Warsaw’s Nobel Prize Winners
– guided tour
Walk around Warsaw Following the Nobel Prize winners. We will mainly present the profiles of Nobel laureates and places associated with them. Many of the Polish Nobel Prize winners lived in Warsaw, either they were born here or spent their childhood here. Their fates intertwined with Warsaw in different ways.
During the walk, we would like to show you places related to Polish or Polish born Nobel Prize winners. We would like to talk about the relationships of individual Nobel Prize winners with Warsaw.
Warsaw’s Nobel Prize Winners:
- Maria Skłodowska-Curie, who is most connected with the capital of Poland. She was born and raised in Warsaw. Maria won two Nobel Prizes and became the first Professor in the history of the University of Sorbonne. She founded a unique family in which her husband Pierre Curie, her daughter Irene Joliot-Curie, her husband Frederic Joliot-Curie and son-in-law Henri Labouisse also received Nobel prizes in various fields.
- Władysław Reymont – actually Stanisław Władysław Rejment. In Warsaw he gained a profession and became a tailor. But thanks to his poetry he received the Nobel Prize for Literature – for the peasant novel „Chłopi”.
- Henryk Sienkiewicz – Henryk Adam Aleksander Pius Sienkiewicz, received his education in Warsaw and worked as an editor in Warsaw newspapers. As a result, he was awarded the Nobel Literary Award for lifetime achievement
- Menachem Begin – related to the University of Warsaw. He received the Nobel Peace Prize for political activity for peace in the Middle East.
- Józef Rotblat – another Nobel laureate associated with Warsaw. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995 for organizing an international scholars’ movement for the elimination of weapons of mass destruction called Pegwash.
- Lech Wałęsa – Co-founder of the Solidarity movement and President of Poland, he also received the Nobel Peace Prize.
- Leonid Hurwicz – professor at many American universities, distinguished himself in economics. He lived in Warsaw and studied here at the University of Warsaw. In October 2007, Hurwicz shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Eric Maskin and Roger Myerson. They received the awards „for having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory”. His theory today plays a major role in many areas economics and political science.
- Czesław Miłosz – also associated with Warsaw and the University of Warsaw. The poet, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1980 and the Neustadt International Literary Prize – called „Little Nobel”.
Nobel Prize winners in Warsaw were not only of Polish origin but also of Jewish origin. Some lived and others stayed only temporarily in our capital or are buried in Warsaw cemeteries. During the walk, we will also present distinguished people who, thanks to their merits, were nominated for the Nobel Prize, but never got it.
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