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
Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature The Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature ("Den norske Kritikerprisen for litteratur" or "Kritikerprisen") is awarded by the Norwegian Literature Critics' Association ("Norsk Litteraturkritikerlag") and has been awarded every year since 1950. The prize is presented to a Norwegian author for a literary work as agreed to among the members of the Norwegian Literature Critics' Association. Since 1978 the Norwegian Literature Critics' Association has also awarded a prize for the best work of children's literature. In 2003 the Critics Prize for the year's best work of translation was established, and in 2012 the Critics Prize for