Boris Pasternak
Russian poet and novelist, author of Doctor Zhivago and Nobel laureate.
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was a Russian and Soviet poet, novelist, and translator. His first poetry collection, *My Sister, Life*, written in 1917, came out in Berlin in 1922 and quickly became a landmark in Russian verse. His renderings of plays by Goethe, Schiller, Calderón de la Barca, and Shakespeare are still widely admired in Russia. He wrote *Doctor Zhivago*, a novel spanning the 1905 Russian Revolution through World War II. The Soviet Union refused to publish it, so the manuscript was taken to Italy, where it first appeared in 1957 as part of a CIA effort to sway Soviet public opinion. In 1958, Pasternak won the Nobel Prize in Literature, infuriating the Communist Party, which pressured him to turn it down. His son Yevgeny accepted the award for him in 1989. Since 2003, *Doctor Zhivago* has been required reading in Russian schools.
Pasternak was born in Moscow to a wealthy, assimilated Jewish family. His father, Leonid, was a post-Impressionist painter and professor at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. His mother, Rosa Kaufman, was a concert pianist and the daughter of Odessa industrialist Isadore Kaufman. He had a younger brother, Alex, and two sisters, Lydia and Josephine. The family traced its paternal line to Isaac Abarbanel, a 15th-century Sephardic Jewish philosopher and treasurer of Portugal.
From 1904 to 1907, Pasternak lived at the Holy Dormition Pochayev Lavra in present-day Ukraine alongside Peter Minchakievich, who came from an Orthodox Ukrainian family. Some have mistakenly thought Pasternak attended a military academy; the monastery’s cadet corps simply wore uniforms like those of the Czar Alexander the Third Military Academy. The two boys parted ways in 1908, friendly but politically divided, and never met again. Pasternak studied music at the Moscow Conservatory and later philosophy in Germany; Minchakievich studied history and philosophy at Lvov University. The character Strelnikov in *Doctor Zhivago* draws on Minchakievich, though Pasternak often blended traits from multiple people. After World War I and the Revolution, Minchakievich fought for the Provisional Government, escaped a Communist jail, crossed Siberia in 1917, and became a U.S. citizen. Pasternak remained in Russia.
Shortly after his birth, Pasternak’s parents joined the Tolstoyan Movement. Leo Tolstoy was a close family friend; Pasternak recalled that his father illustrated Tolstoy’s books, visited him, and revered him, so the whole household was filled with his spirit. In a 1956 essay, Pasternak described his father’s intense work illustrating Tolstoy’s *Resurrection*, serialized in the journal *Niva*. The sketches, drawn from real courtrooms, prisons, and trains, were rushed to meet deadlines by train conductors. In November 1910, when Tolstoy fled home and died at Astapovo, Leonid Pasternak took Boris along to make a drawing of Tolstoy on his deathbed. Regular visitors to the Pasternak home included Sergei Rachmaninoff, Alexander Scriabin, Lev Shestov, and Rainer Maria Rilke. Pasternak first aimed to be a musician, inspired by Scriabin, and briefly studied at the Moscow Conservatory. In 1910, he left for the University of Marburg in Germany, studying under neo-Kantian philosophers Hermann Cohen, Nicolai Hartmann, and Paul Natorp.
In 1910, Pasternak reconnected with his cousin Olga Freidenberg, with whom he had shared a nursery as a child. They fell in love but were never lovers, as their letters make clear. Their initial passion became a lifelong close friendship, and they exchanged letters for over 40 years until 1954, last meeting in 1936.
Pasternak also fell in love with Ida Wissotzkaya, from a prominent Moscow Jewish family of tea merchants. He had tutored her in high school and helped her prepare for finals. They met again in Marburg in the summer of 1912, when his father painted her portrait. Though Professor Cohen urged him to stay in Germany for a philosophy doctorate, Pasternak decided against it and returned to Moscow around the start of World War I. In the aftermath, he proposed to her.
- born
- 10 February [O.S. 29 January] 1890, Moscow
- died
- 30 May 1960
- field
- Poetry, novel, literary translation
- nationality
- Russian and Soviet
- known_for
- Doctor Zhivago, Nobel Prize in Literature (1958)
Lore & Background
Pasternak was born in Moscow on 10 February [O.S. 29 January] 1890 into a wealthy, assimilated Jewish family. His father was the post-Impressionist painter Leonid Pasternak, who taught as a professor at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. His mother was Rosa Kaufman, a concert pianist and the daughter of Odessa industrialist Isadore Kaufman and his wife. Pasternak had a younger brother, Alex, and two sisters, Lydia and Josephine. The family claimed descent on the paternal line from Isaac Abarbanel, the famous 15th-century Sephardic Jewish philosopher, Bible commentator, and treasurer of Portugal. Shortly after his birth, Pasternak's parents had joined the Tolstoyan Movement. Novelist Leo Tolstoy was a close family friend, as Pasternak recalled, 'my father illustrated his books, went to see him, revered him, and [...] the whole house was imbued with his spirit.' Regular visitors to the Pasternaks' home also included Sergei Rachmaninoff, Alexander Scriabin, Lev Shestov, and Rainer Maria Rilke. Pasternak aspired first to be a musician. Inspired by Scriabin, Pasternak briefly was a student at the Moscow Conservatory. In 1910, he abruptly left for the University of Marburg in Germany, where he studied under neo-Kantian philosophers Hermann Cohen, Nicolai Hartmann, and Paul Natorp.
Reader's Guide
From 1904 to 1907, Boris Pasternak was the cloister-mate of Peter Minchakievich (1890–1963) in Holy Dormition Pochayev Lavra (now in Ukraine). Minchakievich came from an Orthodox Ukrainian family and Pasternak came from a Jewish family. Some confusion has arisen as to Pasternak attending a military academy in his boyhood years. The uniforms of their monastery Cadet Corp were only similar to those of The Czar Alexander the Third Military Academy, as Pasternak and Minchakievich never attended any military academy. Most schools used a distinctive military-looking uniform particular to them as was the custom of the time in Eastern Europe and Russia. Boyhood friends, they parted in 1908, friendly but with different politics, never to see each other again. Pasternak went to the Moscow Conservatory to study music (and later to Germany to study philosophy), and Minchakievich went to Lvov University to study history and philosophy. The good dimension of the character Strelnikov in Dr. Zhivago is based upon Peter Minchakievich. Several of Pasternak's characters are composites. After World War One and the Revolution, fighting for the Provisional or Republican government under Kerensky, and then escaping a Communist jail and execution, Minchakievich trekked across Siberia in 1917 and became an American citizen. Pasternak stayed in Russia. In a 1959 letter to Jacqueline de Proyart, Pasternak recalled: 'I was baptized as a child by my nanny, but because of the restrictions imposed on Jews, particularly in the case of a family which was exempt from them and enjoyed a certain reputation in view of my father's standing as an artist, there was something a little complicated about this, and it was always felt to be half-secret and intimate, a source of rare and exceptional inspiration rather than being calmly taken for granted. I believe that this is at the root of my distinctiveness. Most intensely of all my mind was occupied by Christianity in the years 1910–12, when the main foundations of this distinctiveness—my way of seeing things, the world, life—were taking shape...'
Did You Know?
- Pasternak's father, Leonid Pasternak, made a drawing of Leo Tolstoy on his deathbed in November 1910, and took his son Boris with him to Astapovo.
- Pasternak's first major book of poems, 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's son Yevgeny accepted the Nobel Prize on his father's behalf in 1989.
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
More in Notable Figures
Elsewhere in the Historical Figures universe
Spotted an error? Know more?
This is a living reference — every entry is fact-audited, and reader corrections feed straight into our audit queue. Suggest an edit · See this site's audit record