Fridtjof Nansen
1861 - 1930
Fridtjof Nansen
He was born in Store Froen, in Norway, in 1861. He studied zoology and biology. In 1888 he took part to the crossing of Greenland on ski and then participated to the 3 years expedition in the Arctic sea, on the Fram, an icebreaker that he had projected and hat will demonstrate his theory on the Arctic currents and will bring new and important scientific discoveries. He became the most famous man in Norway and he was given the difficult political task of peacefully separating Norway from Sweden that formed one country at that time.
He was disgusted from the First World War and in the end of the conflict he became representative for Norway in the Nations Society. He obtained the repatriation of 400.000 Russian prisoners and gathered funds to fight the famine in the USSR.
He was proclaimed High Commissary for the refugees, created an identity certificate of international validity, called "Nansen passport", with which he assured protection to the refugees of every nationality, in particular to the 2 million Russian people escaped from the Civil War.
The Armenian people, who escaped from the genocide in Turkey in 1915 and that took shelter in Europe, will use the passport also. The Turkish government refused to give them the status of refugees and confiscated their wealthy in the country of origin in 1923.
In 1922 Nansen received the Nobel prize for Peace and devolved it to some international humanitarian organizations. From 1925 he dedicated himself to help Armenian people and went to Armenia to introduce a new system of irrigation in the Sardarabad desert.
He died in 1930 in his house in Oslo. Today this is the seat of the Nansen Foundation that was created to prosecute his scientific and humanitarian mission.
He was nominated "Righteous for Armenian people", his tomb earth was interred on the 23th of April 2003 in Yerevan, at the Museum of Genocide, in Memory Wall of Dzidzernagapert, on the "Hill of the Swifts".
