Dr Zhivago Book Pdf

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Doctor Zhivago
AuthorBoris Pasternak
Original titleДоктор Живаго
CountryItaly
LanguageRussian
GenreHistorical, Romantic novel
PublisherFeltrinelli (first edition), Pantheon Books
Publication date
1957
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages592 (Pantheon)
ISBN0-679-77438-6 (Pantheon)

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  1. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak is quite remarkably a poet's novel: the writer was a poet, and hence each page is full of beautiful imagery, metaphors and word play. The protagonist is a poet.
  2. An epic novel following a Russian doctor through the upheavals of the Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War that followed and his love for a young woman who becomes involved with a group of Bolshevik students.
  3. 'Doctor Zhivago' is the story of the life and loves of a poet/physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Here is a masterful chronicle of its outbreak and the consequences; army revolts, irrational killings, starvation, epidemics, Communist Party inquisitions.

Doctor Zhivago (/ʒɪˈvɑːɡ/zhiv-AH-goh;[1]Russian: До́ктор Жива́го, IPA: [ˈdoktər ʐɨˈvaɡə]) is a novel by Boris Pasternak, first published in 1957 in Italy. The novel is named after its protagonist, Yuri Zhivago, a physician and poet, and takes place between the Russian Revolution of 1905 and World War II.

Due to the author's independent-minded stance on the October Revolution, Doctor Zhivago was refused publication in the USSR. At the instigation of Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, the manuscript was smuggled to Milan and published in 1957. Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature the following year, an event which embarrassed and enraged the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.[2]

The novel was made into a film by David Lean in 1965, and since then has twice been adapted for television, most recently as a miniseries for Russian TV in 2006.[3] The novel Doctor Zhivago has been part of the Russian school curriculum since 2003, where it is read in 11th grade.[4]

  • 1Plot summary
  • 3Themes
  • 6Adaptations

Plot summary[edit]

Diagram of selected relationships in Doctor Zhivago

The plot of Doctor Zhivago is long and intricate. It can be difficult to follow for two main reasons: first, Pasternak employs many characters, who interact with each other throughout the book in unpredictable ways, and second, he frequently introduces a character by one of his/her three names, then subsequently refers to that character by another of the three names or a nickname, without expressly stating that he is referring to the same character. To avoid this confusion, the summary below uses a character's full name when the character is first introduced.

Part 1[edit]

Imperial Russia, 1902.[5] The novel opens during a Russian Orthodox funeral liturgy, or panikhida, for Yuri's mother, Marya Nikolaevna Zhivago. Having long ago been abandoned by his father, Yuri is taken in by his maternal uncle, Nikolai Nikolaevich Vedenyapin, a philosopher and former Orthodox priest who now works for the publisher of a progressive newspaper in a provincial capital on the Volga River. Yuri's father, Andrei Zhivago, was once a wealthy member of Moscow's merchant gentry, but has squandered the family's fortune in Siberia through debauchery and carousing.

The next summer, Yuri (who is 11 years old) and Nikolai Nikolaevich travel to Duplyanka, the estate of Lavrenty Mikhailovich Kologrivov, a wealthy silk merchant. They are there not to visit Kologrivov, who is abroad with his wife, but to visit a mutual friend, Ivan Ivanovich Voskoboinikov, an intellectual who lives in the steward's cottage.[6] Kologrivov's daughters, Nadya (who is 15 years old) and Lipa (who is younger), are also living at the estate with a governess and servants. Innokenty (Nika) Dudorov, a 13-year-old boy who is the son of a convicted terrorist has been placed with Ivan Ivanovich by his mother and lives with him in the cottage. As Nikolai Nikolavich and Ivan Ivanovich are strolling in the garden and discussing philosophy, they notice that a train passing in the distance has come to a stop in an unexpected place, indicating that something is wrong. On the train, an 11-year-old boy named Misha Grigorievich Gordon is traveling with his father. They have been on the train for three days. During that time, a kind man had given Misha small gifts and had talked for hours with his father, Grigory Osipovich Gordon. However, encouraged by his attorney, who was traveling with him, the man had become drunk. Eventually, the man had rushed to the vestibule of the moving train car, pushed aside the boy's father, opened the door and thrown himself out, killing himself. Misha's father had then pulled the emergency brake, bringing the train to a halt. The passengers disembark and view the corpse while the police are called. The deceased's lawyer stands near the body and blames the suicide on alcoholism.

Part 2[edit]

During the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), Amalia Karlovna Guichard arrives in Moscow from the Urals with her two children: Rodion (Rodya) and Larissa (Lara). Mme. Guichard's late husband was a Belgian who had been working as an engineer for the railroad and had been friends with Victor Ippolitovich Komarovsky, a lawyer and 'cold-blooded businessman.' Komarovsky sets them up in rooms at the seedy Montenegro hotel, enrolls Rodion in the Cadet Corps and enrolls Lara in a girls' high school. The girls' school is the same school that Nadya Kologrivov attends. On Komarovsky's advice, Amalia invests in a small dress shop. Amalia and her children live at the Montenegro for about a month before moving into the apartment over the dress shop. Despite an ongoing affair with Amalia, Komarovsky begins to groom Lara behind her mother's back.

In early October, the workers of the Moscow-Brest railroad line go on strike. The foreman of the station is Pavel Ferapontovich Antipov. His friend Kiprian Savelyevich Tiverzin is called into one of the railroad workshops and stops a workman from beating his apprentice (whose name is Osip (Yusupka) Gimazetdinovich Galiullin). The police arrest Pavel Ferapontovich for his role in the strike. Pavel Ferapontovich's boy, Patulya (or Pasha or Pashka) Pavlovich Antipov, comes to live with Tiverzin and his mother. Tiverzin's mother and Patulya attend a demonstration which is attacked by dragoons, but they survive and return home. As the protestors flee the dragoons, Nikolai Nikolaevich (Yuri's uncle) is standing inside a Moscow apartment, at the window, watching the people flee. Some time ago, he moved from the Volga region to Petersburg, and at the same time moved Yuri to Moscow to live at the Gromeko household. Nikolai Nikolaevich had then come to Moscow from Petersburg earlier in the Fall, and is staying with the Sventitskys, who were distant relations. The Gromeko household consists of Alexander Alexandrovich Gromeko, his wife Anna Ivanovna, and his bachelor brother Nikolai Alexandrovich. Anna is the daughter of a wealthy steel magnate, now deceased, from the Yuriatin region in the Urals. They have a daughter Tonya.

In January 1906, the Gromekos host a chamber music recital at their home one night. One of the performers is a cellist who is a friend of Amalia's, and her next-door neighbor at the Montenegro.[7] Midway through the performance, the cellist is recalled to the Montenegro because, he is told, someone there is dying. Alexander Alexandrovich, Yuri and Misha come along with the cellist. At the Montenegro, the boys stand in a public corridor outside one of the rooms,[8] embarrassed, while Amalia, who has taken poison, is treated with an emetic. Eventually they are shooed into the room by the boarding house employees who are using the corridor. The boys are assured that Amalia is out of danger and, once inside the room, see her, half-naked and sweaty, talking with the cellist; she tells him that she had 'suspicions' but 'fortunately it all turned out to be foolishness.' The boys then notice, in a dark part of the room, a girl (it is Lara) asleep on a chair. Unexpectedly, Komarovsky emerges from behind a curtain and brings a lamp to the table next to Lara's chair. The light wakes her up and she, unaware that Yuri and Misha are watching, shares a private moment with Komarovsky, 'as if he were a puppeteer and she a puppet, obedient to the movements of his hand.' They exchange conspiratorial glances, pleased that their secret was not discovered and that Amalia did not die. This is the first time Yuri sees Lara, and he is fascinated by the scene. Misha then whispers to Yuri that the man he is watching is the same one who got his father drunk on the train shortly before his father's suicide.

Part 3[edit]

In November 1911, Anna Ivanovna Gromeko becomes seriously ill with pneumonia. At this time, Yuri, Misha, and Tonya are studying to be a doctor, philosopher, and lawyer respectively. Yuri learns that his father had a child, a boy named Evgraf, by Princess Stolbunova-Enrizzi.

The narrative returns to the Spring of 1906. Lara is increasingly tormented by Komarovsky’s control over her, which has now been going on for six months. In order to get away from him, she asks her classmate and friend Nadya Laurentovna Kologrivov to help her find work as a tutor. Nadya says she can work for Nadya's own family because her parents happen to be looking for a tutor for her sister Lipa. Lara spends more than three years working as a governess for the Kologrivovs. Lara admires the Kologrivovs, and they love her as if she were their own child. In her fourth year with the Kologrivovs, Lara is visited by her brother Rodya. He needs 700 rubles to cover a debt. Lara says she will try to get the money, and in exchange demands Rodya's cadet revolver along with some cartridges. She obtains the money from Kologrivov. She does not pay the money back, because she uses her wages to help support her boyfriend Pasha Antipov (see above) and his father (who lives in exile), without Pasha's knowledge.

We move forward to 1911. Lara visits the Kologrivovs' country estate with them for the last time. She is becoming discontented with her situation, but she enjoys the pastimes of the estate anyway, and she becomes an excellent shot with Rodya's revolver. When she and the family return to Moscow, her discontent grows. Around Christmastime, she resolves to part from the Kologrivovs, and to ask Komarovsky for the money necessary to do that. She plans to kill him with Rodya's revolver should he refuse her. On 27 December, the date of the Sventitsky's Christmas party, she goes to Komarovsky's home but is informed that he is at a Christmas party. She gets the address of the party and starts toward it, but relents and pays Pasha a visit instead. She tells him that they should get married right away, and he agrees. At the same moment that Lara and Pasha are having this discussion, Yuri and Tonya are passing by Pasha's apartment in the street, on their way to the Sventitskys. They arrive at the party and enjoy the festivities. Later, Lara arrives at the party. She knows no one there other than Komarovsky, and is not dressed for a ball. She tries to get Komarovsky to notice her, but he is playing cards and either does not notice her or pretends not to. Through some quick inferences, she realizes that one of the men playing cards with Komarovsky is Kornakov, a prosecutor of the Moscow court. He prosecuted a group of railway workers that included Kiprian Tiverzin, Pasha's foster father.[9] Later, while Yuri and Tonya are dancing, a shot rings out. There is a great commotion and it is discovered that Lara has shot Kornakov (not Komarovsky) and Kornakov has received only a minor wound. Lara has fainted and is being dragged by some guests to a chair; Yuri recognizes her with amazement. Yuri goes to render medical attention to Lara, but then changes course to Kornakov because he is the nominal victim. He pronounces Kornakov's wound to be 'a trifle', and is about to tend to Lara when Mrs. Sventitsky and Tonya urgently tell him that he must return home because something had gone wrong with Anna Ivanovna. When Yuri and Tonya return home, they find that Anna Ivanovna has died.

Part 4[edit]

Komarovsky uses his political connections to shield Lara from prosecution. Lara and Pasha marry, graduate from university, and depart by train for Yuriatin.

The narrative moves to the second autumn of the First World War. Yuri has married Tonya and is working as a doctor at a hospital in Moscow. Tonya gives birth to their first child, a son. Back in Yuriatin, the Antipovs also have their first child, a girl named Katenka. Although he loves Lara deeply, Pasha feels increasingly stifled by her love for him. In order to escape, he volunteers for the Imperial Russian Army. Lara starts to work as a teacher in Yuriatin. Some time later, she leaves Yuriatin and goes to a town in Galicia, to look for Pasha. The town happens to be where Yuri is now working as a military doctor. Elsewhere, Lt. Antipov is taken prisoner by the Austro-Hungarian Army, but is erroneously declared missing in action. Wounded by artillery fire, Yuri is sent to a battlefield hospital in the town of Meliuzeevo, where Lara is his nurse. Galiullin (the apprentice who was beaten in Part 2) is also in Lara's ward, recovering from injuries. He is now a lieutenant in Pasha's unit; he informs Lara that Pasha is alive, but she doubts him. Lara gets to know Yuri better but is not impressed with him. At the very end of this Part, it is announced in the hospital that there has been a revolution.

Part 5[edit]

After his recovery, Zhivago stays on at the hospital as a physician. This puts him at close quarters with Lara. They are both (along with Galiullin) trying to get permission to leave and return to their homes.

In Meliuzeevo, a newly arrived commissar for the Provisional Government, whose name is Gintz, is informed that a local military unit has deserted and is camped in a nearby cleared forest. Gintz decides to accompany a troop of Cossacks who have been summoned to surround and disarm the deserters. He believes he can appeal to the deserters' pride as 'soldiers in the world's first revolutionary army.' A train of mounted Cossacks arrives and the Cossacks quickly surround the deserters. Gintz enters the circle of horsemen and makes a speech to the deserters. His speech backfires so badly that the Cossacks who are there to support him gradually sheath their sabres, dismount and start to fraternize with the deserters. The Cossack officers advise Gintz to flee; he does; but he is pursued by the deserters and brutally murdered by them at the railroad station.

Shortly before he leaves, Yuri says goodbye to Lara. He starts by expressing his excitement over the fact that 'the roof over the whole of Russia has been torn off, and we and all the people find ourselves under the open sky' with true freedom for the first time. Despite himself, he then starts to clumsily tell Lara that he has feelings for her. Lara stops him and they part. A week later, they leave by different trains, she to Yuriatin and he to Moscow. On the train to Moscow, Yuri reflects on how different the world has become, and on his 'honest trying with all his might not to love [Lara].'

Parts 6 to 9[edit]

Following the October Revolution and the subsequent Russian Civil War, Yuri and his family decide to flee by train to Tonya's family's former estate (called Varykino), located near the town of Yuriatin in the Ural Mountains. During the journey, he has an encounter with Army Commissar Strelnikov ('The Executioner'), a fearsome commander who summarily executes both captured Whites and many civilians. Yuri and his family settle in an abandoned house on the estate. Over the winter, they read books to each other and Yuri writes poetry and journal entries. Spring comes and the family prepares for farm work. Yuri visits Yuriatin to use the public library, and during one of these visits sees Lara at the library. He decides to talk with her, but finishes up some work first, and when he looks up she is gone. He gets her home address from a request slip she had given the librarian. On another visit to town, he visits her at her apartment (which she shares with her daughter). She informs him that Strelnikov is indeed Pasha, her husband. During one of Yuri's subsequent visits to Yuriatin they consummate their relationship. They meet at her apartment regularly for more than two months, but then Yuri, while returning from one of their trysts to his house on the estate, is abducted by men loyal to Liberius, commander of the 'Forest Brotherhood', the Bolshevik guerrilla band.

Parts 10 to 13[edit]

Liberius is a dedicated Old Bolshevik and highly effective leader of his men. However, Liberius is also a cocaine addict, loud-mouthed and narcissistic. He repeatedly bores Yuri with his long-winded lectures about the glories of socialism and the inevitability of its victory. Yuri spends more than two years with Liberius and his partisans, then finally manages to escape. After a grueling journey back to Yuriatin, made largely on foot, Yuri goes into town to see Lara first, rather than to Varykino to see his family. In town, he learns that his wife, children, and father-in-law fled the estate and returned to Moscow. From Lara, he learns that Tonya delivered a daughter after he left. Lara assisted at the birth and she and Tonya became close friends. Yuri gets a job and stays with Lara and her daughter for a few months. Eventually, a townsperson delivers a letter to Yuri from Tonya, which Tonya wrote five months before and which has passed through innumerable hands to reach Yuri. In the letter, Tonya informs him that she, the children, and her father are being deported, probably to Paris. She says 'The whole trouble is that I love you and you do not love me,' and 'We will never, ever see each other again.' When Yuri finishes reading the letter, he has chest pains and faints.

Part 14[edit]

Komarovsky reappears. Having used his influence within the CPSU, Komarovsky has been appointed Minister of Justice of the Far Eastern Republic, a Soviet puppet state in Siberia. He offers to smuggle Yuri and Lara outside Soviet soil. They initially refuse, but Komarovsky states, falsely, that Pasha Antipov is dead, having fallen from favor with the Party. Stating that this will place Lara in the Cheka's crosshairs, he persuades Yuri that it is in her best interests to leave for the East. Yuri convinces Lara to go with Komarovsky, telling her that he will follow her shortly. Meanwhile, the hunted General Strelnikov (Pasha) returns for Lara. Lara, however, has already left with Komarovsky. After expressing regret over the pain he has caused his country and loved ones, Pasha commits suicide. Yuri finds his body the following morning.

Part 15[edit]

After returning to Moscow, Zhivago's health declines; he marries another woman and fathers two children with her. He also plans numerous writing projects which he never finishes. Yuri leaves his new family and his friends to live alone in Moscow and work on his writing. However, after living on his own for a short time, he dies of a heart attack while riding the tram. Meanwhile, Lara returns to Russia to learn of her dead husband and ends up attending Yuri Zhivago's funeral. She persuades Yuri's half-brother, who is now NKVD General Yevgraf Zhivago, to assist her in her search for a daughter that she had conceived with Yuri, but had abandoned in the Urals. Ultimately, however, Lara is arrested during Joseph Stalin's Great Purge and dies in the Gulag.

Epilogue[edit]

During World War II, Zhivago's old friends Nika Dudorov and Misha Gordon meet up. One of their discussions revolves around a local laundress named Tanya, a bezprizornaya, or war orphan, and her resemblance to both Yuri and Lara. Tanya tells both men of the difficult childhood she has had due to her mother abandoning her in order to marry Komarovsky. Much later, the two men meet over the first edition of Yuri Zhivago's poems.

Background[edit]

First Italian edition cover

Although it contains passages written in the 1910s and 1920s, Doctor Zhivago was not completed until 1956. The novel was submitted to the literary journal Novy Mir ('Новый Мир'). However, the editors rejected Pasternak's novel because of its implicit rejection of socialist realism.[10] The author, like Zhivago, showed more concern for the welfare of individuals than for the welfare of society. Soviet censors construed some passages as anti-Soviet.[citation needed] They also objected to Pasternak's subtle criticisms of Stalinism, Collectivization, the Great Purge, and the Gulag.[citation needed]

Copy of the original Russian-language edition of Doctor Zhivago, covertly published by the CIA. The front cover and the binding identify the book in Russian; the back of the book states that it was printed in France.

Pasternak sent several copies of the manuscript in Russian to friends in the West.[11]In 1957, Italian publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli arranged for the novel to be smuggled out of the Soviet Union by Sergio D'Angelo.[12] Upon handing his manuscript over, Pasternak quipped, 'You are hereby invited to watch me face the firing squad.'[citation needed] Despite desperate efforts by the Union of Soviet Writers to prevent its publication, Feltrinelli published an Italian translation of the book in November 1957.[13] So great was the demand for Doctor Zhivago that Feltrinelli was able to license translation rights into eighteen different languages well in advance of the novel's publication. The Communist Party of Italy expelled Feltrinelli from their membership in retaliation for his role in the publication of a novel they felt was critical of communism.[14]

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency quickly realized that the novel presented an opportunity to embarrass the Soviet government. An internal memo lauded the book's 'great propaganda value': not only did the text have a central humanist message, but the Soviet government's having suppressed a great work of literature could make ordinary citizens 'wonder what is wrong with their government'. The CIA set out to publish a Russian-language edition and arranged for it to be distributed at the Vatican pavilion at the 1958 Brussels world's fair.[15]

Soon English and French translations were also printed. A small run of 1000 copies of an adulterated Russian-language version which included typos and truncated story lines was printed by Mouton, a publisher in the Netherlands, in August 1958, before Feltrinelli came out with their own Russian version.[16][17]

Author Ivan Tolstoi claims that the CIA lent a hand to ensure that Doctor Zhivago was submitted to the Nobel Committee in its original language, in order for Pasternak to win the Nobel prize and further harm the international credibility of the Soviet Union. He repeats and adds additional details to Fetrinelli's claims that CIA operatives intercepted and photographed a manuscript of the novel and secretly printed a small number of books in the Russian language.[11][17][18] Recently released CIA documents do not show that the agency's efforts in publishing a Russian-language edition were intended to help Pasternak win the Nobel, however.[15]

More recently, Anna Sergeyeva-Klyatis wrote that following the publication of Lazar Fleishman’s book Russian Emigration Discovers 'Doctor Zhivago', the only possible conclusion is that the pirated edition of Doctor Zhivago was initiated by one of the biggest émigré organizations in Europe: the Central Association of Postwar Émigrées. While CAPE was known to engage in anti-Soviet activities, the printing of this edition was not an imposition of its own political will but rather a response to the spiritual demands of the Russian emigration that was greatly stirred by the release of Pasternak's novel in Italian without an original Russian edition.[16][19]

In 1958 Pasternak wrote to Renate Schweitzer,

Some people believe the Nobel Prize may be awarded to me this year. I am firmly convinced that I shall be passed over and that it will go to Alberto Moravia. You cannot imagine all the difficulties, torments, and anxieties which arise to confront me at the mere prospect, however unlikely, of such a possibility.. One step out of place—and the people closest to you will be condemned to suffer from all the jealousy, resentment, wounded pride and disappointment of others, and old scars on the heart will be reopened..[20]

On 23 October 1958, Boris Pasternak was announced as the winner of the 1958 Nobel Prize for Literature. The citation credited Pasternak's contribution to Russian lyric poetry and for his role in, 'continuing the great Russian epic tradition'. On 25 October, Pasternak sent a telegram to the Swedish Academy:

Infinitely grateful, touched, proud, surprised, overwhelmed.[21]

On 26 October, the Literary Gazette ran an article by David Zaslavski entitled, 'ReactionaryPropaganda Uproar over a Literary Weed'.[22]

Acting on direct orders from the Politburo, the KGB surrounded Pasternak's dacha in Peredelkino.[citation needed] Pasternak was not only threatened with arrest, but the KGB also vowed to send his mistress Olga Ivinskaya back to the gulag, where she had been imprisoned under Stalin. It was further hinted that, if Pasternak traveled to Stockholm to collect his Nobel Medal, he would be refused re-entry to the Soviet Union.[citation needed]

As a result, Pasternak sent a second telegram to the Nobel Committee:

In view of the meaning given the award by the society in which I live, I must renounce this undeserved distinction which has been conferred on me. Please do not take my voluntary renunciation amiss.[23]

The Swedish Academy announced:

This refusal, of course, in no way alters the validity of the award. There remains only for the Academy, however, to announce with regret that the presentation of the Prize cannot take place.[24]

Despite his decision to decline the award, the Soviet Union of Writers continued to denounce Pasternak in the Soviet press. Furthermore, he was threatened at the very least with formal exile to the West. In response, Pasternak wrote directly to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, 'Leaving the motherland will equal death for me. I am tied to Russia by birth, by life and work.'[25][26] After being ousted from power in 1964, Khrushchev read the novel and felt great regret for having banned the book at all.

As a result of this and the intercession of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Pasternak was not expelled from his homeland.[citation needed]

Ultimately, Bill Mauldin produced a political cartoon lampooning the Soviet State's campaign against Boris Pasternak. The cartoon depicts Pasternak and another convict splitting trees in the snow. In the caption, Pasternak says, 'I won the Nobel Prize for literature. What was your crime?' The cartoon won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1959.[27]

Pasternak died of lung cancer in his dacha in Peredelkino on the evening of 30 May 1960. He first summoned his sons, and in their presence said, 'Who will suffer most because of my death? Who will suffer most? Only Oliusha will, and I haven't had time to do anything for her. The worst thing is that she will suffer.'[28] Pasternak's last words were, 'I can't hear very well. And there's a mist in front of my eyes. But it will go away, won't it? Don't forget to open the window tomorrow.'[28]

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Shortly before his death, a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church had given Pasternak the last rites. Later, in the strictest secrecy, an Orthodox funeral liturgy, or Panikhida, was offered in the family's dacha.

Despite only a small notice appearing in the Literary Gazette,[28] handwritten notices carrying the date and time of the funeral were posted throughout the Moscow subway system.[28] As a result, thousands of admirers traveled from Moscow to Pasternak's civil funeral in Peredelkino. According to Jon Stallworthy, 'Volunteers carried his open coffin to his burial place and those who were present (including the poet Andrey Voznesensky) recited from memory the banned poem 'Hamlet'.'[26]

One of the dissident speakers at the graveside service said, 'God marks the path of the elect with thorns, and Pasternak was picked out and marked by God. He believed in eternity and he will belong to it.. We excommunicated Tolstoy, we disowned Dostoyevsky, and now we disown Pasternak. Everything that brings us glory we try to banish to the West.. But we cannot allow this. We love Pasternak and we revere him as a poet.. Glory to Pasternak!'[29]

Until the 1980s, Pasternak's poetry was only published in heavily censored form. Furthermore, his reputation continued to be pilloried in State propaganda until Mikhail Gorbachev proclaimed perestroika.

In 1988, after decades of circulating in samizdat, Doctor Zhivago was finally serialized in the pages of Novy Mir, which had changed to a more anti-communist position than in Pasternak's lifetime. The following year, Yevgeny Borisovich Pasternak was at last permitted to travel to Stockholm to collect his father's Nobel Medal. At the ceremony, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich performed a Bach composition in honor of his fellow Soviet dissident.

The novel has been part of the Russian school curriculum since 2003, where it is taught in 11th grade.[4]

Themes[edit]

Loneliness[edit]

In the shadow of all this grand political change we see that everything is governed by the basic human longing for companionship. Zhivago and Pasha, in love with the same woman, both traverse Russia in these volatile times in search of such stability. They are both involved on nearly every level of the tumultuous times that Russia faced in the first half of the 20th century, yet the common theme and the motivating force behind all their movement is a want of a steady home life. When we first meet Zhivago he is being torn away from everything he knows. He is sobbing and standing on the grave of his mother. We bear witness to the moment all stability is destroyed in his life and the rest of the novel is his attempts to recreate the security stolen from him at such a young age. After the loss of his mother, Zhivago develops a longing for what Freud called the 'maternal object' (feminine love and affection), in his later romantic relationships with women.[30] His first marriage, to Tonya, is not one born of passion but from friendship. In a way, Tonya takes on the role of the mother-figure that Zhivago always sought but lacked. This, however, was not a romantic tie; while he feels loyal to her throughout his life, he never could find true happiness with her, for their relationship lacks the fervor that was integral to his relationship to Lara.[31]

Disillusionment with revolutionary ideology[edit]

In the beginning of the novel, between the 1905 Russian Revolution and World War I, characters freely debate different philosophical and political ideas including Marxism, but after the revolution and the state-enforced terror of war communism, Zhivago and others cease to talk politics. Zhivago, a stubborn non-conformist, rants within himself at the 'blindness' of revolutionary propaganda and grows exasperated with 'the conformity and transparency of the hypocrisy' of his friends who adhere to the prevailing dogma. Zhivago's mental and even physical health crumble under the strain of 'a constant, systematic dissembling' by which citizens, rather than thinking for themselves, are expected to 'show [themselves] day by day contrary to what [they] feel.' In the epilogue, in which Russia is enveloped in World War II, the characters Dudorov and Gordon discuss how the war united Russia against a real enemy, which was better than the preceding days of the Great Purge when Russians were turned against one another by the deadly, artificial ideology of totalitarianism. This reflects Pasternak's hope that the trials of the Great Patriotic War would, to quote translator Richard Pevear, 'lead to the final liberation that had been the promise of the [Russian] Revolution from the beginning.[32]

Coincidence and the unpredictability of reality[edit]

In contrast to the socialist realism that was imposed as the official artistic style of the Soviet Union, Pasternak's novel relies heavily on unbelievable coincidences (a reliance for which the plot was criticized).[32] Pasternak uses the frequently-intersecting paths of his cast of characters not only to tell several different people's stories over the decades-long course of the novel, but also to emphasize the chaotic, unpredictable nature of the time period in which it is set, and of reality more generally. In the end, immediately before his death, Zhivago has a revelation of 'several existences developing side by side, moving next to each other at different speeds, and about one person's fate getting ahead of another's in life, and who outlives whom.' This reflects how the crisscrossing journeys of several characters over several decades represents the capricious chance governing their lives.

Literary criticism[edit]

Edmund Wilson wrote of the novel: 'Doctor Zhivago will, I believe, come to stand as one of the great events in man's literary and moral history'.[33]V. S. Pritchett wrote in the New Statesman that the novel is '[t]he first work of genius to come out of Russia since the revolution.'[34] Some literary critics 'found that there was no real plot to the novel, that its chronology was confused, that the main characters were oddly effaced, that the author relied far too much on contrived coincidences.'[32]Vladimir Nabokov, who had celebrated Pasternak's books of poetry as works of 'pure, unbridled genius, however, considered the novel to be 'a sorry thing, clumsy, trite and melodramatic, with stock situations, voluptuous lawyers, unbelievable girls, romantic robbers and trite coincidences.'[35] On the other hand, some critics praised it for being things that, in the opinion of translator Richard Pevear, it was never meant to be: a moving love story, or a lyrical biography of a poet in which the individual is set against the grim realities of Soviet life.[32] Pasternak defended the numerous coincidences in the plot, saying that they are 'traits to characterize that somewhat willful, free, fanciful flow of reality.'[36] In response to criticism in the West of his novel's characters and coincidences, Pasternak wrote to Stephen Spender:

'Whatever the cause, reality has been for me like a sudden, unexpected arrival that is intensely welcome. I have always tried to reproduce this sense of being sent, of being launched.. there is an effort in my novels to represent the whole sequence (facts, beings, happenings) as a great moving entity.. a developing, passing, rolling, rushing inspiration. As if reality itself had freedom of choice.. Hence the reproach that my characters were insufficiently realized. Rather than delineate, I was trying to efface them. Hence the frank arbitrariness of the 'coincidences.' Here I wanted to show the unrestrained freedom of life, its very verisimilitude contiguous with improbability.'[37]

Names and places[edit]

Pushkin Library, Perm
  • Zhivago (Живаго): the Russian root zhiv is similar to 'life'.[38]
  • Larissa: a Greek name suggesting 'bright, cheerful'.
  • Komarovsky (Комаровский): komar (комар) is the Russian for 'mosquito'.
  • Pasha (Паша): the diminutive form of 'Pavel' (Павел), the Russian rendering of the name Paul.
  • Strelnikov (Стрельников): Pasha/Pavel Antipov's pseudonym, strelok means 'the shooter'; he is also called Rasstrelnikov (Расстрельников), which means 'executioner'.
  • Yuriatin (Юрятин): the fictional town was based upon Perm, near by which Pasternak had lived for several months in 1916. Note that this can be understood in Russian as 'Yuri's town'.
  • The public reading room at Yuriatin was based on the Pushkin Library, Perm.

Adaptations[edit]

Film and stage adaptations[edit]

  • A 1959 Brazilian television series (currently unavailable) was the first screen adaptation.[39]
  • The most famous adaptation is the 1965 film adaptation by David Lean, featuring the Egyptian actor Omar Sharif as Zhivago and English actress Julie Christie as Lara, with Geraldine Chaplin as Tonya and Alec Guinness as Yevgraf. The film was commercially successful and won five Oscars. Currently, it is widely considered to be a classic popular film. Maurice Jarre's score, featuring the romantic 'Lara's Theme', enhances the film's appeal. Though faithful to the novel's plot, depictions of several characters and events are noticeably different, and many side stories are dropped.
  • A 2002 British television serial stars Hans Matheson, Keira Knightley, Alexandra Maria Lara, and Sam Neill. It was broadcast by ITV in the UK in November 2002 and on Masterpiece Theatre in the US in November 2003.
  • A 2006 Russian mini-series produced by Mosfilm. Its total running time is over 500 minutes (8 hours and 26 minutes).
  • A musical called Doktor Zhivago was scheduled to premiere in the city of Perm in the Urals on 22 March 2007, and to remain in the repertoire of Perm Drama Theatre throughout the 50th Anniversary year [1][2].[40]
  • Doctor Zhivago is a musical adaptation of Pasternak’s novel rather than Lean’s film. It originally premiered as Zhivago at the La Jolla Playhouse in 2006. Ivan Hernandez played the title role.[41] It was revised and premiered as Doctor Zhivago at the Lyric Theatre, Sydney in February 2011, starring Anthony Warlow and Lucy Maunder[42] and produced by John Frost. The musical features a score by Lucy Simon (The Secret Garden), a book by Michael Weller (Hair, Ragtime librettos), lyrics by Michael Korie (Doll and the Harvey Milk opera libretto) and Amy Powers (Lizzie Borden and songs for Sunset Boulevard). Both the 2006 and the 2011 productions were directed by Des McAnuff.[43]
  • The musical Zjivago in Swedish had premiere on Malmö Opera in Sweden on 29 August 2014.[44]
  • A musical was produced in Japan by the Takarazuka Revue in February 2018.[45]

Translations into English[edit]

  • Max Hayward and Manya Harari (1958)
  • Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (2010)

References[edit]

  1. ^'Doctor Zhivago'. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. Longman. Retrieved 11 August 2019.
  2. ^Koppel, Ted (2 July 2014). 'A Writer Who Defied The System In 'The Zhivago Affair''. NPR. Retrieved 21 August 2016. The operation was intended to infuriate the Soviet government and it did.
  3. ^'Doktor Zhivago (TV Mini-Series 2006– )' – via www.imdb.com.
  4. ^ ab«Не читал, но осуждаю!»: 5 фактов о романе «Доктор Живаго» 18:17 23/10/2013, Елена Меньшенина
  5. ^Harlow Robinson, Russians in Hollywood, Hollywood's Russians (Lebanon, NH: Northeastern University Press, 2007; ISBN1555536867), p.203 (note that the funeral takes place 'on the eve of the Feast of the Intercession,' October 1/14; chapter 4, the trip with Uncle Nikolai, takes place in the summer of 1903, hence the following year).
  6. ^Pevear & Volokhonsky trans., p.4, p.7 (Voskoboinikov lives in the steward's cottage).
  7. ^Pevear & Volokhonsky trans., p.23 (Tyshkevich is a cellist who lives next to the Guichards at the Montenegro); p.62 (Tyshkevich is one of the performers at the Gromekos); p.63 (Fadai Kazimirovich Tyshkevich is his full name).
  8. ^The room is Room 24, the room in which the Guichards lived, but it appears they no longer live there at the time of this incident. Pasternak has told us that the Guichards moved to Moscow before the end of the Russo-Japanese War, which means they arrive in Moscow no later than early September 1905. Pevear & Volokhonsky trans., p.22. He also has told us that the Guichards started to live at the Montenegro immediately upon their arrival in Moscow, and that they stayed there 'about a month' before they moved into the apartment over the dress shop. Pevear & Volokhonsky trans., p.22. That means they vacated the Montenegro in October – November at the latest. But the suicide incident is in January. Perhaps this an oversight on Pasternak's part. Another explanation is that Komarovksy has retained the Montenegro room for his assignations with Lara, and Amalia has discovered them there together. Pasternak says that the commotion among the servants started before the suicide incident, and 'before Komarovsky arrived' but this does not clarify whether Amalia's suicide attempt was before Komarovsky's arrival, or because of it. Note also that Pasternak, adopting the perspective of the servants, says 'this foolish Guichard woman was being pumped full in number 24' not, for example, '.. being pumped full in her room.' Pevear & Volokhonsky trans., p.22.
  9. ^Pevear & Volokhonsky trans., p.96 (Kornakov prosecuted Tiverzin's case); p.34 (Tiverzin was put on trial for involvement in a railroad strike); p.37 (Patulya [i.e. Pavel or Pasha] Antipov came to live with the Tiverzins after his father was arrested in connection with the railroad strike).
  10. ^'Doctor Zhivago': Letter to Boris Pasternak from the Editors of Novyi Mir. Daedalus, Vol. 89, No. 3, The Russian Intelligentsia (Summer, 1960), pp. 648–668
  11. ^ ab'The Times & The Sunday Times'.
  12. ^'Pasternak by D'Angelo'. www.pasternakbydangelo.com.
  13. ^'Archived copy'. Archived from the original on 13 August 2012. Retrieved 2012-10-08.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  14. ^Il caso Pasternak, Granzotto, 1985.
  15. ^ abFinn, Peter, and Couvée, Petra, 'CIA Turned 'Zhivago' into Cold Warrior', The Washington Post, 6 April 2014, p. A1.
  16. ^ abSocial sciences – A Quarterly Journal of the Russian Academy of Sciences: INTERNATIONAL PROVOCATION: ON BORIS PASTERNAK’S NOBEL PRIZEArchived 1 November 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  17. ^ ab'Did The CIA Fund 'Doctor Zhivago'?'. RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty.
  18. ^Finn, Peter (27 January 2007). 'The Plot Thickens' – via www.washingtonpost.com.
  19. ^The book referred to by Sergeyeva-Klyatis is Fleishman, Lazar. Встреча русской эмиграции с 'Доктором Живаго': Борис Пастернак и 'холодная война.' Stanford, CA: Stanford University, 2009. ISBN9781572010819
  20. ^Olga Ivinskaya, A Captive of Time: My Years with Pasternak, (1978), page 220.
  21. ^Ivinskaya (1978), page 221.
  22. ^Ivinskaya (1978), page 224.
  23. ^Ivinskaya (1978), page 232.
  24. ^Frenz, Horst (ed.) (1969). Literature 1901–1967. Nobel Lectures. Amsterdam: Elsevier.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)(Via 'Nobel Prize in Literature 1958 – Announcement'. Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 24 May 2007.)
  25. ^'Boris Pasternak'. www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org.
  26. ^ abPasternak, Boris (1983). Pasternak: Selected Poems. trans. Jon Stallworthy and Peter France. Penguin. ISBN0-14-042245-5.
  27. ^Bill Mauldin Beyond Willie and Joe (Library of Congress)
  28. ^ abcdIvinskaya (1978), pp. 323–326
  29. ^Ivinskaya (1978), pp. 331–332.
  30. ^Dillon, Kathleen (Winter 1995). 'Depression as Discourse in Doctor Zhivago'. The Slavic and East European Journal. 39 (4): 517–523. JSTOR309103.
  31. ^Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak, 1957, Pantheon Books
  32. ^ abcdRichard Pevear, Introduction, Pevear & Volokhonsky trans.
  33. ^Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years By Brian Boyd, Princeton University Press, 1993, page 373
  34. ^The Statesman, Volume 22, page 48
  35. ^Scammell, Michael (10 July 2014). 'The CIA's 'Zhivago''. 'The New York Review of Books'. p. 40.
  36. ^Richard Pevear, Introduction, Pevear & Volokhonsky trans. (quoting Letter (in English) from Boris Pasternak to John Harris, 8 Feb. 1959).
  37. ^INTERPRETATION by Boris Pasternak, Letters, June 24, 1996 Issue, New Yorker
  38. ^Rowland, Mary F. and Paul Rowland. Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago. Southern Illinois University Press: 1967. The Rowlands present an exhaustive analysis of most of the names in the novel.
  39. ^Doutor Jivago (TV series 1959) on IMDb
  40. ^Perm features in the novel under the name 'Yuriatin' (which is a city invented by Pasternak for the book) and many locations for events in the book can be accurately traced there, since Pasternak left the street names mostly unchanged. For example, the Public Reading-Room in which Yuri and Larissa have their chance meeting in 'Yuriatin' is exactly where the book places it in contemporary Perm.
  41. ^'La Jolla Playhouse premieres stirring, haunting Zhivago' by Charlene Baldridge, San Diego News
  42. ^'Media - Lucy Maunder'.
  43. ^'Sydney to host World Premiere of Doctor Zhivago musical', AustralianStage.com (21 July 2010)
  44. ^'Archived copy'. Archived from the original on 18 April 2015. Retrieved 2015-05-09.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  45. ^'ミュージカル『ドクトル・ジバゴ』'

External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Doctor Zhivago (book).
  • Inside the Zhivago Storm, by Paolo Mancosu, the story of the first publication of Doctor Zhivago and of the subsequent Russian editions in the West, ISBN9788807990687
  • Inside the Zhivago Storm, website accompanying Mancosu's book.
  • Zhivago's Secret Journey: From typescript to book, by Paolo Mancosu, the story of the typescripts of Doctor Zhivago that Pasternak sent to the West, ISBN9780817919672
  • 'The Doctor Zhivago caper' (editorial), The Boston Globe, 20 February 2007.
  • 'The Wisest Book I Ever Read', by Robert Morgan from The Raleigh News & Observer.
  • 'The Dr Zhivago Drawings' artist's rendering
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This epic tale about the effects of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath on a bourgeois family was not published in the Soviet Union until 1987. One of the results of its publication in the West was Pasternak's complete rejection by Soviet authorities; when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958 he was compelled to decline it. The book quickly became an..more
Published March 18th 1997 by Pantheon (first published November 1957)
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Maaike Rotteveel-WagenaarTania is the daughter of Joeri and Lara.. Lara had to leave Tania behind, Joeri never knew they had a daughter. So Lara was pregnant when she left…moreTania is the daughter of Joeri and Lara.. Lara had to leave Tania behind, Joeri never knew they had a daughter. So Lara was pregnant when she left him.. thought it was so tragical.(less)
Linda WilkeI'd go for Anna Karenina! It's more of a traditional story. The asides in Zhivago are sometimes hard to follow.
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Rating details

Feb 18, 2014Violet wells rated it it was amazing
When I read this in my early twenties it went straight into my top ten favourite novels. All the ravishing set pieces of snow, the high adventure of the long train journeys through spectacular landscapes and Yuri and Lara as the romantically bound orphans of the storm was irresistible to my romantic young imagination. On top of that, as you’d expect from a poet, the novel is alive with memorable piercing images. This was my third time of reading it. I still loved it but it would no longer make m..more
May 08, 2010Nataliya rated it liked it
There was no way I could ever escape reading Doctor Zhivago. After all, I'm a proud daughter of a literature teacher; this book earned the Nobel Prize for Boris Pasternak; and it has been staring at me from the top of my to-read pile for years with quiet accusation.
And so, reader, I finally read it.
Doctor Zhivago is an interesting novel. It is very character-centered but is absolutely *not* character-driven. It is an epochal novel focused on the particularly turbulent, violent and uncertain but
..more
Jun 25, 2014Lisa rated it it was amazing
Shelves: nobels, 1001-books-to-read-before-you-die
I sometimes stroke my copy of Doctor Zhivago gently.
I doubt I will find time to reread it soon, but it is one of those books I like to think I will read again, some day, even though it is written into my heart already, and has stayed there firmly ever since it first entered it decades ago. Is it better than any other of the 'masterpieces of world literature'? Probably not. But it is something deeply, deeply personal. Something that affects the human core of the reader beyond any compassion for
..more
Aug 11, 2013Dana Ilie rated it it was amazing
This is a timeless masterpiece. While many readers are going to love this book, I think others will find themselves bogged down by its many details. Certainly those readers who enjoy primarily plot driven novels are going to be frustrated by the dreamy Doctor Zhivago.
Jul 12, 2009Ahmad Sharabiani rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: novel, 1001-book, romance, historical, fiction, classic, 20th-century
486. Доктор Живаго = Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
Doctor Zhivago is a novel by Boris Pasternak, first published in 1957 in Italy. The novel is named after its protagonist, Yuri Zhivago, a physician and poet, and takes place between the Russian Revolution of 1905 and World War II. The plot of Doctor Zhivago is long and intricate. It can be difficult to follow for two main reasons: first, Pasternak employs many characters, who interact with each other throughout the book in unpredictable ways, a
..more
May 16, 2018Steven Godin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: russia-ukraine, nobel-laureates, historical-fiction, classic-fiction, favourites
Before getting to indulge in this Russian epic, I had to decide what translation to go for. For me, this was a big deal, whether to choose the more reader friendly version, or, a newer translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky that sticks closer to Pasternak's original difficult text. I went for the latter simply because if this is how Pasternak wrote it, then I wanted to read it in the purest form. Even if it meant not sitting in the comfort zone for much of the time. Both Pevear an..more
Jul 11, 2017Barry Pierce rated it really liked it · review of another edition
There is one edition of Doctor Zhivago whose cover boasts that it is 'one of the greatest love stories ever told'. In fact, that one tagline is what almost put me off reading this epic novel from Russian master-poet Boris Pasternak. This is a hefty book. I didn't want to dedicate all my time to a soppy love story. Thankfully, calling Doctor Zhivago a 'love story' is like saying Crime and Punishment is about the perils of being a pawnbroker.
Doctor Zhivago is a vast novel. Like most great Russian
..more
Nov 03, 2009Kinga rated it liked it · review of another edition
This is going to be a difficult review to write as I have developed a real love-hate relationship with this book. It is an epic story about a man, who is supposed to be this tragic hero separated from the women he loved by the cruel times of revolution and civil war. If you ask me, he was just a … (fill in with your favourite word for describing a man with commitment and fidelity issues). I guess we can interpret the whole storyline as a metaphor of that period of Russian history, in which case..more
The 1965 David Lean film with the same title is one of my all time favorite movies and so it was an inevitability that I would one day, finally, read Boris Pasternak’s novel masterpiece.
Like James Dickey and Robert Penn Warren, this novel written by a poet leaves the reader with an idea of lyric quality. Nowhere is his identification as a poet more realized than at the end, as the books finishes with a section of poetry, though there are passages throughout the book that blend seamlessly into a
..more
May 18, 2015Algernon (Darth Anyan) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Recommended to Algernon (Darth Anyan) by: David Lean

It snowed, it snowed over all the world
From end to end.
A candle burned on the table,
A candle burned.

I have spent three hours just writing down my bookmarks in the text, and in the end I realised that all I needed was this little stanza from one of the Zhivago’s poems included at the end of the novel. We need art to illuminate a bleak existence, to comfort us in the cold, lonely hours when sleep refuses to come and the abyss is gazing back at us. Pasternak was such a bright candle in my life, a
..more
Nov 22, 2010Ken rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
You'd think, having Julie Christie as a mistress and Geraldine Chaplin as a wife, that you couldn't do much better than that in life. Alas, you can, because if it's that good and it's all taken away and your net time with each amounts to squatski (Russian for 'squat'), in the scheme of your life, maybe life's a bitch after all.
Dr. Zhivago brings us another Russian opus dealing with man as pawn against the great playing board of history. You can see why the Soviets banned the book, too, as its vi
..more
Jan 08, 2018Sara rated it it was amazing
Shelves: literary-fiction, russia, catching-up-classics, historical-fiction, war, favorites
”The forest does not change its place, we cannot lie in wait for it and catch it in the act of change. Whenever we look at it, it seems to be motionless. And such also is the immobility to our eyes of the eternally growing, ceaselessly changing history, the life of society moving invisibly in its incessant transformations.'
Doctor Zhivago is about nothing, if not about change, transformation, upheaval and survival. Set against the background of the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917, Doctor Zhi
..more
Nov 14, 2012Cheryl rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: international-intrigue, europe, vintage, war-stories
A Russian song is like water in a mill pond. It seems stopped and unmoving. But in its depths it constantly flows..By all possible means, by repetitions, by parallelisms, it holds back the course of the graudally developing content..Restraining itself, mastering itself, an anguished force..it is a mad attempt to stop time with words.

Here, Pasternak's character was describing a song, but I do believe Pasternak was defining his novel. Or maybe I just want to believe it, for this book is ind
..more
Dec 09, 2015Perry rated it really liked it
Tightly closing eyelids.
Heights; and cloudy spheres.
Rivers. Waters. Boulders.
Centuries and years.

[From 'Fairy Tale' in Doctor Zhivago, poem quoted in full below]
This sweeping romantic epic is set in Russia mostly during and after the 1917 (October) Revolution. The young physician/poet Yurii Zhivago works as an army doctor and is wounded during WWI. He meets Lara Antipova, who nurses him to health, and falls hopelessly in love. Lara will be his great love and mistress through the tumult and uphea
..more
Mar 04, 2018Alice Poon rated it it was amazing

Before finally reading this novel, I had watched the 1965 movie adaptation starring Omar Sharif and Julie Christie many many times. By way of simple comparison, the movie captured very well the spontaneous passion of a brief love affair between physician/poet Yuri and his lover Lara, whereas the book dealt in much greater depth the tumultuous factional warfare incidents between the First Russian Revolution (1905) and the Russian Civil War (1917 – 1922), and their deleterious impact on everyday R
..more
This is an extremely difficult book to review. It is unlike anything I have ever read. First, it was written in Russian, and, although the translation was fine, you can tell that often you are missing the full meaning. Second, did you know that the average person in Russia during the early to mid-1900s went by a minimum of five names? This creates MUCH confusion for the reader. And, even though this story revolves around the Russian Revolution, it does not explain the very complicated Revolution..more
Jan 06, 2018Rita rated it it was amazing
Shelves: classic, ethnic, political, romantic, historical-fiction, war, tragedy
I have researched Russian history, especially the Russian Revolution. Russia deserved a revolution. The serfs were mistreated slaves. I have read many biographies of Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and Nicholas and Alexandra. The Russian people had a love/hate relationship with the tzars. And yet they traded those oppressors for communist oppressors. Stalin was much worse than any Tzar.
This story takes place during the revolution when everything was completely turned upside down. Yuri and L
..more
Feb 03, 2019Gabrielle rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: russian, own-a-copy, to-read-again, mandatory-reading, classics, read-in-2019, reviewed, historical, movie-fodder, favorites
I came to this book knowing the story a little bit: the 1965 movie adaptation is one of my mother’s favorite films, and I remember being fascinated by the image of Yuri and Lara taking shelter in Varykino, in the abandoned house filled with snow and icicles (I always thought this is what the apocalypse will look like in Canada). I also knew the novel would be much more intricate and tough to follow than the movie had been, with that pesky habit Russians have of using nicknames and patronymics. B..more
May 16, 2009Dusty rated it liked it
As far as I know, Doctor Zhivago appeals for three reasons. First, it is an epic by and about a man caught in the thick of the tumultuous period of Russian enlightenment and revolution. Second, like many epics, it follows the romance between a man and a woman (or in this books case, three women) whose love is made impossible by the political circumstances in which they live. Third, and lastly, it was bravely published in the 1950s, censored immediately by the Soviets but heralded by non-Red lite..more
Sep 01, 2010El rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: 1001-books-list, russia, 20th-centurylit-late, permanent-collection, wanderlust

As I've already stated, this book has been on my bookshelf since I was about thirteen when my mother gave me a copy for Christmas one year. She talked to me about the story, about the movie and her adoration of Omar Sharif because of said movie. And because I was a punk kid I never sat down to read it. (Correction: I sat down a couple times to read it over the years but never managed to make it past a page or two because I evidently had more important things going on in my life.)
So now, at thirt
..more
Dec 20, 2009K.D. Absolutely rated it

Dr Zhivago Book Pdf Download

really liked it · review of another edition
Recommended to K.D. by: 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006 to 2010)
AUGUST 2 REVIEW:
After finishing the book last night, I immediately wrote my review. I always do that because I right away start reading the next book. Also, writing what I learned from the book and what I felt while reading it are easier if the story is still fresh in my mind.
However, for almost the whole day, I thought that I missed the whole point of the story. My August 1 Review below definitely was too weak for a beautifully told forbidden love story of Yuri and Lara.
While driving from the
..more
Aug 20, 2014Luís C. rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: 20th-century, russia-ussr, sextante, reading-the-world, 1001-done, on-my-own
A novel such as this one places me in front of the mirror of my own literary ambition and by looking at me with sincerity and without concession, I can only admit that I am still very far from possessing that maturity of mind that would really criticize it. With humility, I recognize that this novel, written by a Nobel laureate of literature, is a superb novel, a great novel. I only regret that I do not yet have the capacity to appreciate it entirely as such.
The film adaptation of David Lean has
..more
Jan 25, 2019Mark André rated it liked it
An entertaining pager turner. Good melodrama. Good dialogue: especial between Yurii and Lara. Way too many similes. The Conclusion and Epilogue drag and seem at bit superfluous. Three and half stars. Would like to see the movie.
'No single man makes history. History cannot be seen, just as one cannot see grass growing. Wars and revolutions, kings and Robespierres, are history's organic agents, its yeast. But revolutions are made by fanatical men of action with one-track minds, geniuses in their ability to confine themselves to a limited field. They overturn the old order in a few hours or days, the whole upheaval takes a few weeks or at most years, but the fanatical spirit that inspired the upheavals is worshipped for d..more
Jun 11, 2015Sidharth Vardhan rated it

Boris Pasternak

liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: banned-challenged, list-daily-telegraph, nobel
What this book seems to lack is a good editor. Given the circumstances in which it was published, that is not surprising. It was published in translation rather than Russian language and the author was not available to discuss any edits/changes with. Not that it is a bad book at all.
Writing is awesome frequently (though not frequently enough) especially the poems in the end but it has a bunch of issues - some boring parts, repetitiveness, annoyingly large number of coincidences (like in Dickens
..more
Mar 08, 2018Olivia rated it liked it · review of another edition
I definitely went into this book with all the wrong expectations. I haven't seen the film, but what I've heard made me believe I'll be diving into a timeless romance with a whole lot of Russian history in the background.
Yuri and Lara's story, however, is 25% of the book at most, and in fact Pasternak uses this novel to ponder history, communism, philosophy and to offer his views and opinions, and a healthy dose of social commentary. I will definitely re-read this book at some point with the righ
..more
Jun 06, 2013Anna rated it

Dr Zhivago Book Summary

did not like it · review of another edition
Shelves: chunkster, historical-fiction, russia, read-in-2014, world-war-one, classics, 1-star
This book sapped all my energy, it was deathly dull. I thought about writing a review, but have already wasted far too long on the mind-numbing Yuri. Awful, just awful.
Buddy-slog with Jemidar; couldn't have done it without you!
Mar 26, 2009Chrissie rated it liked it
Shelves: hf, love, russia, soviet-union, classics, 2015-read
This is a reread for me. Will I still think it worth five stars?
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On completion after the second reading:
I ended up really liking some aspects of the book, but not all. This book makes you feel history and what it is to be human. It isn't so much a history book as a way of living through / experiencing life in Russia in the first half of the 20th Century in Moscow and in the Urals. What it was like to live through the Revolution and the subsequent civil war are no
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Mar 05, 2016classic reverie rated it it was amazing
Shelves: book-made-to-movies-i-have-seen, poltical-bend, romance, 1900, bildungsroman, own, russian-writers
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Jun 20, 2011Jan-Maat added it

Dr Zhivago Book Pdf 2016

Shelves: read-in-translation, 20th-century, russia-and-soviet-union, novel
At the time of writing Pasternak was living in the artists and writers colony just outside Moscow with his wife. He'd visit his mistress from time to time. She had been installed a short distance away on the far side of a small bridge over a stream. The experience of walking down to spend time with her and then back to his wife was reimagined in to Zhivago travelling between his wife and Lara when they are all in Varykino.
If you come to the book from the film - shot slightly bizarrely in Spain w
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Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was born in Moscow to talented artists: his father a painter and illustrator of Tolstoy's works, his mother a well-known concert pianist. Though his parents were both Jewish, they became Christianized, first as Russian Orthodox and later as Tolstoyan Christians. Pasternak's education began in a German Gymnasium in Moscow and was continued at the University of Moscow. Un..more
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“I don't think I could love you so much if you had nothing to complain of and nothing to regret. I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and of little value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them.” — 547 likes

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“How wonderful to be alive, he thought. But why does it always hurt?” — 413 likes
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