The 1950 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the British philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) "in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought." He is the third philosopher to become a recipient of the prize after the German philosopher Rudolf Christoph Eucken in 1908 and the French analytic-continental philosopher Henri Bergson in 1927, and the fifth British author to be awarded.