Leseratte
Well-known member
Maybe one had to dive much deeper into the historical context of the time to understand the choices of the Academy, But to me, Ben's faithful summing upYeah, but that was almost 120 years after this Nobel prize. What is strange in 1904 is that many writers back then were politically active as champions of their nations, but that wasn't held against them. Like Sienkiewicz won a few years later, and back then Poland was part of Russian Empire and he was prominent advocate for Polish independence. They didn't hold it against him.
are showing people like any other, maybe better read than most but with their own tastes, values and and prejudices. If they were replaced by another contemporaneous group results probably would've be different. Better, worse? It would depend again on the lights, values anderes prejudices of the evaluators.