Doctor Zhivago

Doctor Zhivago ( ?????? ?????? ) is a novel by Boris Pasternak, which was also adapted by Robert Bolt into a 1965 epic film. The novel is named after its protagonist, Yuri Zhivago, a medical doctor and poet. It tells the story of a man torn between two women, set against the backdrop of the 1917 Russian Revolution.

The novel

Although it contains passages written in the 1910s and 1920s, Doctor Zhivago was not completed until 1956. It was submitted for publication to the journal Novyi mir, but was rejected due to Pasternak's difficult relationship with the Soviet government. In 1957 publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli smuggled the manuscript out of Russia and published the book in Russian in Milan. The following year, it appeared in Italian and English translations, and these publications were partly responsible for the fact that the author was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958. The book was finally published back in Russia in 1988, ironically in the pages of Novyi mir, although earlier Samizdat editions also exist.

Related Topics:
1910s - 1920s - 1956 - 1957 - Russian - Milan - Italian - English - Nobel Prize for Literature - 1958 - 1988 - Samizdat

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Zhivago is sensitive and poetic nearly to the point of mysticism. He is distracted by the beauty of ice crystals on a window pane. In medical school, one of his professors reminds him that bacteria may be beautiful under the microscope, but do ugly things to people. Yuri Zhivago's idealism and principles stand in brutal contrast to the horrors of the Russian Revolution. A large theme of the book is how the mysticism of things and idealism is destroyed by both the Bolsheviks and the white army. Yuri must witness cannibalism, dismemberment, and a young man shot dead for wanting to see his family. Even the love of his life, Lara (sometimes called Larissa), is taken from him. He ponders on how the war can turn the whole world senseless, and make a previously reasonable group of people destroy each other in with no regard for life. His journey through Russia has an epic feeling because of his traveling through a world which has such large contrast with himself, who was relatively uncorrupted by the violence, and his desire to find a place away from it all, which drives him across the arctic Siberia of Russia, and eventually back down to Moscow.

Related Topics:
Mysticism - Russian Revolution - Bolsheviks - White army - Moscow

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Pasternak's description of the singer Kubarikha in the chapter 'Iced Rownberries' is virtually identical to how Sofia Satina (sister-in-law/cousin of Sergei Rachmaninoff) described Gypsy singer Nadezhda Plevitskaya (1884-1940). Since Rachmaninoff was a friend of the Pasternak family, and Plevitskaya a friend of Rachmaninoff, Plevitskaya was probably Pasternak's 'mind image' when he wrote the chapter; something which also shows how Pasternak had roots in music.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~