The Journey to Stockholm
The exact time at which Szent-Györgyi and his traveling companions entered Scandinavian territory remains unknown. However, Dr. Miklós Knébel shared the following with the readers of the national radio’s program listings magazine Rádióélet [Radio Life]: “We set off from Berlin in thick fog, but by the time we reached the Swedish border, it was covered in sparkling snow. The Swedish university professor who received Albert Szent-Györgyi in Malmö later remarked that it had been decades since there had been such a heavy snowfall there in early December” (Rádióélet, December 17, 1937). At the time, with no regular air service being practically available, travelers from Germany to Sweden had to undertake a rather unusual journey. Those experiencing it for the first time could not help but be amazed, especially if they were coming from distant lands. A passenger train from Berlin was loaded onto a massive ferry in Sassnitz, a port town on the island of Rügen. The ferry then made the sea crossing to Trelleborg at night. (This service has been in operation since 1909 and is now known as the Berlin Night Express.)
At first, many people would find it hard to believe that a mode of transport like this could even exist. One of those persons was Hungarian writer Frigyes Karinthy, who, just the previous year, had taken the same trip to undergo surgery by the renowned brain surgeon Herbert Olivecrona in Stockholm. In 1934, fellow Hungarian writer Dezső Kosztolányi also traveled this route to the Swedish capital for treatment at the radium hospital run by Elis Berven. Both writers gave detailed accounts of their travel experiences. “I attempt to fall asleep quickly, knowing we are due to arrive at six in the morning. The air is already quite cool. I awaken to the sensation of the train swaying beneath me. At first, I am disoriented, wondering if it might be an earthquake or if I am unwell again. With some effort, I get to my feet and open the curtains. Instead of the horizon, red iron walls loom outside the window in the lead-colored night. Wearing my robe and slippers, I wander out into the corridor. I find the bottom of the exit stairway blocked by a sheet-metal cover. Although the wheels are not turning, the train continues to sway beneath me. Eventually, I get off, take a few steps, and emerge from the tunnel into which the train had been pushed. We are on a ship, a gigantic ferry. The sky and the sea are a black blur, with only the buoys lit. Aware that the horizon always seems more expansive at night, somewhere, far away, I see a string of twinkling lights.” This is how Karinthy described the sea crossing in his novel Utazás a koponyám körül [A Journey Round My Skull], with the city lights of Copenhagen flickering in the distance. Typically, the next stop on this journey would be Malmö, reached from Trelleborg by transfer.
Following his Nobel Prize win, Szent-Györgyi had been regularly featured in Sweden’s leading newspapers, so it was no surprise that the press also covered his visit. The scientist’s name was doubtless already familiar to the Swedish public, as his 1933 lecture tour across Europe had included stops in Sweden, where he gave presentations on the identification of vitamin C to enthusiastic audiences in Stockholm, Uppsala, and Lund.
Szent-Györgyi and his companions arrived in the capital in the afternoon of December 8. They were met at the station by staff from the Hungarian embassy and members of the Hungarian community in Stockholm. In the top picture on the right, Hungarian Consul Frithjof Trulsson is seen holding a copy of the capital’s daily newspaper, the Stockholms-Tidning, under his left arm. Standing in the doorway of the passenger car are Szent-Györgyi’s wife and daughter.
The group was welcomed on behalf of the Nobel Committee by Professor Hans von Euler-Chelpin, the 1929 Nobel laureate in Chemistry and a close friend of Szent-Györgyi (pictured on the right in the center photo).
“In Stockholm, it was so bitterly cold that we nearly froze. The Swedish railway conductors, with their fur-lined caps adorned with badges, looked much like Cossack hetmans. Hundreds of magnesium lights flashed in quick succession as photographers besieged Professor Szent-Györgyi. It wasn’t even four o’clock, but the night was already pitch black,” wrote Knébel (as quoted in Rádióélet on December 17, 1937). Szent-Györgyi’s wife had a similar take on the weather: “My daughter attracted curious stares everywhere because, despite the minus 20 °C cold, she walked around without a hat, which apparently aligned with the latest fashion in Cambridge. As for me, I nearly froze to death.” (Quoted in the weekly Délibáb on January 23, 1938.)
Szent-Györgyi and his companions stayed at the Carlton Hotel on Kungsgatan [The King’s Street], Stockholm’s modern main street with an American flair. As early as November 11, Szent-Györgyi received a letter from the Hungarian embassy in Stockholm. It said, among other things, that the Hungarian community and the Swedish friends of Hungary were eagerly anticipating his arrival, and that Nils Trulsson, Vice President of the Swedish-Hungarian Society – also the manager of the Carlton in Stockholm – was offering a suite to the Szent-Györgyi family. “The Carlton Hotel is definitely a first class, modern place, where our diplomats usually stay,” the letter read (http://misc.bibl.u-szeged.hu/47868/; last accessed: September 10, 2021). The family accepted the offer. The website of the Nobel Prize Organization features a short video footage showing Szent-Györgyi and his wife checking into the hotel (https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1937/szent-gyorgyi/documentary/; last accessed: September 10, 2021).
The far right of the photo shows the Konserthuset Stockholm (the Stockholm Concert Hall). Located at one of the corners of Kungsgatan, the concert hall serves as the traditional venue for Nobel Prize award ceremonies held each year on December 10.
Szent-Györgyi was already familiar with the concert hall: in the summer of 1926, he traveled from Groningen to Stockholm for the opening session of the 12th International Congress of Physiology, which was also held there. During the event, Szent-Györgyi unexpectedly heard his name mentioned several times by Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, who was giving a plenary lecture on “The Mechanism of Biological Oxidation”. Hopkins was a professor of biochemistry at Cambridge and a Nobel laureate himself, having received the prize in 1929. At the congress, Szent-Györgyi became acquainted with Hopkins, upon whose invitation he moved to Cambridge, where he was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship in January 1927.
As early as the day of their arrival, the Szent-Györgyi family viewed the exterior of the Konserthuset, which then loomed gloomily before them, almost blending into the afternoon darkness with its blue-painted walls. However, on the day of the ceremony, the guests, arriving in luxury cars and dressed in evening gowns and tailcoats, were greeted by a brilliantly illuminated building, reminiscent of the splendor of a Greek temple. The “reddish glow of a hundred and one naphtha lights” also enveloped the monumental Orpheus fountain standing in front of the Konserthuset. Created by the world-famous Swedish sculptor Carl Milles, the fountain had been completed just the previous year. This photo was taken during the 2016 Nobel Prize Award Ceremony.