy in four acts about Beatrice Cenci, partly inspired by Percy Bysshe Shelley's The Cenci, was printed while he was dying. 

The entire stock except for three copies was destroyed immediately after his death, being regarded as scandalous and blasphemous. The first surviving edition (bilingual Swedish–Esperanto) was published in Sweden in 2003. The play has been translated into Slovenian via the Esperanto version and into French.[19] In 2010 it was published in Russia in another bilingual (Russian–Esperanto) edition.

Inventions
Main articles: Dynamite, Gelignite, and Ballistite

Portrait of Nobel by Gösta Florman (1831–1900)

Portrait of Nobel by Gösta Florman (1831–1900)
Nobel found that when nitroglycerin was incorporated in an absorbent inert substance like kieselguhr (diatomaceous earth) it became safer and more convenient to handle, and this mixture he patented in 1867 as 'dynamite'. Nobel demonstrated his explosive for the first time that year, at a quarry in Redhill, Surrey, England. In order to help reestablish his name and improve the image of his business from the earlier controversies associated with the dangerous explosives, Nobel had also considered naming the highly powerful substance "Nobel's Safety Powder", but settled with Dynamite instead, referring to the Greek word for "power" (δύναμις).

Nobel later combined nitroglycerin with various nitrocellulose compounds, similar to collodion, but settled on a more efficient recipe combining another nitrate explosive, and obtained a transparent, jelly-like substance, which was a more powerful explosive than dynamite. 'Gelignite', or blasting gelatin, as it was named, was patented in 1876; and was followed by a host of similar combinations, modified by the addition of potassium nitrate and various other substances. Gelignite was more stable, transportable and conveniently formed to fit into bored holes, like those used in drilling and mining, than the previously used compounds and was adopted as the standard technology for mining in the Age of Engineering bringing Nobel a great amount of financial success, though at a significant cost to his health. An offshoot of this research resulted in Nobel's invention of ballistite, the precursor of many modern smokeless powder explosives and still used as a rocket propellant.

Nobel Prizes

Main article: Nobel Prize
In 1888 Alfred's brother Ludvig died while visiting Cannes and a French newspaper erroneously published Alfred's obituary.[4] It condemned him for his invention of dynamite and is said to have brought about his decision to leave a better legacy after his death.[4][20] The obituary stated, Le marchand de la mort est mort ("The merchant of death is dead")[4] and went on to say, "Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday."[21] Alfred (who never had a wife or children) was disappointed with what he read and concerned with how he would be remembered.

On 27 November 1895, at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, Nobel signed his last will and testament and set aside the bulk of his estate to establish the Nobel Prizes, to be awarded annually without distinction of nationality. After taxes and bequests to individuals, Nobel's will allocated 94% of his total assets, 31,225,000 Swedish kronor, to establish the five Nobel Prizes. This converted to £1,687,837 (GBP) at the time.[22][23][24][25] In 2012, the capital was worth around SEK 3.1 billion (USD 472 million, EUR 337 million), which is almost twice the amount of the initial capital, taking inflation into account.[23]

The first three of these prizes are awarded for eminence in physical science, in chemistry and in medical science or physiology; the fourth is for literary work "in an ideal direction" and the fifth prize is to be given to the person or society that renders the greatest service to the cause of international fraternity, in the suppression or reduction of standing armies, or in the establishment or furtherance of peace congresses.

The formulation for the literary prize being given for a work "in an ideal direction" (i idealisk riktning in Swedish), is cryptic and has caused much confusion. For many years, the Swedish Academy interpreted "ideal" as "idealistic" (idealistisk) and used it as a reason not to give the prize to important but less romantic authors, such as Henrik Ibsen and Leo Tolstoy. This interpretation has since been revised, and the prize has been awarded to, for example, Dario Fo and José Saramago, who do not belong to the camp of literary idealism.

There was room for interpretation by the bodies he had named for deciding on the physical sciences and chemistry prizes, given that he had not consulted them before making the will. In his one-page testament, he stipulated that the money go to discoveries or inventions in the physical sciences and to discoveries or improvements in chemistry. He had opened the door to technological awards, but had not left instructions on how to deal with the distinction between science and technology. Since the deciding bodies he had chosen were more concerned with the former, the prizes went to scientists more often than engineers, technicians or other inventors.

In 2001, Alfred Nobel's great-great-nephew, Peter Nobel (b. 1931), asked the Bank of Sweden to differentiate its award to economists given "in Alfred Nobel's memory" from the five other awards. This request added to the controversy over whether the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel is actually a legitimate "Nobel Prize".[26]



ALFRED NOBEL , CHEMICAL ENGINEER DISCOVERED DYNAMITE BORN 1833 OCTOBER 21

ALFRED NOBEL , CHEMICAL ENGINEER 
DISCOVERED DYNAMITE 
BORN 1833 OCTOBER 21




Alfred Bernhard Nobel (/noʊˈbɛl/; Swedish: [ˈalfrɛd nʊˈbɛl] About this sound listen (help·info); 21 October 1833 – 10 December 1896) was a Swedish chemist, engineer, inventor, businessman, and philanthropist.
Alfred Nobel
Alfred Nobel3.jpg
Alfred Nobel
BornAlfred Bernhard Nobel
21 October 1833
StockholmSwedenSweden–Norway
Died10 December 1896 (aged 63)
SanremoItaly
Resting placeNorra begravningsplatsenStockholm, Sweden
59°21′24.52″N 18°1′9.43″E
OccupationChemist, engineer, inventor, businessman, philanthropist
Known forInvention of dynamite, Benefactor of the Nobel Prize
Signature
Alfred Nobel Signature.svg
Known for inventing dynamite, Nobel also owned Bofors, which he had redirected from its previous role as primarily an iron and steel producer to a major manufacturer of cannon and other armaments. Nobel held 355 different patents, dynamite being the most famous. After reading a premature obituary which condemned him for profiting from the sales of arms, he bequeathed his fortune to institute the Nobel Prizes.[1][2]

 The synthetic element nobelium was named after him.[3] His name also survives in modern-day companies such as Dynamit Nobel and AkzoNobel, which are descendants of mergers with companies Nobel himself established.

Life and career

Alfred Nobel at a young age

Alfred Nobel at a young age

Born in Stockholm, Alfred Nobel was the third son of Immanuel Nobel (1801–1872), an inventor and engineer, and Carolina Andriette (Ahlsell) Nobel (1805–1889).[4] The couple married in 1827 and had eight children. The family was impoverished, and only Alfred and his three brothers survived past childhood.[4][5] 

Through his father, Alfred Nobel was a descendant of the Swedish scientist Olaus Rudbeck (1630–1702),[6] and in his turn the boy was interested in engineering, particularly explosives, learning the basic principles from his father at a young age. Alfred Nobel's interest in technology was inherited from his father, an alumnus of Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.[7]

Following various business failures, Nobel's father moved to Saint Petersburg in 1837 and grew successful there as a manufacturer of machine tools and explosives. He invented modern plywood and started work on the "torpedo".[8] In 1842, the family joined him in the city. 

Now prosperous, his parents were able to send Nobel to private tutors and the boy excelled in his studies, particularly in chemistry and languages, achieving fluency in English, French, German and Russian.[4] For 18 months, from 1841 to 1842, Nobel went to the only school he ever attended as a child, the Jacobs Apologistic School in Stockholm.[5]


As a young man, Nobel studied with chemist Nikolai Zinin; then, in 1850, went to Paris to further the work. There he met Ascanio Sobrero, who had invented nitroglycerin three years before. Sobrero strongly opposed the use of nitroglycerin, as it was unpredictable, exploding when subjected to heat or pressure. But Nobel became interested in finding a way to control and use nitroglycerin as a commercially usable explosive, as it had much more power than gunpowder. 



At age 18, he went to the United States for four years to study chemistry, collaborating for a short period under inventor John Ericsson, who designed the American Civil War ironclad USS Monitor. Nobel filed his first patent, an English patent for a gas meter, in 1857, while his first Swedish patent, which he received in 1863, was on 'ways to prepare gunpowder'.[5][9][4][10]

The family factory produced armaments for the Crimean War (1853–1856); but, had difficulty switching back to regular domestic production when the fighting ended and they filed for bankruptcy.[4] In 1859, Nobel's father left his factory in the care of the second son, Ludvig Nobel (1831–1888), who greatly improved the business.

 Nobel and his parents returned to Sweden from Russia and Nobel devoted himself to the study of explosives, and especially to the safe manufacture and use of nitroglycerine (discovered in 1847 by Ascanio Sobrero, one of his fellow students under Théophile-Jules Pelouze at the University of Paris). Nobel invented a detonator in 1863; and, in 1865, he designed the blasting cap.[4]

On 3 September 1864, a shed, used for the preparation of nitroglycerin, exploded at the factory in Heleneborg, Stockholm, killing five people, including Nobel's younger brother Emil.[5] Dogged but unfazed by more minor accidents, Nobel went on to build further factories, focusing on improving the stability of the explosives he was developing.[5] 

Nobel invented dynamite in 1867, a substance easier and safer to handle than the more unstable nitroglycerin. Dynamite was patented in the US and the UK and was used extensively in mining and the building of transport networks internationally.[4] In 1875 Nobel invented gelignite, more stable and powerful than dynamite, and in 1887 patented ballistite, a predecessor of cordite.[4]

Nobel was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1884, the same institution that would later select laureates for two of the Nobel prizes, and he received an honorary doctorate from Uppsala University in 1893.


Alfred Nobel's death mask, at Bjorkborn,

Alfred Nobel's death mask, at Bjorkborn, Nobel's residence in Karlskoga, Sweden.

 Nobel's residence in Karlskoga, Sweden.
Nobel's brothers Ludvig and Robert exploited oilfields along the Caspian Sea and became hugely rich in their own right. Nobel invested in these and amassed great wealth through the development of these new oil regions. During his life Nobel issued 355 patents internationally and by his death his business had established more than 90 armaments factories, despite his belief in pacifism.[11][4]

In 1888, the death of his brother Ludvig caused several newspapers to publish obituaries of Alfred in error. A French obituary stated "Le marchand de la mort est mort" ("The merchant of death is dead").[4]

Death

Accused of “high treason against France” for selling Ballistite to Italy, Nobel moved from Paris to Sanremo, Italy in 1891.[12][13] On December 10, 1896, Alfred Nobel succumbed to a lingering heart ailment, suffered a stroke, and died.[13] Unbeknownst to his family, friends or colleagues, he had left most of his wealth in trust, in order to fund the awards that would become known as the Nobel Prizes.[4] He is buried in Norra begravningsplatsen in Stockholm.

Personal life

Through baptism and confirmation Alfred Nobel was Lutheran and during his Paris years he regularly attended the Church of Sweden Abroad led by pastor Nathan Söderblom who would in 1930 also be the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.[14][15] However, he became an agnostic at youth and was an atheist later in life.[16][17][18]

Nobel travelled for much of his business life, maintaining companies in various countries in Europe and North America and keeping a permanent home in Paris from 1873 to 1891.[5] He remained a solitary character, given to periods of depression. [4] Though Nobel remained unmarried, his biographers note that he had at least three loves. 

Nobel's first love was in Russia with a girl named Alexandra, who rejected his proposal. 

In 1876 Austro-Bohemian Countess Bertha Kinsky became Alfred Nobel's secretary, but after only a brief stay she left him to marry her previous lover, Baron Arthur Gundaccar von Suttner. 

Though her personal contact with Alfred Nobel had been brief, she corresponded with him until his death in 1896, and it is believed that she was a major influence in his decision to include a peace prize among those prizes provided in his will. 

Bertha von Suttner was awarded the 1905 Nobel Peace prize, 'for her sincere peace activities'.


Nobel's third and longest-lasting relationship was with Sofie Hess from Vienna, whom he met in 1876.[5] The liaison lasted for 18 years.[5] After his death, according to his biographers Evlanoff, Fluor and Fant, Nobel's letters were locked within the Nobel Institute in Stockholm. They were released only in 1955, to be included with other biographical data.

Despite the lack of formal secondary and tertiary level education, Nobel gained proficiency in six languages: Swedish, French, Russian, English, German and Italian. He also developed sufficient literary skill to write poetry in English. His Nemesis, a prose tragedy in four acts about Beatrice Cenci, partly inspired by Percy Bysshe Shelley's The Cenci, was printed while he was dying. 

The entire stock except for three copies was destroyed immediately after his death, being regarded as scandalous and blasphemous. The first surviving edition (bilingual Swedish–Esperanto) was published in Sweden in 2003. The play has been translated into Slovenian via the Esperanto version and into French.[19] In 2010 it was published in Russia in another bilingual (Russian–Esperanto) edition.

Inventions
Main articles: Dynamite, Gelignite, and Ballistite

Portrait of Nobel by Gösta Florman (1831–1900)

Portrait of Nobel by Gösta Florman (1831–1900)
Nobel found that when nitroglycerin was incorporated in an absorbent inert substance like kieselguhr (diatomaceous earth) it became safer and more convenient to handle, and this mixture he patented in 1867 as 'dynamite'. Nobel demonstrated his explosive for the first time that year, at a quarry in Redhill, Surrey, England. In order to help reestablish his name and improve the image of his business from the earlier controversies associated with the dangerous explosives, Nobel had also considered naming the highly powerful substance "Nobel's Safety Powder", but settled with Dynamite instead, referring to the Greek word for "power" (δύναμις).

Nobel later combined nitroglycerin with various nitrocellulose compounds, similar to collodion, but settled on a more efficient recipe combining another nitrate explosive, and obtained a transparent, jelly-like substance, which was a more powerful explosive than dynamite. 'Gelignite', or blasting gelatin, as it was named, was patented in 1876; and was followed by a host of similar combinations, modified by the addition of potassium nitrate and various other substances. Gelignite was more stable, transportable and conveniently formed to fit into bored holes, like those used in drilling and mining, than the previously used compounds and was adopted as the standard technology for mining in the Age of Engineering bringing Nobel a great amount of financial success, though at a significant cost to his health. An offshoot of this research resulted in Nobel's invention of ballistite, the precursor of many modern smokeless powder explosives and still used as a rocket propellant.

Nobel Prizes

Main article: Nobel Prize
In 1888 Alfred's brother Ludvig died while visiting Cannes and a French newspaper erroneously published Alfred's obituary.[4] It condemned him for his invention of dynamite and is said to have brought about his decision to leave a better legacy after his death.[4][20] The obituary stated, Le marchand de la mort est mort ("The merchant of death is dead")[4] and went on to say, "Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday."[21] Alfred (who never had a wife or children) was disappointed with what he read and concerned with how he would be remembered.

On 27 November 1895, at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, Nobel signed his last will and testament and set aside the bulk of his estate to establish the Nobel Prizes, to be awarded annually without distinction of nationality. After taxes and bequests to individuals, Nobel's will allocated 94% of his total assets, 31,225,000 Swedish kronor, to establish the five Nobel Prizes. This converted to £1,687,837 (GBP) at the time.[22][23][24][25] In 2012, the capital was worth around SEK 3.1 billion (USD 472 million, EUR 337 million), which is almost twice the amount of the initial capital, taking inflation into account.[23]

The first three of these prizes are awarded for eminence in physical science, in chemistry and in medical science or physiology; the fourth is for literary work "in an ideal direction" and the fifth prize is to be given to the person or society that renders the greatest service to the cause of international fraternity, in the suppression or reduction of standing armies, or in the establishment or furtherance of peace congresses.

The formulation for the literary prize being given for a work "in an ideal direction" (i idealisk riktning in Swedish), is cryptic and has caused much confusion. For many years, the Swedish Academy interpreted "ideal" as "idealistic" (idealistisk) and used it as a reason not to give the prize to important but less romantic authors, such as Henrik Ibsen and Leo Tolstoy. This interpretation has since been revised, and the prize has been awarded to, for example, Dario Fo and José Saramago, who do not belong to the camp of literary idealism.

There was room for interpretation by the bodies he had named for deciding on the physical sciences and chemistry prizes, given that he had not consulted them before making the will. In his one-page testament, he stipulated that the money go to discoveries or inventions in the physical sciences and to discoveries or improvements in chemistry. He had opened the door to technological awards, but had not left instructions on how to deal with the distinction between science and technology. Since the deciding bodies he had chosen were more concerned with the former, the prizes went to scientists more often than engineers, technicians or other inventors.

In 2001, Alfred Nobel's great-great-nephew, Peter Nobel (b. 1931), asked the Bank of Sweden to differentiate its award to economists given "in Alfred Nobel's memory" from the five other awards. This request added to the controversy over whether the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel is actually a legitimate "Nobel Prize".[26]