Boris Pasternak

Lore & Background

Pasternak was born in Moscow into a wealthy, assimilated Jewish family. His father was the post-Impressionist painter Leonid Pasternak, and his mother was concert pianist Rosa Kaufman. The family claimed descent from Isaac Abarbanel, a 15th-century Sephardic Jewish philosopher. Novelist Leo Tolstoy was a close family friend, and while Pasternak's parents were acquainted with Tolstoy, there is no clear evidence they formally joined the Tolstoyan Movement. Pasternak was baptized as a child by his nanny, but this was kept half-secret due to restrictions on Jews. He studied music at the Moscow Conservatory and later philosophy at the University of Marburg in Germany under neo-Kantian philosophers. His first published book was the poetry collection 'Twin in the Clouds' (1914), though his acclaimed collection My Sister, Life, composed in 1917, was published in Berlin in 1922 and became an important collection in the Russian language. Pasternak's translations of stage plays by Goethe, Schiller, Calderón de la Barca, and Shakespeare remain popular with Russian audiences.

Reader's Guide

Pasternak's significance rests primarily on his novel Doctor Zhivago, which takes place between the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the Second World War. Rejected for publication in the USSR, the manuscript was smuggled to Italy and first published there in 1957 as part of a CIA operation to undermine the Soviet Union. The novel has been part of the main Russian school curriculum since 2003. Pasternak was awarded the 1958 Nobel Prize in Literature, an event that enraged the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which forced him to decline the prize. In 1989, his son Yevgeny finally accepted the award on his father's behalf. His poetry collection My Sister, Life (1922) is considered a landmark in Russian poetry. His legacy includes his enduring popularity as a translator of European playwrights and his role as a symbol of artistic resistance to state control.

Did You Know?

• Pasternak's first published book was the poetry collection 'Twin in the Clouds' (1914); his acclaimed collection My Sister, Life was composed in 1917 and published in Berlin in 1922.
• Doctor Zhivago was first published in Italy in 1957 as part of a CIA operation.
• Pasternak was forced to decline the 1958 Nobel Prize in Literature due to pressure from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
• Pasternak's translations of stage plays by Goethe, Schiller, Calderón de la Barca, and Shakespeare remain very popular with Russian audiences.

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"Не спи, не спи, художник,Не предавайся сну.Ты – вечности заложникУ времени в плену." — Boris Pasternak "Don't sleep, don't sleep, artist,Don't give in to sleep.You are eternity's hostageA captive of time." — Boris Pasternak "They don’t ask much of you. They only want you to hate the things you love and to love the things you despise." — Boris Pasternak "Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation’s tears in shoulder blades." — Boris Pasternak