The book is a continuation of previous projects in which the centre has carried out extensive digitalisation of archive materials in Baku, Azerbaijan, Tblisi, Georgia, and Saint Petersburg.
The work is being authored by Associated Professor Bengt Jangfeldt, an expert in Russian cultural and literary history, who has previously chronicled the fate of the Nobels in Russia in Svenska vägar till S:t Petersburg (Swedish Paths to Saint Petersburg), which was awarded the 1998 August Prize in the non-fiction category.
The aim of the project is to illuminate the history of a unique industrial family, beginning with Immanuel Nobel’s journey to Russia in 1838 and continuing with the involvement of his sons, Ludvig and Robert, in mechanical workshops and the Russian oil industry. Their oil company, Branobel, became one of the largest of its time, surpassed only by the Rockefeller family’s Standard Oil. The work also touches on Alfred’s enterprises in Tsarist Russia.
The Nobel family are actively involved in the project, making private materials available to the author. The public archives of Sweden, Finland and Russia as well as extensive digitalised material are also at his disposal.
Already attracting interest worldwide, the book is set to be released during 2020.
The project’s financiers include the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation, the Foun-dation for Business Promotion Training in Russia (SAUR) och The Olle Engkvist Builder Foundation (SOEB).
For those who are interested, there are over 100,000 digitalised documents available at brothersnobel.com. The site includes a number of articles on different subjects which touch on the family’s activities in Tsarist Russia.
For questions regarding the project, contact CEO Alexander Husebye at alexander.husebye@naringslivshistoria.se
