Editing Boris Pasternak (section)

== Early life ==
[[File:Leonid_Pasternak_-_Boris_and_Alexander.jpg|thumb|Boris (left) with his brother Alex; painting by their father, [[Leonid Pasternak]]]]

Pasternak was born in Moscow on {{OldStyleDate|10 February|1890|29 January}} into a wealthy, assimilated [[Jewish]] family.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Pasternak.html |title=Boris Leonidovich Pasternak Biography |publisher=Jewishvirtuallibrary.org |access-date=24 January 2014}}</ref> His father was the [[post-Impressionist]] painter [[Leonid Pasternak]], who taught as a professor at the [[Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture|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 Pasternak Slater|Lydia]] and Josephine. The family claimed descent on the paternal line from [[Isaac Abarbanel]], the famous 15th-century [[Sephardic Jewish]] [[Philosophy|philosopher]], [[Rabbinic commentaries|Bible commentator]], and treasurer of [[Portugal]].<ref>{{cite book|author1=Christopher Barnes|author2=Christopher J. Barnes|author3=Boris Leonidovich Pasternak|title=Boris Pasternak: A Literary Biography|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Tle7SAlWFRkC|date= 2004|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-52073-7|page=2}}</ref>

=== Early education ===
From 1904 to 1907, Boris Pasternak was the cloister-mate of Peter Minchakievich (1890–1963) in [[Holy Dormition Pochayiv Lavra|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 [[University of Lviv|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:
{{blockquote|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...<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p. 137.</ref>}}

Shortly after his birth, Pasternak's parents had joined the [[Tolstoyan]] Movement. Novelist [[Leo Tolstoy]] was a close family friend, as Pasternak recalled, {{qi|my father illustrated his books, went to see him, revered him, and [...] the whole house was imbued with his spirit.}}<ref>[[#Pasternak59|Pasternak (1959)]], p. 25.</ref>

[[File:Boris Pasternak in youth.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Pasternak c. 1908]]
In a 1956 essay, Pasternak recalled his father's feverish work creating illustrations for Tolstoy's novel ''[[Resurrection (Tolstoy novel)|Resurrection]]''.<ref name="Past28"/> The novel was serialized in the journal ''[[Niva (magazine)|Niva]]'' by the publisher [[Adolf Marks|Fyodor Marx]], based in St Petersburg. The sketches were drawn from observations in such places as courtrooms, prisons and on trains, in a spirit of realism. To ensure that the sketches met the journal deadline, train conductors were enlisted to personally collect the illustrations. Pasternak wrote,

{{blockquote|My childish imagination was struck by the sight of a train conductor in his formal railway uniform, standing waiting at the door of the kitchen as if he were standing on a railway platform at the door of a compartment that was just about to leave the station. Joiner's glue was boiling on the stove. The illustrations were hurriedly wiped dry, fixed, glued on pieces of cardboard, rolled up, tied up. The parcels, once ready, were sealed with sealing wax and handed to the conductor.<ref name="Past28">[[#Pasternak59|Pasternak (1959)]], pp. 27–28.</ref>}}

According to [[Max Hayward]], {{qi|In November 1910, when Tolstoy fled from his home and died in the stationmaster's house at [[Astapovo]], Leonid Pasternak was informed by telegram and he went there immediately, taking his son Boris with him, and made a drawing of Tolstoy on his deathbed.}}<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p. 16.</ref>

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.<ref>Boris Pasternak (1967), "Sister, My Life". Translated by C. Flayderman. Introduction by Robert Payne. Washington Square Press.</ref> Inspired by Scriabin, Pasternak briefly was a student at the [[Moscow Conservatory]]. In 1910, he abruptly left for the [[University of Marburg]] in [[German Empire|Germany]], where he studied under [[neo-Kantian]] philosophers [[Hermann Cohen]], [[Nicolai Hartmann]], and [[Paul Natorp]].