Doctor Zhivago 1957-2007: "A Novel of the Novel…": 50 Years of Controversy
Boris Pasternak was born in Moscow on February 10, 1890, into a cultured family with strong European roots. His father, Leonid, was a painter and his mother, Rosa Kaufman, a pianist; through them young Boris made the early acquaintance of an international group of prominent writers, artists, and musicians. By 1922, he was established as a major young poet; however, during the Stalin purges of the late 1930s he ceased to publish original verse and worked as a translator, living in the literary colony at Peredelkino, outside Moscow. In the months following the "Nobel affair" (1957-1958), authorities continued to harass him quietly, even after the public denunciations stopped. His health worsened and Pasternak died on May 30, 1960. Much to the government's embarrassment, thousands attended his funeral, and his grave site became a monument to his literary achievements.
In the 20th century, few works of art have created such a firestorm as Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago (written 1946-55). Having censured Doctor Zhivago in the Soviet Union in 1956, the Soviet authorities then tried to prevent Pasternak's work from being published in the West. Despite everything, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli carried through and produced it in Italian translation in 1957. The publication of the original Russian text and numerous other translations followed immediately. The real furor started in October 1958, when Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. The Soviet literary and political press followed the announcement with a barrage of hostile reviews and resolutions. On October 26, Pravda dismissed Doctor Zhivago as "literary trash" and a "malicious lampoon of the socialist revolution". Galina Nikolaeva, a minor critic, called Pasternak's novel "spit on our Soviet people". Within the week the Moscow branch of the Writers' Union dubbed Pasternak a traitor, and Pasternak was expelled from the Writers' Union—an act of blacklisting leaving him in total isolation.
Thirty years later, in 1988, in the era of glasnost' (openness), Doctor Zhivago was published in the Soviet Union for the first time—in the pages of Novyi mir, the Soviet Union's most prestigious literary journal, and the very journal which rejected the novel in 1956. This produced another deluge of articles within the Soviet Union, both highly laudatory, as well as extremely critical of the work. And now, on the 50th anniversary of its publication, not only will the novel itself again be celebrated throughout the world, but as new archival documents are made available for the first time, the story of the novel will again evoke much debate. As Josephine Woll stated in a publication honoring that earlier anniversary, "The fact is that much of Doctor Zhivago is puzzling. ...But its defects do not outweigh the lyricism and poignancy of its descriptions, the subtlety of its ideas, its compelling moral vision. These are the rewards to be garnered from a careful reading of the novel, the kind offered by the most thoughtful critics East and West." The exhibit will run through June 2007 in Regenstein Library's Second Floor Reading Room.
-June Pachuta Farris
Bibliographer for Slavic, East
European & Eurasian Studies
Boris Pasternak was born in Moscow on February 10, 1890, into a cultured family with strong European roots. His father, Leonid, was a painter and his mother, Rosa Kaufman, a pianist; through them young Boris made the early acquaintance of an international group of prominent writers, artists, and musicians. By 1922, he was established as a major young poet; however, during the Stalin purges of the late 1930s he ceased to publish original verse and worked as a translator, living in the literary colony at Peredelkino, outside Moscow. In the months following the "Nobel affair" (1957-1958), authorities continued to harass him quietly, even after the public denunciations stopped. His health worsened and Pasternak died on May 30, 1960. Much to the government's embarrassment, thousands attended his funeral, and his grave site became a monument to his literary achievements.
In the 20th century, few works of art have created such a firestorm as Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago (written 1946-55). Having censured Doctor Zhivago in the Soviet Union in 1956, the Soviet authorities then tried to prevent Pasternak's work from being published in the West. Despite everything, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli carried through and produced it in Italian translation in 1957. The publication of the original Russian text and numerous other translations followed immediately. The real furor started in October 1958, when Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. The Soviet literary and political press followed the announcement with a barrage of hostile reviews and resolutions. On October 26, Pravda dismissed Doctor Zhivago as "literary trash" and a "malicious lampoon of the socialist revolution". Galina Nikolaeva, a minor critic, called Pasternak's novel "spit on our Soviet people". Within the week the Moscow branch of the Writers' Union dubbed Pasternak a traitor, and Pasternak was expelled from the Writers' Union—an act of blacklisting leaving him in total isolation.
Thirty years later, in 1988, in the era of glasnost' (openness), Doctor Zhivago was published in the Soviet Union for the first time—in the pages of Novyi mir, the Soviet Union's most prestigious literary journal, and the very journal which rejected the novel in 1956. This produced another deluge of articles within the Soviet Union, both highly laudatory, as well as extremely critical of the work. And now, on the 50th anniversary of its publication, not only will the novel itself again be celebrated throughout the world, but as new archival documents are made available for the first time, the story of the novel will again evoke much debate. As Josephine Woll stated in a publication honoring that earlier anniversary, "The fact is that much of Doctor Zhivago is puzzling. ...But its defects do not outweigh the lyricism and poignancy of its descriptions, the subtlety of its ideas, its compelling moral vision. These are the rewards to be garnered from a careful reading of the novel, the kind offered by the most thoughtful critics East and West." The exhibit will run through June 2007 in Regenstein Library's Second Floor Reading Room.
-June Pachuta Farris
Bibliographer for Slavic, East
European & Eurasian Studies
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