Russian Culture Monday: Boris Pasternak

Monday February 9, 2009

Tomorrow, February 10th, marks the birthday of Russian poet and novelist Boris Pasternak in 1890, who is most famous, at least to English-speaking audiences, for the book Doctor Zhivago. Doctor Zhivago earned Pasternak the Nobel Prize for literature in 1958. Unfortunately, because the book made revelations about the 1917 Revolution, Pasternak was forced to decline the Nobel Prize due to the Soviet authority's disapproval of its premise.

The series of events that lead to the publication of Doctor Zhivago are somewhat mysterious. The text of the novel was smuggled out of the country by a foreign friend and subsequently published in Italy. There have been some claims that the CIA had a hand in publishing the novel in Russian, purportedly motivated by how the nature of the text would affect its audience. (Read about these claims at RIA Novosti and the Washington Post.) Skeptics either doubt this connection or fail to see how it aided Pasternak in winning the Nobel Prize.

In Russia, Pasternak is famous for his poetry, an integral part of the story of Doctor Zhivago, whose main character was also a poet. Hollywood's adaptation of the novel in 1965 centered on the romantic twists of the plot. Pasternak died in 1960, and his novel has fallen in and out of favor in Russia as the country struggles with its ability to adequately deal with its Soviet past. Pasternak's house on the outskirts of Moscow has been turned into a museum.