Nobel’s will on display for the first time
Print Edition
ALFRED Nobel’s last will and testament, which played a pivotal role in Swedish history by creating the now-illustrious Nobel prizes, has gone on display for the first time in Stockholm.
Until now, only a handful of people had laid eyes on the original 1895 document that has been stashed away in a safe at the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm.
The Nobel Museum has changed all that, putting it on public display as part of its new exhibition “Legacy.”
"The exhibition draws attention to how important it is to pass things on. The will is the centerpiece. It is a simple document, but it still today provides the basis of our work with the (Nobel) prizes,” says exhibition curator Karin Jonsson.
“The aim is to show Alfred Nobel's legacy to the public. It makes him more understandable,” her colleague Gustav Kaellstrand adds.
The Nobel prizes are “one of Sweden’s biggest brands,” notes a spokesman for the Swedish Institute, Sergio Guimaraes.
The will itself is written on four yellowed pages, with curlicued old-fashioned handwriting in black ink. It’s smudged in places, and there are notes and additions running up and down the sides, tops and bottoms of the pages.
Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, details the creation of the Nobel prizes on 26 lines, or almost three-quarters of a page.
He stipulates that part of his fortune — some 31.5 million kronor at the time, or the equivalent of more than 200 million euros (US$220 million) today — was to be placed in a fund, the interest on which was to be used to honor “those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind” in the fields of medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace.
He appoints four prize committees to hand out the awards: three in Stockholm and one in Oslo for the peace prize, since Norway was joined with Sweden in a union at the time.
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