Nobel Prize controversies works there were available only in samizdat-published, clandestine form. After the Swedish government refused to hold a public award ceremony and lecture at its Moscow embassy, Solzhenitsyn refused the award altogether, commenting that the conditions set by the Swedes (who preferred a private ceremony) were "an insult to the Nobel Prize itself." Solzhenitsyn later accepted the award on 10 December 1974, after the Soviet Union banished him. Critics suggest that Solzhenitsyn was awarded the prize because of his political stance, not his writing. Leo Tolstoy was nominated for the two first-ever Nobel Prizes in Literature. In the first year, the
The Nobel Peace Prize for Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution a corporate name. The Nobel committee spokesperson said that it was not possible for the citizens of an entire nation to be awarded the prize. Therefore, the application was rejected. Kristian Berg Harpviken, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo was concerned that Shinzō Abe, Prime Minister of Japan, was trying to reinterpret Article 9 and that this could be a precursor of armed confrontation. He nominated Kenzaburō Ōe, a former Nobel laureate in literature, and the , the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations for the Nobel Peace Prize list. In response, on January 15, 2015, the