Our only Nobel Laureate Ivo Andric died 43 years ago, and today we do not know much of the important details of his life, like the fact that he gave the entire amount (around the current million euros) of the Nobel Prize.
Namely, Ivo Andric received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961, when he was 69 years old. The prize, as today, consisted of three parts: medal (with the name and character of Alfred Nobel at the head of it, and with the name and age of the winner at the tail), a diploma, unique for each winner, which is painted by hand with motives of the winner’s work (Andric’s has a bridge, flag and characters from his literature) and a cash prize of about one million euros.
“Andric gave the whole sum of money to Bosnia, for building a library and purchase of books. Probably because he knew the mentality of the people, he first donated half of the money, after which he asked for reports on spending that money, and then donated the second part, “ writes Marina Miljkovic Dabic, the author of the text on the Krug portal.
The Nobel Prize cash amount was 250.232.88 Swedish crowns. Andric awarded the entire amount of the Nobel Prize in two parts to the Republican Fund for the Advancement of Libraries of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).
On the 17th of May 1962, he gave the first half of the Nobel Prize (18.102.859 RSD). The second part (19.000.000 dinars) was donated on April 8th , 1965. Also the cash amount of the AVNOJ Award from 1967 and the Twenty-Seventh July Prize from 1970 was also given for the development of the library of BiH.” (a fragment from the book by Zaneta Djukic Perisic , Writer and Story: Creative Biography of Ivo Andric, Academic Book, Novi Sad, 2012, p. 493), reports Blic.
Another interesting detail from the Ivo Andric Museum, which is located in Andric’s Venac 8, where he spent the last 17 years of his life (1958-1975), is related to his workroom. No guests were allowed in that room. Today, it looks exactly the same as he left it when he was there the last time.
“The desk on the right side of the room was near the wall that was opposite of the window, and it was intended for writing, while the other – closest to the balcony doors that look at the Pioneer Park and the National Assembly – for the daily correspondence. The three walls of the workroom are also covered with books from Andric’s library. There is also an old TV, from the era of production of TVs at ‘Electronics Industry’ from Nis. Namely, Andric was one of the fifteen of the most significant personalities that got the TV as a gift. However, he was not impressed by TV as a medium, and the armchair for sitting and watching TV, that was in that room, was mainly used by his wife. The other armchair, the one in which Andric was sitting, was set so that person sitting in it is turned back from the TV, “ writes, among other things, at the Krug portal.
