Doctor Zhivago
14.99 €
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Doctor Zhivago
14.99 €
The novel "Doctor Zhivago", which was created over ten years, is rightly considered to be the pinnacle of Boris Leonidovich Pasternak's prose work. It was first published in 1957 in Milan. A year later Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for this work. In Russia, Dr. Zhivago was published only in 1988. In this edition, the novel is illustrated with drawings by contemporary artist Tatiana Kosach.The novel Dr. Zhivago had a dramatic fate. Boris Leonidovich Pasternak began writing this epochal work almost immediately after the victory over Hitler's Germany. By this time he had finished translating Shakespeare's "Hamlet". The poet was 55 years old and had been writing wonderful poetry for more than three decades. Having graduated with a gold medal from the 5th Moscow gymnasium, Pasternak wanted to enter the composition faculty of the Moscow Conservatory. His own doubts about having an absolute musical ear hindered him. His parents taught Boris to achieve perfection in any endeavor he undertook. Mastery was achieved in the poetic field. By the early 30's Boris Leonidovich was already the author of several collections of brilliant poems. At the first Congress of the Union of Writers of the USSR, there were calls to officially call him the best poet of the Soviet Union. However, the poet himself recalled that he always strived from poetry to prose. Pasternak wrote that poetry for him is "raw, unrealized prose ...". He turned to it and before "Dr. Zhivago", and yet it was this novel became the most significant, large-scale and in many ways fateful prose work of Pasternak. He wrote it for ten years, raising the most important themes of life and describing the life of the Russian intelligentsia from the early XX century to the Great Patriotic War.The Soviet authorities considered the novel insufficiently patriotic, and its publication was denied to the poet. As a result, "Doctor Zhivago" was first published in Milan in 1957 in Italian. Two years later, the Russian text of the novel was also published there. Pasternak was repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature since 1946, but he did not receive it until Dr. Zhivago was published abroad. This event incredibly reinforced the authorities' prejudice against the novel. Pasternak was subjected to unprecedented harassment. He was expelled from the Union of Writers of the USSR. It was even proposed to deprive the writer of citizenship. Later Yevgeny Yevtushenko suggested that Pasternak with his novel unwittingly became a hostage of the internal political struggle in the USSR and became a prominent figure in the ideological confrontation with the West. The attitude of the Soviet authorities to the novel changed only after the death of the writer. Pasternak died at his dacha in Peredelkino near Moscow at the end of May 1960 at the age of 71. The decision to expel Pasternak from the Union of Writers of the USSR was reversed in 1987, and a year later "Dr. Zhivago" was first published in the writer's homeland. In this edition, the novel is illustrated with drawings by contemporary artist Tatiana Kosach.
See also:
- All books by the publisher
- All books by the author
- All books in the series Library of World Literature