1902 Nobel Prize in Literature

Theodor Mommsen was a writer expert both in history and law, and this combination was important for his research career. His Nobel Prize was motivated primarily by his pioneering three-volume work about Roman history, Römische Geschichte. It depicted different aspects of the Roman Republic's history: political, legal, economic, cultural and even geographical and meteorological. According to the Swedish Academy, his writing was "vivid and empathetic", and it was for these literary qualities that he was awarded the Nobel Prize.^[2]

A History of Rome

When Mommsen was awarded the prize, the world recognition was given him with "special reference" to the Römische Geschichte (the History of Rome).^[3] The award came nearly fifty years after the first appearance of the work. The award also came during the last year of the author's life (1817–1903). It is the only time thus far that the Nobel Prize for Literature has been presented to a historian per se.^[4] Yet the literary Nobel has since been awarded to a philosopher (1950) with mention of an "intellectual history",^[5] and to a war-time leader (1953) for speeches and writings, including a "current events history",^[6] plus a Nobel Memorial Prize has been awarded for two "economic histories" (1993).^[7] Nonetheless Mommsen's multi-volume History of Rome remains in a singular Nobel class.

The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, a well-regarded reference yet nonetheless "a source unsparingly critical", summarizes: "Equally great as antiquary, jurist, political and social historian, Mommsen lived to see the time when among students of Roman history he had pupils, followers, critics, but no rivals. He combined the power of minute investigation with a singular faculty for bold generalization and the capacity for tracing out the effects of thought on political and social life."^[8]

The British historian G. P. Gooch, writing in 1913, eleven years after Mommsen's Nobel prize, gives us this evaluation of his Römisches Geschichte: "Its sureness of touch, its many-sided knowledge, its throbbing vitality and the Venetian colouring of its portraits left an ineffaceable impression on every reader." "It was a work of genius and passion, the creation of a young man, and is as fresh and vital to-day as when it was written."^[9] About the History of Rome another British historian Arnold J. Toynbee in 1934 wrote, at the beginning of his own 12-volume universal history, "Mommsen wrote a great book, [Römisches Geschichte], which certainly will always be reckoned among the masterpieces of Western historical literature."^[10]

Nominations

Mommsen had not been nominated for the prize in 1901, making it the first rare occasion when an author have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature the same year they were first nominated.^[11] In total, the Swedish Academy received 44 nominations for 34 writers, including the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy (four nominations), British philosopher Herbert Spencer (one nomination), and Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (one nomination).^[12]

The authors Philip James Bailey, Samuel Butler, Ethna Carbery, Mary Hartwell Catherwood, Francisco Javier de Burgos, Alice Marie Durand (known as Henry Gréville), Ernst Dümmler, Samuel Rawson Gardiner, Bret Harte, Annie French Hector, George Alfred Henty, Grace Hinsdale, Lionel Johnson, Heinrich Landesmann, William McGonagall, Ljubomir Nedić, Frank R. Stockton, Frank Norris, Masaoka Shiki, Gleb Uspensky, Jacint Verdaguer, Swami Vivekananda, and Mathilde Wesendonck died in 1902 without having been nominated for the prize.

Official list of nominees and their nominators for the prize

No.	Nominee	Country	Genre(s)	Nominator(s)
1	Juhani Aho[a] (1861–1921)	Russia (  Finland)	novel, short story	Johannes Paulson (1855–1918) Gustaf Cederschiöld (1849–1928)
2	Marcel Barrière[b] (1860–1954)	France	novel, essays	Émile Faguet (1847–1916)
3	Alexander Baumgartner, S.J.[c] (1841–1910)	Switzerland	poetry, history	Knud Karl Krogh-Tonning (1842–1911)
4	Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson[d] (1832–1910)	Norway	poetry, novel, drama, short story	Christen Collin (1857–1926) Karl Johan Warburg (1852–1918)
5	Bernard Bosanquet (1848–1923)	Great Britain	philosophy	William Macneile Dixon (1866–1946)
6	Giosuè Carducci (1835–1907)	Italy	poetry, literary criticism, biography, essays	Vittorio Puntoni (1859–1926) Antonio Fogazzaro (1842–1911)
7	Houston Stewart Chamberlain[e] (1855–1927)	Great Britain  Germany	philosophy	Wolfgang Golther (1863–1945)
8	José Echegaray Eizaguirre[f] (1832–1916)	Spain	drama	12 members of the Royal Spanish Academy
9	Gustav Falke[g] (1853–1916)	Germany	novel, poetry	August Sauer (1855–1926)
10	Antonio Fogazzaro (1842–1911)	Italy	novel, poetry, short story	Per Geijer (1886–1976)
11	Arne Garborg[h] (1851–1921)	Norway	novel, poetry, drama, essays	Kristian Birch-Reichenwald Aars (1868–1917)
12	Hartmann Grisar, S.J.[i] (1845–1932)	Germany	history, theology	Knud Karl Krogh-Tonning (1842–1911)
13	Gerhart Hauptmann[j] (1862–1946)	Germany	drama, novel	Max Freiherr von Waldberg (1858–1938) Frederick Pollock (1845–1937) Richard Moritz Meyer (1860–1914)
14	Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906)	Norway	drama	Axel Erdmann (1873–1954)
15	Ferenc Kemény (1860–1944)	Austria–Hungary (  Hungary)	essays	Gusztáv Heinrich (1845–1922)
16	Anatoly Koni[k] (1844–1927)	Russia	poetry, literary criticism, memoir, law	Anton Woulfert (1877–1927)
17	Ventura López Fernández[l] (1866–1944)	Spain	poetry, drama, literary criticism	Emmanuel Casado Salas (?)
18	George Meredith (1828–1909)	Great Britain	novel, poetry	Walter Raleigh (1861–1922) Mary Augusta Ward (1851–1920) Oliver Elton (1861–1945)
19	Frédéric Mistral[m] (1830–1914)	France	poetry, philology	Eduard Koschwitz (1851–1904) Fredrik Wulff (1845–1930)
20	Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903)	Germany	history, law	18 members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences
21	John Morley[n] (1838–1923)	Great Britain	biography, literary criticism, essays	Alice Stopford Green (1847–1929)
22	Lewis Morris[o] (1833–1907)	Great Britain	poetry, songwriting, essays	John Rhys (1840–1915) Herbert Warren (1853–1930) Thomas Fowler (1832–1904) Thomas Erskine Holland (1836–1926)
23	Gaspar Núñez de Arce (1832–1903)	Spain	poetry, drama, law	Mariano Catalina Cobo (1842–1913) Juan Valera y Alcalá-Galiano (1824–1905)
24	Gaston Paris[p] (1839–1903)	France	history, poetry, essays	Fredrik Wulff (1845–1930)
25	Archibald Robertson[q] (1853–1931)	Great Britain	theology, history	John Wesley Hales (1836–1914)
26	Paul Sabatier[r] (1858–1928)	France	history, theology, biography	Carl Bildt (1850–1931)
27	Henryk Sienkiewicz[s] (1846–1916)	Russia (  Poland)	novel	Hans Hildebrand (1842–1913)
28	Herbert Spencer (1820–1903)	Great Britain	philosophy, essays	49 members of The Nobel Prize Committee of the Society of Authors[t]
29	Leo Tolstoy[u] (1828–1910)	Russia	novel, short story, drama, poetry	Ludovic Halévy (1837–1908) Oscar Levertin (1862–1906) Michel Bréal (1832–1915) Ernest Lichtenberger (1847–1913)
30	Charles Wagner[v] (1852–1918)	France	theology, philosophy	Waldemar Rudin (1833–1921)
31	Carl Weitbrecht (1847–1904)	Germany	history, poetry, short story, essays	Hermann Fischer (1884–1936)
32	William Butler Yeats[w]	Ireland	poetry, drama, essays	William Edward Lecky (1838–1903)
33	Theodor Zahn[x] (1838–1933)	German Empire	theology, essays	Lars Dahle (1843–1925)
34	Émile Zola[y] (1839–1907)	France	novel, drama, short story	Marcellin Berthelot (1827–1907)

Prize decision

In 1902, the Nobel committee considered the authors Leo Tolstoy, Henrik Ibsen and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson for the prize.^[14] Tolstoy was praised for his prominent literary work, but dismissed for his anarchistic ideology;^[14] Ibsen was dismissed for similar reasons, his radical style was considered completely against the ideal direction required by Alfred Nobel's will;^[14] while Bjørnson was pushed for the next year considering a shared prize with Ibsen.^[14] Because the Academy's permanent secretary Carl David af Wirsén was a fierce opponent of the idea of awarding Tolstoy and Ibsen, as a compromise, the historian Theodor Mommsen was launched as an alternative candidate that could be agreed upon.^[14]

The decision to award the second Nobel Prize in Literature to a non-fiction writer was criticised by some. While praising Mommsen's work in a 1902 article in Ord och Bild, the Swedish professor in Intellectual history Johan Bergman wrote: "It is and remain a flagrant injustice to not award this prize for the best literary work in ideal direction to one of the great idealists among the celebrated authors of our time, to Tolstoj or Björnson or Ibsen."^[15] Internationally, Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg were frequently mentioned as worthy candidates for the prize.^[15]

• Award ceremony speech by C.D. af Wirsén nobelprize.org