1921

Hjalmar Branting

Christian Lange

for their lifelong contributions to the cause of peace and organized internationalism

Hjalmar Branting (1860 - 1925)

Sweden

With the Labor Movement for Peace

In 1921, Sweden's Prime Minister Hjalmar Branting shared the Peace Prize with the Norwegian secretary-general of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Christian Lange. They were both staunch supporters of the new League of Nations and of international cooperation. In 1905 Branting had moreover pleaded Norway's cause to conservative Swedes who wanted to keep Norway in its union with Sweden by force. Branting had an upper-middle-class Stockholm background. As a student he became politically radical. He became a journalist, and in 1889 helped to found Sweden's Social Democratic party. Branting became a leading figure in the struggle for equal rights and social justice in Sweden, a struggle to be conducted by peaceful means, not revolution. In 1920 Branting became Prime Minister, and at the same time a delegate to the new League of Nations in Geneva. He accepted the League resolution that the Åland Islands in the Baltic should fall to Finland rather than Sweden. In 1922 Branting became a member of the Council of the League of Nations and arbitrated in many international disputes.

Christian Lange (1869 - 1938)

Norway

Champion of Internationalism

In 1921, the Norwegian Christian Lange shared the Peace Prize with the Swede Hjalmar Branting. They both wanted to strengthen the new world organization the League of Nations. Lange qualified as a high school teacher. Owing to his knowledge of history and skills in English and French, he was appointed secretary and advisor to the Norwegian Nobel Committee. He helped establishing the Nobel Institute in Oslo, and was also active on the Norwegian side when the union between Norway and Sweden was peacefully dissolved in 1905. In 1909, Lange became secretary-general of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. He built up the organization and managed to hold it together during World War I. In 1919 Lange got a doctorate on the history of internationalism, and was called in as an expert to the first meeting of the League of Nations in 1920. Later he was for many years a Norwegian delegate to the League, where he warned against the failure of the democratic great powers to stand up firmly to the aggressive policies of Japan, Italy and Germany. Lange became a member of the Nobel Committee in 1934.