The French author Romain Rolland (1866-1944), son of middle-class Protestant parents, receives the Nobel Prize for literature in 1915.

After studying philosophy and history in Paris and Rome he teaches history of art and music in Paris from 1891 to 1912. Then he devotes himself full-time to his writing, living in Switzerland from 1914 to 1937. In the 1920s he studies Indian religion and philosophy and is committed to socialist developments in the Soviet Union.

Rolland sees his own writing as dedicated to a humanistic view of mankind in the Enlightenment tradition, and many of his works champion international understanding and pacifism. He denounces the widespread war hysteria at the beginning of the World War I, and is later active in the struggle against fascism.

Einstein starts corresponding with Rolland in March 1915 in order to support his pacifist efforts, and meets him for the first time in September of that year in Switzerland.