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
State Prize of the Russian Federation State Prize of the Russian Federation The State Prize of the Russian Federation, officially translated in Russia as Russian Federation National Award, is a state honorary prize established in 1992 as the successor for the USSR State Prize following the breakup of the Soviet Union. In 2004 the rules for selection of laureates and the status of the award were significantly changed making them closer to such awards as the Nobel Prize or the Soviet Lenin Prize. Every year seven prizes are awarded: Only three prizes for humanitarian work have been awarded so far: to Patriarch Alexius II, Primate of