In 1940, when Finland became the target of a massive
Soviet attack during the
Winter War, Granit sought refuge – and peaceful surroundings for his studies and research work – in
Stockholm, the capital of neighbouring
Sweden, at the age of 40. In 1941, Granit received
Swedish citizenship, which made it possible for him to live and continue with his work without having to worry about the
Continuation War, which lasted in Finland until 1944. Granit was proud of his
Finnish-Swedish roots and remained a patriotic Finnish-Swede throughout his life, maintaining homes in both in Finland and Sweden after the
Moscow Armistice ended the Continuation War and secured Finnish independence.
Granit died on 12 March 1991 in Stockholm at the age of 90. Granit and his wife Marguerite, who died the same year, were buried in a church cemetery on the Finnish island of
Korpo.[citation needed]
^Ragnar Granit in the National Biography of Finland: "There have since been occasional arguments about how many of the observations that led to the Nobel Prize were made only after Granit arrived in Sweden and about whether he is 'a Finnish or a Swedish Nobel laureate'. Granit commented diplomatically on the matter by saying "fifty-fifty". When he received his Nobel Prize, Granit was indeed a Swede by citizenship; but a significant amount of his experimental work had been done in Oxford and Helsinki, and even in Stockholm his colleagues were still mostly Finns."