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
2016 Nobel Peace Prize Syria chief amongst them – they can sometimes provide the necessary momentum to see it through." The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee: 2016 Nobel Peace Prize The 2016 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the President of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos "for his resolute efforts to bring the country’s more than 50-year-long civil war to an end, a war that has cost the lives of at least 220,000 Colombians and displaced close to six million people." The conflict is the longest running war, and last remaining guerrilla struggle, in the Americas. The Nobel Peace Prize