on the role of principal executor. Lilljeqvist would be available to provide advice and encouragement, but his new business interests in Bengtsfors would preclude more active involvement. Lindhagen would serve as legal counsel.fn13
Figure 8. The first page of Alfred Nobel’s will.
As Lindhagen predicted, the successful execution of the will would require resolution of three contentious issues. The most problematic of these involved the legal clarification of Nobel’s last permanent residence, his so-called ‘true’ domicile. This determination would, in turn, establish which court in which country would grant probate. As Nobel’s intention had been to live out his years in Björkborn Manor, Lindhagen advised Sohlman and Lilljeqvist to apply for probate in a Swedish court. It was not certain, however, whether Nobel would be declared a resident of Sweden and that, a fortiori, a Swedish court would adjudicate the validity and terms of the will. The courts would consider, for example, that Nobel also owned a mansion in Paris and a country home in Italy at the time of his death. Should Paris be determined to have been Nobel’s true domicile, as the French authorities immediately requested, the financial consequences would be particularly severe. In addition to the crushing inheritance taxes imposed in France, the legality of the entire will would also be in jeopardy due to the much more stringent laws of the Code Napoléon.
A second prickly subject was the immediate opposition of disappointed relatives who bitterly viewed their inheritance as insufficient. To add to the perceived slight, an earlier will which Nobel had rescinded had contained far more generous bequests to individual heirs than the current iteration. Nobel’s family was also concerned that the interest-generating capital required to fund the annual prizes appeared to depend on immediately liquidating Nobel’s vast financial assets. Selling all investments would jeopardise the financial stability of a number of Nobel family holdings, particularly that of the large Russian oil company started by Nobel’s two older brothers.
The third potential impasse was the astonishing fact that Nobel had never discussed with any representatives of the institutions he had named in his will his intention that they administer the prizes he sought to establish. The cooperation of any, let alone all, of these institutional bodies was far from certain. To further embroil matters, the designation of the Norwegian Storting (Parliament) to award the peace prize drew a strong political backlash. Nobel had written his will in 1895, at a time when Sweden and Norway were still united as one country. By the end of 1896, the dissolution of their fragile political union was imminent. The inclusion of Norway now bordered on treason, inciting Sweden’s reigning King Oscar II to petition Nobel’s nephew and most influential heir, Emanuel Nobel, to challenge the will on patriotic grounds. One of the few family members who was a strong advocate for his uncle’s wishes, Emanuel was, by the time he received the king’s request, defiant:
Your Majesty – I will not expose my family to the risk of reproaches in future for having appropriated funds which rightfully belonged to deserving scientists.
Remarkably, all obstacles were eventually resolved. The courts sided with the executors and the will was favourably probated in Sweden. Thanks to financial concessions and the support of Emanuel Nobel, all branches of the Nobel family eventually agreed to the will’s provisions.fn14 Each prize-awarding body also came to accept the terms of the will, and collaborated on establishing clearer instructions related to the distribution of the prizes. Nobel’s assets were liquidated and a single fund was constituted that would be managed by an entity referred to as the Nobel Foundation. This foundation would also be responsible for overseeing the Nobel Prize ceremonies.
On 29 June 1900, the Swedish government approved the statutes of the Nobel Foundation by royal ordinance. These contained the clarifications related to the wording of the will and such details as the establishment of the prize-awarding Nobel Committees. On 10 December 1901, precisely five years after the death of Alfred Nobel, the first Nobel Prizes were awarded: in physics to Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, in chemistry to Jacobus H. van ’t Hoff, in medicine to Emil von Behring, and in literature to Sully Prudhomme. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to Jean Henry Dunant and Frédéric Passy. Each laureate received a diploma, a gold medal and a significant sum of money; later that day, a celebratory banquet was held in their honour at Stockholm’s Grand Hôtel. As Ragnar Sohlman so elegantly stated, ‘The long struggle over Nobel’s will was now at an end’.
It was Freud who said the optimist sees the rose and not its thorns.
‘FRAU SOFIE’ AND COUNTESS BERTHA KINSKY
With the establishment of the Nobel Foundation in 1900, Sohlman’s responsibilities as principal executor diminished substantially. No longer required to consolidate and administer Nobel’s financial assets, Sohlman could finally turn to the systematic organisation of Nobel’s personal files. These were extensive, as Nobel saved all incoming letters. It was also his habit to travel with a portable hectograph, about the size of a large briefcase. With little effort, Nobel could methodically reproduce onionskin duplicates of all outgoing correspondence, which he then kept in a large number of carelessly organised folders and folio boxes. Most letters were written in Swedish or Russian, but Nobel also corresponded in French, English and German. Sohlman, also a competent multilinguist due to Nobel’s influence and the nature of their work together, was soon surprised to find that he now faced the challenging task of cataloguing over ten thousand documents
Regrettably, Sohlman was already familiar with one specific folder that he himself had stamped ‘Legal and Confidential’ two years earlier. Within it, there were 216 letters Nobel had written to a Miss Sofie Hess. There were also forty letters from Sofie to Nobel, a single well-written telegram, a photogravure of the couple, as well as one affidavit assuring the Nobel estate that Sofie ‘had no further claims against the estate apart from the annual income designated to her’. Of note, some of Nobel’s letters to Sofie were addressed to ‘Dear, pretty child’, ‘Little Sweetheart’, ‘My dearest Sofiechen’, and even ‘Frau Sofie Nobel’.
The awkward details were as follows: In 1876, a forty-three-year-old Nobel had met the much younger Sofie – then representing herself as eighteen years oldfn15 – at a spa in a small Austrian resort. Sofie was working in a florist shop but aspired to advance beyond her lower-middle-class Viennese background. Nobel, enthralled by Sofie’s beauty, offered assistance. Assuming a role akin to an avuncular patron, Nobel installed his protégée in a small but comfortable Paris apartment. Sofie was then provided with a substantial allowance intended to further her education. Although Sofie neglected her studies, Nobel fell in love. The infatuation would last fifteen years, fluctuating substantially in its intensity and warmth. At times, Nobel was jealous;fn16 at other times he was more concerned that Sofie was wasting her life with an ‘old philosopher’ like himself. Nobel’s largesse could also waver. Most often indulgent, he was also capable of railing against Sofie’s extravagant and heavily subsidised lifestyle.
Though Nobel would insist to others that his association with Sofie was platonic, the two often travelled together and, with Nobel’s collusion, Sofie would at times represent herself as Madame Nobel. Ultimately, their relationship cooled and by the late 1880s, Sofie had returned to Austria and begun openly to entertain other men. In July 1891, she had a daughter out of wedlock. She eventually married the Hungarian father, a Captain von Kapivar, in 1895. By then, Nobel had established a fixed annuity of six thousand Hungarian florins for Sofie, albeit with the following admonition:
Figure