Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (January 29 [February 10] 1890, Moscow - May 30, 1960, Peredelkino, Moscow region) - Russian writer, poet, translator; one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. Pasternak published his first poems at the age of 23. In 1955, Pasternak finished writing the novel Doctor Zhivago. Three years later, the writer was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, after which he was subjected to bullying and persecution by the Soviet government.
The future poet was born in Moscow into a creative Jewish family. Pasternak's parents, father - artist, academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts Leonid Osipovich (Isaak Iosifovich) Pasternak and mother - pianist Rosalia Isidorovna Pasternak (née Kaufman, 1868-1939), moved to Moscow from Odessa in 1889, a year before his birth. Boris was born in a house at the intersection of Oruzheyny Lane and Second Tverskaya-Yamskaya Street, where they settled. In addition to the eldest, Boris, Alexander (1893-1982), Josephine (1900-1993) and Lydia (1902-1989) were born in the Pasternak family. Even in the matriculation certificate at the end of the gymnasium, B. L. Pasternak appeared as “Boris Isaakovich (aka Leonidovich).”
The Pasternak family maintained friendships with famous artists - (Isaac Ilyich Levitan, Mikhail Vasilyevich Nesterov, Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov, Sergei Ivanov, Nikolai Nikolaevich Ge). Musicians and writers visited the house, including L.N. Tolstoy; Small musical performances were organized in which A. N. Scriabin and S. V. Rachmaninov took part. In 1900, during his second visit to Moscow, Rainer Maria Rilke met the Pasternak family. At the age of 13, under the influence of the composer A. N. Scriabin, Pasternak became interested in music, which he studied for six years (his two preludes and a piano sonata have survived).
In 1900, Pasternak was not accepted into the 5th Moscow Gymnasium (now Moscow School No. 91) due to the percentage norm, but at the suggestion of the director, the following year, 1901, he entered straight into the second grade. In 1903, on August 6 (19), Boris broke his leg in a fall from a horse, and due to improper healing (the slight lameness that the writer hid remained for the rest of his life) he was subsequently exempted from military service. Later, the poet paid special attention to this episode in the poem “August”, as it awakened his creative powers.
On October 25, 1905, Boris Pasternak fell under Cossack whips when on Myasnitskaya Street he encountered a crowd of protesters driven by mounted police. This episode will later be included in Pasternak’s books. In 1908, simultaneously with preparing for the final exams at the gymnasium, under the guidance of Yu. D. Engel and R. M. Gliere, he prepared for the exam at the course of the composition department of the Moscow Conservatory. Pasternak graduated from high school with a gold medal and all the highest grades, except for the Law of God, from which he was exempted due to his Jewish origin.
Following the example of his parents, who achieved high professional success through tireless work, Pasternak strove in everything to “get to the very essence, in work, in search of a path.” V. F. Asmus o. Recalling his experiences later, Pasternak wrote in his “Safety Certificate”: “More than anything else in the world, I loved music... But I did not have absolute pitch...”. After a series of hesitations, Pasternak abandoned his career as a professional musician and composer: “I tore music, the beloved world of six years of work, hopes and anxieties, out of myself, as one parted with the most precious.” In 1908 he entered the Faculty of Law of Moscow University, and in 1909, on the advice of A. N. Scriabin, he transferred to the philosophical department of the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University.
In the summer of 1912, he studied philosophy at the University of Marburg in Germany with the head of the Marburg neo-Kantian school, Professor Hermann Cohen, who advised Pasternak to continue his career as a philosopher in Germany. At the same time, he proposed to Ida Vysotskaya (the daughter of a major tea merchant D.V. Vysotsky), but was refused, according to the description in the poem “Marburg” and the autobiographical story “Safety Certificate”. In 1912, he visited Venice with his parents and sisters, which was reflected in his poems of that time. I saw my cousin Olga Freidenberg (daughter of the writer and inventor Moisei Filippovich Freidenberg) in Germany. He had many years of friendship and correspondence with her.
In 1912, B. L. Pasternak graduated from Moscow University. Pasternak did not show up to receive his diploma. Diploma No. 20974 has been preserved in the archives of Moscow University.
Writer's career
After his trip to Marburg, Pasternak abandoned his future focus on philosophical studies. At the same time, he began to enter the circles of Moscow writers. He participated in meetings of the circle of the symbolist publishing house "Musaget", then in the literary and artistic circle of Yulian Anisimov and Vera Stanevich, from which the short-lived post-symbolist group "Lyrika" grew. Since 1914, Pasternak joined the community of futurists “Centrifuge” (which also included other former members of “Lyrika” - Nikolai Aseev and Sergei Bobrov). In the same year, he became closely acquainted with another futurist, Vladimir Mayakovsky, whose personality and work had a certain influence on him. Later, in the 1920s, Pasternak maintained connections with Mayakovsky’s LEF group, but in general after the revolution he took an independent position, not joining any associations.
Pasternak's first poems were published in 1913 (collective collection of the Lyrics group), the first book - "Twin in the Clouds" - at the end of the same year (on the cover - 1914), was perceived by Pasternak himself as immature. In 1928, half of the poems “Twin in the Clouds” and three poems from the group’s collection “Lyrics” were combined by Pasternak into the cycle “Initial Time” and heavily revised (some were actually rewritten completely); the rest of the early experiments were not republished during Pasternak's lifetime. Nevertheless, it was after “Twin in the Clouds” that Pasternak began to recognize himself as a professional writer.
In 1916, the collection “Over Barriers” was published. Pasternak spent the winter and spring of 1916 in the Urals, near the city of Aleksandrovsky, Perm province, in the village of Vsevolodo-Vilva, accepting an invitation to work in the office of the manager of the Vsevolodo-Vilva chemical plants, Boris Zbarsky, as an assistant for business correspondence and trade and financial reporting. It is widely believed that the prototype of the city of Yuryatin from Doctor Zhivago is the city of Perm. In the same year, the poet visited the Berezniki soda plant on the Kama. In a letter to S.P. Bobrov dated June 24, 1916 (the day after leaving home in Vsevolodo-Vilva), Boris “calls the Lyubimov, Solve and Co. soda plant and the European-style village with it “a small industrial Belgium."
Pasternak’s parents and his sisters left Soviet Russia in 1921 at the personal request of A.V. Lunacharsky and settled in Berlin (and after the Nazis came to power, in London). Pasternak began active correspondence with them and Russian emigration circles in general, in particular with Marina Tsvetaeva. In 1926, correspondence began with R.-M. Rilke. In 1922, Pasternak married the artist Evgenia Lurie, with whom he spent the second half of the year and the entire winter of 1922-1923 visiting his parents in Berlin. In the same 1922, the poet’s program book “My Sister is Life” was published, most of the poems of which were written in the summer of 1917. The following year, 1923 (September 23), a son, Evgeniy, was born into the Pasternak family (died in 2012).
In the 1920s, the collection “Themes and Variations” (1923), the novel in verse “Spektorsky” (1925), the cycle “High Disease”, the poems “Nine Hundred and Five” and “Lieutenant Schmidt” were also created. In 1928, Pasternak turned to prose. By 1930, he completed his autobiographical notes, “Safety Certificate,” which outlines his fundamental views on art and creativity.
The late 1920s and early 1930s saw a short period of official Soviet recognition of Pasternak's work. He takes an active part in the activities of the Writers' Union of the USSR and in 1934 gave a speech at its first congress, at which N.I. Bukharin called for Pasternak to be officially named the best poet of the Soviet Union. His large one-volume work from 1933 to 1936 is reprinted annually.
Having met Zinaida Nikolaevna Neuhaus (nee Eremeeva, 1897-1966), at that time the wife of pianist G. G. Neuhaus, together with her in 1931 Pasternak took a trip to Georgia (see below). Having interrupted his first marriage, in 1932 Pasternak married Z. N. Neuhaus. In the same year, his book “The Second Birth” was published. On the night of January 1, 1938, Pasternak and his second wife gave birth to a son, Leonid (future physicist, died in 1976).
In 1935, Pasternak participated in the International Congress of Writers in Defense of Peace in Paris, where he suffered a nervous breakdown. This was his last trip abroad. The Belarusian writer Yakub Kolas in his memoirs recalled Pasternak’s complaints about nerves and insomnia. In 1935, Pasternak stood up for the husband and son of Anna Akhmatova, who were released from prison after letters to Stalin from Pasternak and Anna Akhmatova. In December 1935, Pasternak sent Stalin a book of translations of Georgian Lyrics as a gift and in the accompanying letter thanked him for the “wonderful lightning-fast liberation of Akhmatova’s relatives.”
In January 1936, Pasternak published two poems addressed with words of admiration to I.V. Stalin. However, by mid-1936, the attitude of the authorities towards him was changing - he was reproached not only for “detachment from life”, but also for “a worldview that does not correspond to the era”, and unconditionally demanded a thematic and ideological restructuring. This leads to Pasternak's first long period of alienation from official literature. As interest in Soviet power wanes, Pasternak's poems take on a more personal and tragic tone.
In 1936 he settled in a dacha in Peredelkino, where he would live intermittently for the rest of his life. From 1939 to 1960 he lived in his dacha at 3 Pavlenko Street (now a memorial museum). His Moscow address in the writer's house from the mid-1930s until the end of his life: Lavrushinsky Lane, 17/19, apt. 72.
By the end of the 1930s, he turned to prose and translations, which in the 40s became his main source of income. During that period, Pasternak created classic translations of many of Shakespeare's tragedies (including Hamlet), Goethe's Faust, and F. Schiller's Mary Stuart. Pasternak understood that by translating he was saving his loved ones from lack of money, and himself from reproaches for being “separation from life,” but at the end of his life he bitterly stated that “... I gave half my life to translations—my most fruitful time.” He spent 1942-1943 in evacuation in Chistopol. He helped many people financially, including the repressed daughter of Marina Tsvetaeva, Ariadne Efron.
In 1943, a book of poems, “On Early Trains,” was published, including four cycles of pre-war and wartime poems. In 1946, Pasternak met Olga Ivinskaya (1912-1995) and she became the poet’s “muse.” He dedicated many poems to her. Until Pasternak's death they had a close relationship.
In 1952, Pasternak had his first heart attack, described in the poem “In the Hospital”: “Oh Lord, how perfect are Your works,” the patient thought, “Beds, and people, and walls, The night of death and the city at night...” The patient’s situation was serious. , but, as Pasternak wrote on January 17, 1953 to Nina Tabidze, he was reassured that “the end will not take me by surprise, in the midst of work, with something unfinished. What little could be done amidst the obstacles that time presented has been done (translation of Shakespeare, Faust, Baratashvili).”
Date and cause of death
Health problems appeared in the early 50s. In 1952, at the age of 62, Pasternak was hospitalized with a heart attack. Constant clashes with colleagues and the public significantly weakened his body. In 1960, a cancerous tumor was discovered in the stomach and lungs with progressive metastases throughout the abdominal cavity. The poet understands that it will no longer be possible to cope with this illness, and begins to prepare for death.
Pasternak's death occurred on May 30, 1960. He died in bed at his own home in Peredelkino (Moscow region) at the age of 70. The next day, the news that the writer had died was published in many literary newspapers.
Pasternak and Georgia
Pasternak’s interest in Georgia first manifested itself in 1917, when he wrote the poem “In Memory of the Demon,” which featured a Caucasian theme inspired by Lermontov’s work. In October 1930, Pasternak met the Georgian poet Paolo Yashvili, who came to Moscow. In July 1931, at the invitation of P. Yashvili, Boris Leonidovich with Zinaida Nikolaevna Neuhaus and her son Adrian (Adik) arrived in Tiflis. There, acquaintance began and close friendships followed with Titian Tabidze, G. Leonidze, S. Chikovani, Lado Gudiashvili, Nikolo Mitsishvili and other figures of Georgian art. Impressions from a three-month stay in Georgia, close contact with its original culture and history left a noticeable mark on Pasternak’s spiritual world. On April 6, 1932, he organized a literary evening of Georgian poetry in Moscow. On June 30, Pasternak wrote to P. Yashvili that he would write about Georgia.
In August 1932, the book “Second Birth” was published with the “Waves” cycle included in it, full of delight. ...We were in Georgia. Let's multiply Need by tenderness, hell by heaven, Let's take the greenhouse under the ice, And we will get this land...
In November 1933, Pasternak went on a second trip to Georgia as part of a writing team (N. Tikhonov, Yu. Tynyanov, O. Forsh, P. Pavlenko and V. Goltsev). In 1932-1933, Pasternak was enthusiastically engaged in translations of Georgian poets. In 1934, Pasternak’s translation of Vazha Pshavela’s poem “Snake Eater” was published in Georgia and Moscow. On January 4, 1935, at the 1st All-Union Meeting of Translators, Pasternak spoke about his translations of Georgian poetry. On February 3 of the same year, he read them at the conference “Poets of Soviet Georgia”.
In February 1935, books were published: in Moscow “Georgian Lyricists” in translations by Pasternak (designed by the artist Lado Gudiashvili), and in Tiflis - “Poets of Georgia” in translations by Pasternak and Tikhonov. T. Tabidze wrote about Pasternak’s translations of Georgian poets that he preserved not only semantic accuracy, but also “all the images and arrangement of words, despite some discrepancy in the metrical nature of Georgian and Russian verse, and, most importantly, the melody is felt in them, and not a transposition of images, and it is surprising that all this was achieved without knowledge of the Georgian language.”
In 1936, another Georgian cycle of poems was completed - “From Summer Notes”, dedicated to “friends in Tiflis”. On July 22, 1937, Paolo Yashvili shot himself. In August, Pasternak wrote his widow a letter of condolences. On October 10, Titian Tabidze was arrested and executed on December 16. Pasternak supported his family financially and morally for many years. In the same year, another Georgian friend of Pasternak, N. Mitsishvili, was repressed. When M. I. Tsvetaeva returned to Moscow before the war, at the request of Pasternak, Goslitizdat gave her translation work, including from Georgian poets. Tsvetaeva translated three poems by Vazha Pshavela (more than 2000 lines), but complained about the difficulties of the Georgian language.
In 1945, Pasternak completed the translation of almost all surviving poems and poems by N. Baratashvili. On October 19, at the invitation of Simon Chikovani, he performed at Baratashvili’s anniversary celebrations at the Rustaveli Theater in Tbilisi. Before leaving Tbilisi, the poet received as a gift from Nina Tabidze a supply of stamped paper, preserved after the arrest of her husband. E. B. Pasternak wrote that it was on it that the first chapters of Doctor Zhivago were written. Boris Leonidovich, who appreciated the “noble ivory yellowness” of this paper, said later that this feeling affected the work on the novel and that it was “Nina’s novel.” In 1946, Pasternak wrote two articles: “Nikolai Baratashvili” and “A few words about the new Georgian poetry.” The latter did not mention the names of the banned P. Yashvili and T. Tabidze, but he included lines about them in 1956 in special chapters of the essay “People and Positions,” which was published in Novy Mir only in January 1967. In October 1958, among the first to congratulate Pasternak on the Nobel Prize was the widow of Titian Tabidze, Nina, who was visiting his house.
From February 20 to March 2, 1959, the last trip of Boris Leonidovich and Zinaida Nikolaevna to Georgia took place. The poet wanted to breathe the air of youth, to visit the houses where his departed friends once lived; Another important reason was that the authorities forced Pasternak to leave Moscow during the visit of British Prime Minister Henry Macmillan to the USSR, who expressed a desire to see the “Peredelkino recluse” and personally find out the reasons why he refused the Nobel Prize. At Pasternak’s request, Nina Tabidze tried to keep his arrival a secret; only an evening was organized in the house of the artist Lado Gudiashvili with a select circle of friends. In the memorial room of the Tabidze family apartment where Pasternak lived, things that he used, a low old-fashioned lampshade over a round table, and a desk at which he wrote, have been preserved.
Attempts to comprehend and understand the roots of Georgian culture led the writer to the idea of developing the theme of early Christian Georgia. Pasternak began to select materials about the biographies of saints of the Georgian church, archaeological excavations, and the Georgian language. However, due to the poet's premature death, the plan remained unfulfilled.
The friendship that began in the early 1930s with prominent representatives of Georgian art, communication and correspondence with whom lasted almost thirty years, led to the fact that Georgia became a second home for Pasternak. From a letter to Nina Tabidze: ...But when I end, my life remains... and what was the most important, fundamental thing in it? An example of my father’s activity, love for music and A. N. Scriabin, two or three new notes in my work, Russian night in the village, revolution, Georgia. Sincere interest and love for the people and culture of Georgia instilled in Pasternak the confidence of the hero of N. Baratashvili’s poem “The Fate of Georgia,” Irakli II, in the future of the country that welcomed him so cordially.
1990 was declared by UNESCO “the year of Pasternak”. The organizers of the anniversary memorial exhibition at the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin highlighted the topic “Pasternak and Georgia” in a separate section. Issues of developing connections between Russian and Georgian cultures using the example of the relationship between poets were included in the agenda of the international conference “Boris Pasternak and Titian Tabidze: friendship of poets as a dialogue of cultures”, held on April 5-6, 2015 at the State Literary Museum in Moscow.
First literary experiments
Valery Avdeev. Portrait of Boris Pasternak. 1942-1943. Chistopol Memorial Museum of Boris Pasternak, Chistopol, Republic of Tatarstan
Leonid Pasternak. Boris Pasternak writing a letter (fragment). 1919. Tate Modern Gallery, London, UK
Leonid Pasternak. Portrait of Boris Pasternak against the background of the Baltic Sea (fragment). 1910. Chistopol Memorial Museum of Boris Pasternak, Chistopol, Republic of Tatarstan
Boris Pasternak was born in Moscow, in the family of artist Leonid Pasternak and pianist Rosalia Kaufman. The future writer grew up in a creative environment: Leo Tolstoy, Vasily Polenov, Isaac Levitan, Sergei Rachmaninov, Alexander Scriabin visited the Pasternaks. Under the influence of Scriabin, the future writer became interested in music - he studied at the conservatory courses and even wrote two sonatas for piano.
Studying at the gymnasium was easy; Pasternak graduated with a gold medal. But for a long time I could not decide on my future profession: first I entered the law department of the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University, then transferred to the philosophy department. In 1912, he studied summer courses in Marburg, Germany, with the philosopher, Professor Hermann Cohen, but soon left with his family for Venice. After the Italian holidays, Pasternak settled in Moscow, graduated from the university, but did not take his diploma: the document remained in the archives on Vorobyovy Gory.
At this time, Pasternak tried to write poetry. He was attracted to various literary associations. The poet participated in meetings of the Moscow Symbolist publishing house "Musaget", and was a member of the futurist literary group "Centrifuge". In 1913, Pasternak published his first poem in the collection of a group of poets “Lyrics”, and at the end of the same year he published his own book of poems “Twin in the Clouds”. Three years later, Pasternak’s second collection, “Over the Barriers,” was published.
I am a conversation from unknown lips, Like a rumor, picked up by cities; To me, like to an erased anagram, the morning brings a ray point-blank.
Boris Pasternak, “Forest”, from the collection “Twin in the Clouds”
In the early 20s, Boris Pasternak met Mayakovsky at the literary association “LEF” and maintained an epistolary friendship with Marina Tsvetaeva and other artists in exile.
"Doctor Zhivago"
In February 1959, B. L. Pasternak wrote about his attitude to the place that prose occupied in his work: ... I have always strived from poetry to prose, to narration and description of relationships with the surrounding reality, because such prose seems to me to be the consequence and implementation what poetry means to me. In accordance with this, I can say: poetry is raw, unrealized prose...
The novel Doctor Zhivago was created over ten years, from 1945 to 1955. Being, according to the writer himself, the pinnacle of his work as a prose writer, the novel represents a broad canvas of the life of the Russian intelligentsia against the background of the dramatic period from the beginning of the century to the Great Patriotic War. The novel is permeated with high poetics, accompanied by poems by the main character - Yuri Andreevich Zhivago. While writing the novel, Pasternak changed its title more than once. The novel could be called “Boys and Girls”, “The Candle Was Burning”, “The Experience of Russian Faust”, “There is No Death”.
The novel, touching on the innermost issues of human existence - the mysteries of life and death, issues of history, Christianity - was sharply negatively received by the authorities and the official Soviet literary environment, rejected for publication due to the author’s ambiguous position in relation to the October Revolution and subsequent changes in the life of the country . So, for example, E. G. Kazakevich, after reading the novel, stated: “It turns out, judging by the novel, the October Revolution was a misunderstanding and it would have been better not to have done it”; K. M. Simonov, editor-in-chief of Novy Mir, responded with a refusal: “You can’t give Pasternak a platform!” The book was published first in Italy in 1957 by Feltrinelli, and then in Holland and Great Britain, through the mediation of the philosopher and diplomat Sir Isaiah Berlin.
The publication of the novel in Holland and Great Britain (and then in the USA in pocket format) and the free distribution of the book to Soviet tourists at the 1958 World Exhibition in Brussels and at the Festival of Youth and Students in Vienna was organized by the US Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA also participated in the distribution of the book, which “had great propaganda value,” in the countries of the socialist bloc. In addition, as follows from declassified documents, in the late 1950s the British Foreign Office tried to use Doctor Zhivago as an anti-communist propaganda tool and financed the publication of the novel in Farsi.
Feltrinelli accused Dutch publishers of violating his publishing rights. The CIA managed to quell this scandal, as the book was a success among Soviet tourists. The publication of the book led to the persecution of Pasternak in the Soviet press, his expulsion from the Union of Writers of the USSR, and insults against him from the pages of Soviet newspapers and at meetings of “workers.” The Moscow organization of the Union of Writers of the USSR, following the board of the Union of Writers, demanded the expulsion of Pasternak from the Soviet Union and deprivation of his Soviet citizenship. Among the writers who demanded expulsion were L. I. Oshanin, A. I. Bezymensky, B. A. Slutsky, S. A. Baruzdin, B. N. Polevoy and many others (see the transcript of the meeting of the All-Moscow Meeting of Writers in the section “ Links"). A negative attitude towards the novel was also expressed by some Russian writers in the West, including V.V. Nabokov.
Nobel Prize. Bullying
Every year from 1946 to 1950 and in 1957, Pasternak was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. In 1958, his candidacy was proposed by last year's laureate Albert Camus, and on October 23, Pasternak became the second writer from Russia (after I. A. Bunin) to receive this award.
The awarding of the prize was perceived by Soviet propaganda as a reason to continue persecuting the poet. Already on the day the prize was awarded (October 23, 1958), on the initiative of M. A. Suslov, the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee adopted a resolution “On the slanderous novel of B. Pasternak,” which recognized the decision of the Nobel Committee as another attempt to be drawn into the Cold War. Literaturnaya Gazeta (editor-in-chief V. Kochetov) wrote on October 25, 1958 that the writer “agreed to play the role of bait on the rusty hook of anti-Soviet propaganda.”
Publicist David Zaslavsky published an article in Pravda, “The Hype of Reactionary Propaganda Around a Literary Weed.” Sergei Mikhalkov responded to Pasternak’s award with a negative epigram under M. Abramov’s caricature “The Nobel Dish.” On October 29, 1958, at the Plenum of the Komsomol Central Committee, Vladimir Semichastny, at that time the first secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee, stated (as he later claimed - at the direction of Khrushchev):
On October 31, 1958, on the occasion of the presentation of the Nobel Prize to Pasternak, the chairman of the All-Moscow Meeting of USSR Writers, Sergei Smirnov, made a speech, concluding that writers should appeal to the government with a request to deprive Pasternak of Soviet citizenship. In the official writing community, the Nobel Prize for Pasternak was perceived negatively. At a meeting of the party group of the Board of the Writers' Union on October 25, 1958, N. Gribachev and S. Mikhalkov, as well as Vera Inber, demanded that Pasternak be deprived of citizenship and expelled from the country.
On October 27, 1958, by a resolution of a joint meeting of the presidium of the board of the Union of Writers of the USSR, the bureau of the organizing committee of the Union of Writers of the RSFSR and the presidium of the board of the Moscow branch of the Union of Writers of the RSFSR, Pasternak was unanimously expelled from the Union of Writers of the USSR. The decision to exclude was approved on October 28 at a meeting of Moscow journalists, and on October 31 at a general meeting of Moscow writers, chaired by S. S. Smirnov. Several writers did not appear at the meeting due to illness, due to departure, or without specifying a reason (including A. Tvardovsky, M. Sholokhov, Kaverin, B. Lavrenev, Marshak, Ilya Erenburg, Leonov). Later, Tvardovsky and Lavrenev, in a letter to Literaturnaya Gazeta on October 25, 1958, were sharply critical of the novel and its author. Meetings of republican, regional and regional writers' organizations were held throughout the country, at which writers condemned Pasternak for his treacherous behavior, which placed him outside Soviet literature and Soviet society.
The awarding of the Nobel Prize to B. L. Pasternak and the beginning of his campaign of persecution unexpectedly coincided with the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Physics in the same year to Soviet physicists P. A. Cherenkov, I. M. Frank and I. E. Tamm. On October 29, an article signed by six academicians appeared in the Pravda newspaper, which reported on the outstanding achievements of Soviet physicists awarded Nobel Prizes. It contained a paragraph stating that the awarding of prizes to physicists was objective, but for literature it was caused by political considerations. On the evening of October 29, Academician M.A. Leontovich arrived in Peredelkino, who considered it his duty to assure Pasternak that real physicists do not think so, and the tendentious phrases were not contained in the article and were inserted against their will. In particular, Academician L.A. Artsimovich refused to write the required article (referring to Pavlov’s behest to scientists to say only what you know). He demanded that he be given Doctor Zhivago to read for this purpose.
The persecution of the poet received a name in popular memories: “I haven’t read it, but I condemn it!” Accusatory rallies took place in workplaces, institutes, factories, bureaucratic organizations, creative unions, where collective insulting letters were drawn up demanding punishment for the disgraced poet.
Despite the fact that the prize was awarded to Pasternak “for significant achievements in modern lyric poetry, as well as for continuing the traditions of the great Russian epic novel,” through the efforts of official Soviet authorities, it was to be remembered for a long time only as firmly associated with the novel “Doctor Zhivago.” As a result of a massive pressure campaign, Boris Pasternak refused the Nobel Prize. In a telegram sent to the Swedish Academy, Pasternak wrote: “Due to the significance that the award given to me has received in the society to which I belong, I must refuse it. Do not consider my voluntary refusal an insult.”
Jawaharlal Nehru and Albert Camus took it upon themselves to intercede for the new Nobel laureate Pasternak with Nikita Khrushchev. But everything turned out to be in vain, although the writer was neither expelled nor sent to prison. Despite his expulsion from the USSR Writers' Union, Pasternak continued to remain a member of the Literary Fund, receive fees, and publish. The idea repeatedly expressed by his persecutors that Pasternak would probably want to leave the USSR was rejected by him - Pasternak wrote in a letter addressed to Khrushchev: “Leaving the Motherland for me is tantamount to death. I am connected with Russia by birth, life, and work.”
Because of the poem “Nobel Prize” published in the West, Pasternak was summoned to the USSR Prosecutor General R. A. Rudenko in February 1959, where he was threatened with charges under Article 64 “Treason”, but this event had no consequences for him . In the summer of 1959, Pasternak began work on the remaining unfinished play “Blind Beauty,” but lung cancer, discovered soon, confined him to bed in the last months of his life.
After death
The monument at the grave was repeatedly desecrated, and on the fortieth anniversary of the poet’s death, an exact copy of the monument was installed, made by sculptor Dmitry Shakhovsky. On the night of Sunday, November 5, 2006, vandals desecrated this monument. Currently, at the grave, located on the steep slope of a high hill, to strengthen the restored monument and prevent the soil from sliding, a powerful stylobate has been built, covering the burials of Pasternak himself, his wife Zinaida Nikolaevna (died in 1966), and youngest son Leonid (died in 1976) , eldest - Evgeny Borisovich Pasternak and stepson Adrian Neuhaus. There was also a platform for visitors and excursionists.
Childhood
Boris Pasternak was born into a Jewish family in Moscow in 1890. The family of the future poet has been involved in art for more than one generation. Boris's parents were creative people and instilled a love of art in their children. Famous and gifted artists and writers who were close friends with each other were frequent guests at the Pasternak estate. The first choice of life path for the writer was music. For more than six years, the young composer and musician enthusiastically studied and composed musical works. In 1900, he was denied admission to the 5th Moscow Gymnasium due to the large number of students. This incident was resolved by the management itself, who, having seen the gifted young man, came to the decision to enroll him in the senior year in a year. In 1903, the poet suffered a serious leg injury, which left him with a limp for life. In 1908, Pasternak graduated from high school with honors, receiving excellent grades in all areas.
Family
The writer's first wife, Evgenia Vladimirovna Pasternak, died in 1965. The marriage lasted from 1922 to 1931. The marriage produced a son, Evgeny Pasternak (1923-2012). The second wife is Zinaida Nikolaevna Neuhaus-Pasternak, previously the wife of Heinrich Neuhaus. The marriage took place in 1932. The Pasternak family raised two children of Heinrich and Zinaida Neuhaus, including pianist Stanislav Neuhauz. The marriage produced Pasternak’s second son, Leonid (died in 1976 at the age of 38).
Pasternak’s last love, Olga Ivinskaya (they got together in 1948), after the poet’s death on trumped-up charges, she spent 4 years in prison (until 1964), then, using the fees received under the will, she purchased an apartment in a house near the Savyolovsky station, where she lived until her death September 8, 1995. She was buried at the Peredelkinskoye cemetery. Boris Pasternak has 4 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
Interesting Facts
- It has been subtly noted that being a poet is not an occupation, not a hobby or a profession. This is not something a person can voluntarily choose. On the contrary, poetry is fate, which chooses itself. This happened with Pasternak. He was born into a creative family: he tried himself in painting, studied music for a long time, and studied at the Faculty of Philosophy. But in the early 1910s, Pasternak unexpectedly abandoned all his hobbies and activities, and went, one might say, into nowhere - into poetry.
All interesting facts from the life of Pasternak
