Nobel Prize Commemoration in Riga: Media Echo and Objects

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to investigate the discourses around the Nobel Prize, and it aims at deciphering the commemoration of the award in Riga. The public image of the Nobel Prize in Riga has previously been commented on in a few papers, but has never been studied at length. The first part of the current study contextualises several Nobel links from the city, universities and state printed media, as well as more hidden tracks from the Nobel Prize nominations’ archive. The second part highlights Ilya Mechnikov (Elie Metchnikoff’s, Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine in 1908) collection in Pauls Stradins Museum of the History of Medicine, including a detailed description of his Nobel medal and his ambivalent feelings about this award.