BIG ART AND BIG POLITICS: WHY WINSTON CHURCHILL RECEIVED THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE BEFORE ERNEST HEMINGWAY?
The article attempts to solve one of the mysteries of the world literary process of the 20th century. The author explains the reasons for the unusual choice of the Nobel Committee, which presented the outstanding British politician Winston Churchill in 1953 with the prize in literature, preferring him to such recognized masters as Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Boris Pasternak, Mikhail Sholokhov, Vladimir Nabokov, Jorge Luis Borges, Jerome Salinger. According to the researcher, the choice of the Nobel Committee was determined by a number of factors: Churchill's undoubted literary talent, manifested, however, first of all, in historical and memoir literature; the vast artistic legacy created by Churchill in these genres; outstanding public speaking skills of a British politician; charisma and political authority of his personality, as well as the circumstances of his life. Winston Churchill's political, literary, and journalistic heritage retains its significance today, and his participation in the 1945 Yalta Conference lends the study a geographical proximity to Crimea. At the same time, the article allows for a specific historical example to analyze the decision-making mechanisms to award the most prestigious literary prize in the world.