Editing Boris Pasternak (section)

== Life and career ==
=== Olga Freidenberg ===
In 1910 Pasternak was reunited with his cousin [[Olga Freidenberg]] (1890–1955). They had shared the same nursery but had been separated when the Freidenberg family moved to [[Saint Petersburg]]. They fell in love immediately but were never lovers. The romance, however, is made clear from their letters, Pasternak writing:
{{blockquote|You do not know how my tormenting feeling grew and grew until it became obvious to me and to others. As you walked beside me with complete detachment, I could not express it to you. It was a rare sort of closeness, as if we two, you and I, were in love with something that was utterly indifferent to both of us, something that remained aloof from us by virtue of its extraordinary inability to adapt to the other side of life.}}
The cousins' initial passion developed into a lifelong close friendship. From 1910 Pasternak and Freidenberg exchanged frequent letters, and their correspondence lasted over 40 years until 1954. The cousins last met in 1936.<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://ivka.rsuh.ru/binary/85345_30.1476388407.9268.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://ivka.rsuh.ru/binary/85345_30.1476388407.9268.pdf |archive-date=9 October 2022 |url-status=live|title=Women Classical Scholars: Unsealing the Fountain from the Renaissance to Jacqueline de Romilly|author=Nina V. Braginskaya|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2016|isbn=978-0-19-108965-7|editor1=Rosie Wyles |editor2=Edith Hall|editor2-link=Edith Hall |pages=286–312|translator=Zara M. Tarlone|chapter=Olga Freidenberg: A Creative Mind Incarcerated}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1982/06/23/books/books-of-the-times-228311.html|title=BOOKS OF THE TIMES|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=23 June 1982}}</ref>

=== Ida Wissotzkaya ===
[[File:BORIS BESIDE THE BALTIC AT MEREKULE, 1910 by L.Pasternak.jpg|thumb|right|''Boris Pasternak in 1910'', by his father Leonid Pasternak]]
Pasternak fell in love with Ida Wissotzkaya, a girl from a notable Moscow Jewish [[:ru:Высоцкий, Вульф Янкелевич|family of tea merchants]], whose company [[Wissotzky Tea]] was the largest tea company in the world. Pasternak had tutored her in the final class of high school. He helped her prepare for finals. They met in Marburg during the summer of 1912 when Boris' father, [[Leonid Pasternak]], painted her portrait.<ref name="Ivinskaya 1978 p 395">[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p. 395.</ref>

Although Professor Cohen encouraged him to remain in Germany and to pursue a Philosophy doctorate, Pasternak decided against it. He returned to Moscow around the time of the outbreak of the First World War. In the aftermath of events, Pasternak proposed marriage to Ida. However, the Wissotzky family was disturbed by Pasternak's poor prospects and persuaded Ida to refuse him. She turned him down and he told of his love and rejection in the poem "Marburg" (1917):<ref name="Ivinskaya 1978 p 395"/>

<poem>I quivered. I flared up, and then was extinguished.
I shook. I had made a proposal—but late,
Too late. I was scared, and she had refused me.
I pity her tears, am more blessed than a saint.</poem>

Around this time, when he was back in Russia, he joined the [[Russian Futurist]] group Centrifuge (Tsentrifuga)<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|author=Christopher Barnes|title=Boris Pasternak: a Literary Biography|volume =1|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2004|page=166}}</ref> as a pianist; poetry was still only a hobby for him at that time.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|author=Vladimir Markov|title=Russian Futurism: a History|publisher=University of California Press|year=1968|pages=229–230}}</ref> It was in their group journal, ''Lirika'', where some of his earliest poems were published. His involvement with the Futurist movement as a whole reached its peak when, in 1914, he published a satirical article in ''Rukonog'', which attacked the jealous leader of the "Mezzanine of Poetry", [[Vadim Shershenevich]], who was criticizing ''Lirika'' and the [[Ego-Futurism|Ego-Futurists]] because Shershenevich himself was barred from collaborating with Centrifuge, the reason being that he was such a talentless poet.<ref name=":0" /> The action eventually caused a verbal battle amongst several members of the groups, fighting for recognition as the first, truest Russian Futurists; these included the [[Cubo-Futurism|Cubo-Futurists]], who were by that time already notorious for their scandalous behaviour. Pasternak's first and second books of poetry were published shortly after these events.<ref>{{Cite web|author=Gregory Freidin|author-link=Gregory Freidin|title=Boris Pasternak|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Boris-Pasternak|access-date=4 July 2020|website=Encyclopædia Britannica}}</ref>

Another failed love affair in 1917 inspired the poems in his third and first major book, ''My Sister, Life''. His early verse cleverly dissimulates his preoccupation with [[Immanuel Kant]]'s philosophy. Its fabric includes striking alliterations, wild rhythmic combinations, day-to-day vocabulary, and hidden allusions to his favourite poets such as [[Rilke]], [[Lermontov]], [[Pushkin]] and German-language Romantic poets.

During World War I, Pasternak taught and worked at a chemical factory in [[Vsevolodo-Vilva]] near [[Perm, Russia|Perm]], which undoubtedly provided him with material for ''Dr. Zhivago'' many years later. Unlike the rest of his family and many of his closest friends, Pasternak chose not to leave Russia after the [[October Revolution]] of 1917. According to [[Max Hayward]],

{{blockquote|Pasternak remained in Moscow throughout the [[Russian Civil War|Civil War]] (1918–1920), making no attempt to escape abroad or to the [[White Movement|White-occupied]] south, as a number of other Russian writers did at the time. No doubt, like Yuri Zhivago, he was momentarily impressed by the "splendid surgery" of the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917, but—again to judge by the evidence of the novel, and despite a personal admiration for [[Vladimir Lenin]], whom he saw at the 9th Congress of Soviets in 1921—he soon began to harbor profound doubts about the claims and credentials of the regime, not to mention its style of rule. The terrible shortages of food and fuel, and the depredations of the [[Red Terror]], made life very precarious in those years, particularly for the "[[bourgeois]]" [[intelligentsia]]. In a letter written to Pasternak from abroad in the twenties, [[Marina Tsvetayeva]] reminded him of how she had run into him in the street in 1919 as he was on the way to sell some valuable books from his library in order to buy bread. He continued to write original work and to translate, but after about the middle of 1918 it became almost impossible to publish. The only way to make one's work known was to declaim it in the several "literary" cafes which then sprang up, or—anticipating [[samizdat]]—to circulate it in manuscript. It was in this way that ''My Sister, Life'' first became available to a wider audience.<ref name="Ivinskaya, p. 23">[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p. 23.</ref>}}

[[File:Mayakovsky Pasternak.jpg|thumb|Pasternak (second from left) in 1924, with friends including [[Lilya Brik]], [[Sergei Eisenstein]] (third from left) and [[Vladimir Mayakovsky]] (centre)]]
When it finally was published in 1922, Pasternak's ''My Sister, Life'' revolutionised Russian poetry. It made Pasternak the model for younger poets, and decisively changed the poetry of [[Osip Mandelshtam]], [[Marina Tsvetayeva]] and others.

Following ''My Sister, Life'', Pasternak produced some hermetic pieces of uneven quality, including his masterpiece, the lyric cycle ''Rupture'' (1921). Both Pro-Soviet writers and their [[White émigré]] equivalents applauded Pasternak's poetry as pure, unbridled inspiration.

In the late 1920s, he also participated in the much celebrated tripartite correspondence with [[Rilke]] and [[Tsvetayeva]].<ref>{{Cite journal|author-link=John Bayley (writer)|author=John Bayley|title=Big Three|url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/5268|journal=[[The New York Review of Books]]| volume= 32|date= 5 December 1985|access-date=28 September 2007}}</ref> As the 1920s wore on, however, Pasternak increasingly felt that his colourful style was at odds with a less educated readership. He attempted to make his poetry more comprehensible by reworking his earlier pieces and starting two lengthy poems on the [[Russian Revolution of 1905]]. He also turned to prose and wrote several autobiographical stories, notably "The Childhood of Luvers" and "Safe Conduct". (The collection ''Zhenia's Childhood and Other Stories'' would be published in 1982.)<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NqHAQgAACAAJ&q=editions:ISBN0850314666|title=Zhenia's Childhood and Other Stories|publisher=[[Allison & Busby]]|date=1982|isbn=978-0-85031-467-0}}</ref>

[[File:Boris Pasternak with family 1920s.jpg|thumb|Pasternak with his wife Evgeniya Lurye and their son Yevgeny]]
In 1922 Pasternak married Evgeniya Lurye (Евгения Лурье), a student at the Art Institute. The following year their son Yevgeny was born.

Evidence of Pasternak's support of still-revolutionary members of the leadership of the Communist Party as late as 1926 is indicated by his poem "In Memory of Reissner"<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.marxists.org/subject/women/authors/reissner/works/hamburg/app3.htm |title=In Memory of Reissner |author=Boris Pasternak |date=1926|website=marxists.org |access-date=19 September 2014}}</ref> presumably written upon the premature death from typhus of Bolshevik leader [[Larissa Reissner]] aged 30 in February of that year.

By 1927, Pasternak's close friends [[Vladimir Mayakovsky]] and [[Nikolai Aseyev]] were advocating the complete subordination of the arts to the needs of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]].<ref>[[#Slater|Slater]], p. 78.</ref> In a letter to his sister Josephine, Pasternak wrote of his intentions to "break off relations" with both of them. Although he expressed that it would be deeply painful, Pasternak explained that it could not be prevented. He explained:
{{blockquote|They don't in any way measure up to their exalted calling. In fact, they've fallen short of it but—difficult as it is for me to understand—a modern [[sophist]] might say that these last years have actually demanded a reduction in conscience and feeling in the name of greater intelligibility. Yet now the very spirit of the times demands great, courageous purity. And these men are ruled by trivial routine. Subjectively, they're sincere and conscientious. But I find it increasingly difficult to take into account the personal aspect of their convictions. I'm not out on my own—people treat me well. But all that only holds good up to a point. It seems to me that I've reached that point.<ref>[[#Slater|Slater]], p. 80.</ref>}}

By 1932, Pasternak had strikingly reshaped his style to make it more understandable to the general public and printed the new collection of poems, aptly titled ''The Second Birth''. Although its Caucasian pieces were as brilliant as the earlier efforts, the book alienated the core of Pasternak's refined audience abroad, which was largely composed of anti-communist émigrés.

In 1932, Pasternak fell in love with Zinaida Neuhaus, the wife of the Russian pianist [[Heinrich Neuhaus]]. They both got divorces and married two years later.

Pasternak continued to change his poetry, simplifying his style and language through the years, as expressed in his next book, ''Early Trains'' (1943).

=== Stalin Epigram ===
In April 1934 [[Osip Mandelstam]] recited his "[[Stalin Epigram]]" to Pasternak. After listening, Pasternak told Mandelstam: {{qi|I didn't hear this, you didn't recite it to me, because, you know, very strange and terrible things are happening now: they've begun to pick people up. I'm afraid the walls have ears and perhaps even these benches on the boulevard here may be able to listen and tell tales. So let's make out that I heard nothing.}}<ref name="Ivin61">[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], pp. 61–63.</ref>

On the night of 14 May 1934, Mandelstam was arrested at his home based on a warrant signed by [[NKVD]] boss [[Genrikh Yagoda]]. Devastated, Pasternak went immediately to the offices of ''[[Izvestia]]'' and begged [[Nikolai Bukharin]] to intercede on Mandelstam's behalf.

Soon after his meeting with Bukharin, the telephone rang in Pasternak's Moscow apartment. A voice from [[Moscow Kremlin|the Kremlin]] said, {{qi|Comrade [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] wishes to speak with you.}}<ref name="Ivin61"/> According to Ivinskaya, Pasternak was struck dumb. {{qi|He was totally unprepared for such a conversation. But then he heard ''his'' voice, the voice of Stalin, coming over the line. The Leader addressed him in a rather bluff uncouth fashion, using the familiar ''thou'' form: 'Tell me, what are they saying in your literary circles about the arrest of Mandelstam?'}} Flustered, Pasternak denied that there was any discussion or that there were any literary circles left in Soviet Russia. Stalin went on to ask him for his own opinion of Mandelstam. In an "eager fumbling manner" Pasternak explained that he and Mandelstam each had a completely different philosophy about poetry. Stalin finally said, in a mocking tone of voice: {{qi|I see, you just aren't able to stick up for a comrade}}, and put down the receiver.<ref name="Ivin61"/>

=== Great Purge ===
{{Main|Great Purge}}
According to Pasternak, during the 1937 trial of General [[Iona Yakir]] and Marshal [[Mikhail Tukhachevsky]], the [[Union of Soviet Writers]] requested all members to add their names to a statement supporting the death penalty for the defendants. Pasternak refused to sign, even after leadership of the Union visited him.<ref name="Ivinskaya 1978 pp 132-133">[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], pp. 132–133.</ref>
Soon after, Pasternak appealed directly to Stalin, describing his family's strong [[Tolstoyan]] convictions and putting his own life at Stalin's disposal; he said that he could not stand as a self-appointed judge of life and death. Pasternak was certain that he would be arrested,<ref name="Ivinskaya 1978 pp 132-133"/> but instead Stalin is said to have crossed Pasternak's name off an execution list, reportedly declaring, {{qi|Do not touch this cloud dweller}} (or, in another version, {{qi|Leave that [[Foolishness for Christ|holy fool]] alone!}}).<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p. 133.</ref>

Pasternak's close friend [[Titsian Tabidze]] did fall victim to the Great Purge. In an autobiographical essay published in the 1950s, Pasternak described the execution of Tabidze and the suicides of [[Marina Tsvetaeva]] and [[Paolo Iashvili]].

Ivinskaya wrote, {{qi|I believe that between Stalin and Pasternak there was an incredible, silent [[duel]].}}<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p 135.</ref>

=== World War II ===
When the [[Luftwaffe]] began bombing Moscow, Pasternak immediately began to serve as a fire warden on the roof of the writer's building on Lavrushinski Street. According to Ivinskaya, he repeatedly helped to dispose of German bombs which fell on it.<ref name="Ivin72">[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], pp. 72–73.</ref>

In 1943, Pasternak was finally granted permission to visit the soldiers at the front. He bore it well, considering the hardships of the journey (he had a weak leg from an old injury), and he wanted to go to the most dangerous places. He read his poetry and talked extensively with the active and injured troops.<ref name="Ivin72"/>

Pasternak later said, {{qi|If, in a bad dream, we had seen all the horrors in store for us after the war, we should not have been sorry to see Stalin fall, together with [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]]. Then, an end to the war in favour of our [[Allies of World War II|allies]], civilized countries with democratic traditions, would have meant a hundred times less suffering for our people than that which Stalin again inflicted on it after his victory.}}<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p. 80.</ref>

=== Olga Ivinskaya ===
In October 1946, the twice-married Pasternak met [[Olga Ivinskaya]], a 34 year old single mother employed by ''[[Novy Mir]]''. Deeply moved by her resemblance to his first love Ida Vysotskaya,<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], pp. 12, 395, footnote 3.</ref> Pasternak gave Ivinskaya several volumes of his poetry and literary translations. Although Pasternak never left his wife Zinaida, he started an extramarital relationship with Ivinskaya that would last for the remainder of Pasternak's life. Ivinskaya later recalled, {{qi|He phoned almost every day and, instinctively fearing to meet or talk with him, yet dying of happiness, I would stammer out that I was 'busy today.' But almost every afternoon, toward the end of working hours, he came in person to the office and often walked with me through the streets, boulevards, and squares all the way home to Potapov Street. 'Shall I make you a present of this square?' he would ask.}}

She gave him the phone number of her neighbour Olga Volkova who resided below. In the evenings, Pasternak would phone and Volkova would signal by Olga banging on the water pipe which connected their apartments.<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p. 12.</ref>

When they first met, Pasternak was translating the verse of the Hungarian [[List of national poets|national poet]], [[Sándor Petőfi]]. Pasternak gave his lover a book of Petőfi with the inscription, {{qi|Petőfi served as a code in May and June 1947, and my close translations of his lyrics are an expression, adapted to the requirements of the text, of my feelings and thoughts for you and about you. In memory of it all, B.P., 13 May 1948.}}

Pasternak later noted on a photograph of himself: {{qi|Petőfi is magnificent with his descriptive lyrics and picture of nature, but you are better still. I worked on him a good deal in 1947 and 1948, when I first came to know you. Thank you for your help. I was translating both of you.}}<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p. 27.</ref> Ivinskaya would later describe the Petőfi translations as "a first declaration of love".<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p. 28.</ref>

According to Ivinskaya, Zinaida Pasternak was infuriated by her husband's infidelity. Once, when his younger son Leonid fell seriously ill, Zinaida extracted a promise from her husband, as they stood by the boy's sickbed, that he would end his affair with Ivinskaya. Pasternak asked Luisa Popova, a mutual friend, to tell Ivinskaya about his promise. Popova told him that he must do it himself. Soon after, Ivinskaya happened to be ill at Popova's apartment, when suddenly Zinaida Pasternak arrived and confronted her.

Ivinskaya later recalled,
{{blockquote|But I became so ill through loss of blood that she and Luisa had to get me to the hospital, and I no longer remember exactly what passed between me and this heavily built, strong-minded woman, who kept repeating how she didn't give a damn for our love and that, although she no longer loved [Boris Leonidovich] herself, she would not allow her family to be broken up. After my return from the hospital, Boris came to visit me, as though nothing had happened, and touchingly made his peace with my mother, telling her how much he loved me. By now she was pretty well used to these funny ways of his.<ref name="Ivinskaya, p. 23">[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p. 23.</ref>}}

In 1948, Pasternak advised Ivinskaya to resign her job at ''Novy Mir'', which was becoming extremely difficult due to their relationship. In the aftermath, Pasternak began to instruct her in translating poetry. In time, they began to refer to her apartment on Potapov Street as, "Our Shop".

On the evening of 6 October 1949, Ivinskaya was arrested at her apartment by the [[KGB]]. Ivinskaya relates in her memoirs that, when the agents burst into her apartment, she was at her typewriter working on translations of the [[Korean poetry|Korean poet]] Won Tu-Son. Her apartment was ransacked and all items connected with Pasternak were piled up in her presence. Ivinskaya was taken to the [[Lubyanka (KGB)|Lubyanka Prison]] and repeatedly interrogated, where she refused to say anything incriminating about Pasternak. At the time, she was pregnant with Pasternak's child and had a miscarriage early in her ten-year sentence in the [[GULAG]].

Upon learning of his [[Mistress (lover)|mistress]]' arrest, Pasternak telephoned Luisa Popova and asked her to come at once to [[Gogol Boulevard]]. She found him sitting on a bench near the [[Kropotkinskaya|Palace of Soviets Metro Station]]. Weeping, Pasternak told her, {{qi|Everything is finished now. They've taken her away from me and I'll never see her again. It's like death, even worse.}}<ref name="Ivinskaya 1978, p 86">[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p. 86.</ref>

According to Ivinskaya, {{qi|After this, in conversation with people he scarcely knew, he always referred to Stalin as a 'murderer.' Talking with people in the offices of literary periodicals, he often asked: 'When will there be an end to this freedom for lackeys who happily walk over corpses to further their own interests?' He spent a good deal of time with [[Anna Akhmatova|Akhmatova]]—who in those years was given a very wide berth by most of the people who knew her. He worked intensively on the second part of ''Doctor Zhivago''.}}<ref name="Ivinskaya 1978, p 86"/>

In a 1958 letter to a friend in [[West Germany]], Pasternak wrote, {{qi|She was put in jail on my account, as the person considered by the [[KGB|secret police]] to be closest to me, and they hoped that by means of a gruelling interrogation and threats they could extract enough evidence from her to put me on trial. I owe my life, and the fact that they did not touch me in those years, to her heroism and endurance.}}<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p. 109.</ref>

=== Translating Goethe ===
Pasternak's translation of the [[Faust: The First Part of the Tragedy|first part]] of ''[[Goethe's Faust|Faust]]'' led him to be attacked in the August 1950 edition of ''[[Novy Mir]]''. The critic accused Pasternak of distorting [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]]'s "progressive" meanings to support {{qi|the reactionary theory of 'pure art'}}, as well as introducing aesthetic and [[individualist]] values. In a subsequent letter to the daughter of Marina Tsvetaeva, Pasternak explained that the attack was motivated by the fact that the supernatural elements of the play, which ''Novy Mir'' considered, "irrational", had been translated as Goethe had written them. Pasternak further declared that, despite the attacks on his translation, his contract for the [[Faust: The Second Part of the Tragedy|second part]] had not been revoked.<ref name="Ivin78"/>

=== Khrushchev thaw ===
When Stalin died of a stroke on 5 March 1953, Ivinskaya was still imprisoned in the [[Gulag]], and Pasternak was in Moscow. Across the nation, there were waves of panic, confusion, and public displays of grief. Pasternak wrote, {{qi|Men who are not free... always idealize their bondage.}}<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p. 144.</ref>

After her release, Pasternak's relationship with Ivinskaya picked up where it had left off. Soon after he confided in her, {{qi|For so long we were ruled over by a madman and a murderer, and now by a fool and a pig. The madman had his occasional flights of fancy, he had an intuitive feeling for certain things, despite his wild obscurantism. Now we are ruled over by mediocrities.}}<ref name="Ivin142">[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p. 142.</ref> During this period, Pasternak delighted in reading a clandestine copy of [[George Orwell]]'s ''[[Animal Farm]]'' in English. In conversation with Ivinskaya, Pasternak explained that the pig dictator [[Napoleon (Animal Farm)|Napoleon]], in the novel, "vividly reminded" him of Soviet Premier [[Nikita Khrushchev]].<ref name="Ivin142"/>

=== ''Doctor Zhivago'' ===
[[File:Boris Pasternak 1958b.jpg|thumb|left|Pasternak, 1958]]
Although it contains passages written in the 1910s and 1920s, ''[[Doctor Zhivago (novel)|Doctor Zhivago]]'' was not completed until 1955. Pasternak submitted the novel to ''[[Novy Mir]]'' in 1956, which refused publication due to its rejection of [[socialist realism]].<ref>"Doctor Zhivago": Letter to Boris Pasternak from the Editors of ''Novyi Mir''. Daedalus, Vol. 89, No. 3, The Russian Intelligentsia (Summer 1960), pp.{{spaces}}648–668.</ref> The author, like his [[protagonist]] [[Yuri Zhivago]], showed more concern for the welfare of individual characters than for the "progress" of society. Censors also regarded some passages as [[anti-Soviet]], especially the novel's criticisms<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/02/13/world/doctor-zhivago-to-see-print-in-soviet-in-88.html|title='Doctor Zhivago' to See Print in Soviet in '88|author=Felicity Barringer|date=13 February 1987|work=The New York Times|access-date=1 February 2019|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> of [[Stalinism]], [[Collectivisation]], the [[Great Purge]], and the [[Gulag]].

Pasternak's fortunes were soon to change, however. In March 1956, the [[Italian Communist Party]] sent a journalist, [[Sergio D'Angelo]], to work in the Soviet Union, and his status as a journalist as well as his membership in the Italian Communist Party allowed him to have access to various aspects of the cultural life in Moscow at the time. A Milan publisher, the communist [[Giangiacomo Feltrinelli]], had also given him a commission to find new works of Soviet literature that would be appealing to Western audiences, and upon learning of ''Doctor Zhivago''{{'}}s existence, D'Angelo travelled immediately to Peredelkino and offered to submit Pasternak's novel to Feltrinelli's company for publication. At first Pasternak was stunned. Then he brought the manuscript from his study and told D'Angelo with a laugh, {{qi|You are hereby invited to watch me face the firing squad.}}<ref>[[#Fleishman|Fleishman]], p. 275.</ref>

According to Lazar Fleishman, Pasternak was aware that he was taking a huge risk. No Soviet author had attempted to deal with Western publishers since the 1920s, when such behavior led the Soviet State to declare war on [[Boris Pilnyak]] and [[Evgeny Zamyatin]]. Pasternak, however, believed that Feltrinelli's Communist affiliation would not only guarantee publication, but might even force the Soviet State to publish the novel in Russia.<ref>[[#Fleishman|Fleishman]], pp. 275–276.</ref>

In a rare moment of agreement, both Olga Ivinskaya and Zinaida Pasternak were horrified by the submission of ''Doctor Zhivago'' to a Western publishing house. Pasternak, however, refused to change his mind and informed an emissary from Feltrinelli that he was prepared to undergo any sacrifice in order to see ''Doctor Zhivago'' published.<ref>[[#Fleishman|Fleishman]], p. 276.</ref>

In 1957, Feltrinelli announced that the novel would be published by his company. Despite repeated demands from visiting Soviet emissaries, Feltrinelli refused to cancel or delay publication. According to Ivinskaya, {{qi|He did not believe that we would ever publish the manuscript here and felt he had no right to withhold a masterpiece from the world – this would be an even greater crime.}}<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p. 203.</ref> The Soviet government forced Pasternak to cable the publisher to withdraw the manuscript, but he sent separate, secret letters advising Feltrinelli to ignore the telegrams.{{r|washingtonpost}}

Helped considerably by the Soviet campaign against the novel (as well as by the U.S. [[Central Intelligence Agency]]'s secret purchase of hundreds of copies of the book as it came off the presses around the world – see "[[#Nobel Prize|Nobel Prize]]" section below), ''Doctor Zhivago'' became an instant sensation throughout the non-Communist world upon its release in November 1957. In the [[State of Israel]], however, Pasternak's novel was sharply criticized for its [[Jewish assimilation|assimilationist]] views towards the [[Jewish people]]. When informed of this, Pasternak responded, {{qi|No matter. I am above race...}}<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p. 136.</ref> According to Lazar Fleishman, Pasternak had written the disputed passages prior to Israeli independence. At the time, Pasternak had also been regularly attending Russian Orthodox [[Divine Liturgy]]. Therefore, he believed that Soviet Jews converting to Christianity was preferable to assimilating into [[atheism]] and [[Stalinism]].<ref>[[#Fleishman|Fleishman]], pp. 264–266.</ref>

The first English translation of ''Doctor Zhivago'' was hastily produced by [[Max Hayward]] and [[Manya Harari]] in order to coincide with overwhelming public demand. It was released in August 1958, and remained the only edition available for more than fifty years. Between 1958 and 1959, the English language edition spent 26 weeks at the top of ''[[The New York Times]]''' bestseller list.

Ivinskaya's daughter Irina circulated typed copies of the novel in [[Samizdat]]. Although no Soviet critics had read the banned novel, ''Doctor Zhivago'' was pilloried in the State-owned press. Similar attacks led to a humorous Russian saying, "I haven't read Pasternak, but I condemn him".<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], pp. 268–271.</ref>

During the aftermath of the Second World War, Pasternak had composed a series of poems on [[Gospel]] themes. According to Ivinskaya, Pasternak had regarded Stalin as a {{qi|giant of the pre-Christian era.}} Therefore, Pasternak's decision to write [[Christian poetry]] was {{qi|a form of protest}}.<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p. 134.</ref>

On 9 September 1958, the ''Literary Gazette'' critic Viktor Pertsov retaliated by denouncing {{qi|the decadent religious poetry of Pasternak, which reeks of mothballs from the [[Russian Symbolism|Symbolist]] suitcase of 1908–10 manufacture.}}<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p. 231.</ref> Furthermore, the author received much [[hate mail]] from Communists both at home and abroad. According to Ivinskaya, Pasternak continued to receive such letters for the remainder of his life.<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p. 230.</ref>

In a letter written to his sister Josephine, however, Pasternak recalled the words of his friend Ekaterina Krashennikova upon reading ''Doctor Zhivago''. She had said, {{qi|Don't forget yourself to the point of believing that it was you who wrote this work. It was the [[Russian people]] and their sufferings who created it. Thank God for having expressed it through your pen.}}<ref>[[#Slater|Slater]], p. 403.</ref>

=== Nobel Prize ===
According to Yevgeni Borisovich Pasternak, {{qi|Rumors that Pasternak was to receive the Nobel Prize started right after the end of [[World War II]].}} According to the former Nobel Committee head [[Lars Gyllensten]], his nomination was discussed every year from 1946 to 1950, then again in 1957 (it was finally awarded in 1958). Pasternak guessed at this from the growing waves of criticism in USSR. Sometimes he had to justify his European fame: 'According to the Union of Soviet Writers, some literature circles of the West see unusual importance in my work, not matching its modesty and low productivity...'<ref name="english.pravda.ru">{{cite web|url=http://english.pravda.ru/society/showbiz/18-12-2003/4383-pasternak-0/ |title=Boris Pasternak: Nobel Prize, Son's Memoirs |publisher=English.pravda.ru |date=18 December 2003 |access-date=24 January 2014}}</ref>

Meanwhile, Pasternak wrote to Renate Schweitzer<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p. 220.</ref> and his sister, [[Lydia Pasternak Slater]].<ref>[[#Slater|Slater]], p. 402.</ref> In both letters, the author expressed hope that he would be passed over by the Nobel Committee in favour of [[Alberto Moravia]]. Pasternak wrote that he was wracked with torments and anxieties at the thought of placing his loved ones in danger.

On 23 October 1958, Boris Pasternak was announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize. The citation credited Pasternak's contribution to Russian lyric poetry and for his role in {{qi|continuing the great Russian epic tradition.}} On 25 October, Pasternak sent a [[telegram]] to the [[Swedish Academy]]: {{qi|Infinitely grateful, touched, proud, surprised, overwhelmed.}}<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p. 221.</ref> That same day, the Literary Institute in Moscow demanded that all its students sign a petition denouncing Pasternak and his novel. They were further ordered to join a "spontaneous" demonstration demanding Pasternak's exile from the Soviet Union.<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], pp. 223–224.</ref> Also on that day, the ''Literary Gazette'' published a letter which was sent to B. Pasternak in September 1956 by the editors of the Soviet literary journal [[Novy Mir]] to justify their rejection of [[Doctor Zhivago (novel)|Doctor Zhivago]]. In publishing this letter the Soviet authorities wished to justify the measures they had taken against the author and his work.<ref>"Doctor Zhivago": Letter to Boris Pasternak from the Editors of ''Novyi Mir''. Daedalus, Vol. 89, No. 3, The Russian Intelligentsia (Summer, 1960), pp.{{spaces}}648–668.</ref> On 26 October, the ''Literary Gazette'' ran an article by David Zaslavski entitled, ''[[Reactionary]] Propaganda Uproar over a Literary Weed''.<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p. 224.</ref>

According to [[Solomon Volkov]]:
{{blockquote|The anti-Pasternak campaign was organized in the worst Stalin tradition: denunciations in ''Pravda'' and other newspapers; publications of angry letters from, "ordinary Soviet workers", who had not read the book; hastily convened meetings of Pasternak's friends and colleagues, at which fine poets like [[Vladimir Soloukin]], [[Leonid Martynov]], and [[Boris Slutsky]] were forced to censure an author they respected. Slutsky, who in his brutal prose-like poems had created an image for himself as a courageous soldier and truth-lover, was so tormented by his anti-Pasternak speech that he later went insane. On October 29, 1958, at the plenum of the Central Committee of the Young Communist League, dedicated to the [[Komsomol]]'s fortieth anniversary, its head, [[Vladimir Semichastny]], attacked Pasternak before an audience of 14,000 people, including Khrushchev and other Party leaders. Semichastny first called Pasternak, "a mangy sheep", who pleased the enemies of the Soviet Union with, "his slanderous so-called work." Then Semichastny (who became head of the KGB in 1961) added that, "this man went and spat in the face of the people." And he concluded with, "If you compare Pasternak to a pig, a pig would not do what he did," because a pig, "never shits where it eats." Khrushchev applauded demonstratively. News of that speech drove Pasternak to the brink of suicide. It has recently come to light that the real author of Semichastny's insults was Khrushchev, who had called the Komsomol leader the night before and dictated his lines about the mangy sheep and the pig, which Semichastny described as a, "typically Khrushchevian, deliberately crude, unceremoniously scolding."<ref>Solomon Volkov (2008) ''The Magical Chorus: A History of Russian Culture from Tolstoy to Solzhenitsyn'', Alfred A. Knopf, pp. 195–196. {{ISBN|978-1-4000-4272-2}}.</ref>}}

Furthermore, Pasternak was informed that, if he traveled to [[Stockholm]] to collect his Nobel Medal, he would be refused re-entry to the Soviet Union. As a result, on 29 October Pasternak sent a second telegram to the Nobel Committee: {{qi|In view of the meaning given the award by the society in which I live, I must renounce this undeserved distinction which has been conferred on me. Please do not take my voluntary renunciation amiss.}}<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p. 232.</ref> The Swedish Academy announced: {{qi|This refusal, of course, in no way alters the validity of the award. There remains only for the Academy, however, to announce with regret that the presentation of the Prize cannot take place.}}<ref name=nobel_lectures>
{{cite book
| title = Literature 1901–1967
| url = https://archive.org/details/literature19011900fren
| url-access = registration
| editor = Horst Frenz
| series = Nobel Lectures
| year = 1969
| publisher = Elsevier
| location = Amsterdam
| isbn = 9780444406859
}}
(via {{cite web
| url = http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1958/press.html
| title = Nobel Prize in Literature 1958 – Announcement
| access-date =24 May 2007
| publisher = [[Nobel Foundation]]
}})
</ref>
According to Yevgenii Pasternak, {{qi|I couldn't recognize my father when I saw him that evening. Pale, lifeless face, tired painful eyes, and only speaking about the same thing: 'Now it all doesn't matter, I declined the Prize.'}}<ref name="english.pravda.ru"/>

=== Deportation plans ===
Despite his decision to decline the award, the Union of Soviet Writers continued to demonise Pasternak in the State-owned press. Furthermore, he was threatened at the very least with formal exile to the West. In response, Pasternak wrote directly to Soviet Premier [[Nikita Khrushchev]],
{{blockquote|I am addressing you personally, the C.C. of the C.P.S.S., and the Soviet Government. From Comrade Semichastny's speech I learn that the government, 'would not put any obstacles in the way of my departure from the U.S.S.R.' For me this is impossible. I am tied to Russia by birth, by my life and work. I cannot conceive of my destiny separate from Russia, or outside it. Whatever my mistakes or failings, I could not imagine that I should find myself at the center of such a political campaign as has been worked up round my name in the West. Once I was aware of this, I informed the Swedish Academy of my voluntary renunciation of the Nobel Prize. Departure beyond the borders of my country would for me be tantamount to death and I therefore request you not to take this extreme measure with me. With my hand on my heart, I can say that I have done something for Soviet literature, and may still be of use to it.<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], pp. 240–241.</ref>}}

In ''The Oak and the Calf'', [[Alexander Solzhenitsyn]] sharply criticized Pasternak, both for declining the Nobel Prize and for sending such a letter to Khrushchev. In her own memoirs, Olga Ivinskaya blames herself for pressuring her lover into making both decisions.

According to Yevgenii Pasternak, {{qi|She accused herself bitterly for persuading Pasternak to decline the Prize. After all that had happened, open shadowing, friends turning away, Pasternak's suicidal condition at the time, one can... understand her: the memory of Stalin's camps was too fresh, [and] she tried to protect him.}}<ref name="english.pravda.ru"/>

On 31 October 1958, the [[Union of Soviet Writers]] held a trial behind closed doors. According to the meeting minutes, Pasternak was denounced as an [[Inner emigration|internal émigré]] and a Fascist [[fifth columnist]]. Afterwards, the attendees announced that Pasternak had been expelled from the Union. They further signed a petition to the [[Politburo]], demanding that Pasternak be stripped of his Soviet citizenship and exiled to {{qi|his Capitalist paradise.}}<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], pp. 251–261.</ref> According to Yevgenii Pasternak, however, author [[Konstantin Paustovsky]] refused to attend the meeting. [[Yevgeny Yevtushenko]] did attend, but walked out in disgust.<ref name="english.pravda.ru"/>

According to Yevgenii Pasternak, his father would have been exiled had it not been for Indian Prime Minister [[Jawaharlal Nehru]], who telephoned Khrushchev and threatened to organize a Committee for Pasternak's protection.<ref name="english.pravda.ru"/>

It is possible that the 1958 Nobel Prize prevented Pasternak's imprisonment due to the Soviet State's fear of international protests. Yevgenii Pasternak believes, however, that the resulting persecution fatally weakened his father's health.<ref name="washingtonpost">{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/26/AR2007012601758.html |title=The Plot Thickens A New Book Promises an Intriguing Twist to the Epic Tale of 'Doctor Zhivago' |author=Peter Finn |date=26 January 2007 |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=24 January 2014}}</ref>

Meanwhile, [[Bill Mauldin]] produced [[:File:I won the Nobel Prize for Literature.jpg|a cartoon about Pasternak]] that won the 1959 [[Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning]]. The cartoon depicts Pasternak as a [[GULAG]] inmate splitting trees in the snow, saying to another inmate: {{qi|I won the Nobel Prize for Literature. What was your crime?}}<ref>[https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/swann/mauldin/mauldin-intro.html Bill Mauldin Beyond Willie and Joe] (Library of Congress).</ref>

=== Last years ===
[[File:Dommuzejpasternak.jpg|thumb|Boris Pasternak's [[dacha]] in [[Peredelkino]], where he lived between 1936 and 1960]]
[[File:Boris Pasternak 1958.jpg|thumb|Pasternak at Peredelkino in 1958]]
[[File:Boris Pasternak 1959.jpg|thumb|Pasternak at Peredelkino in 1959]]
Pasternak's post-''Zhivago'' poetry probes the universal questions of love, immortality, and reconciliation with God.<ref>[http://www.hoover.org/hila/exhibits/3243901.html Hostage of Eternity: Boris Pasternak] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060927114626/http://www.hoover.org/hila/exhibits/3243901.html |date=27 September 2006 }} (Hoover Institution).</ref><ref>[http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2004/april28/pasternak-428.html Conference set on Doctor Zhivago writer] (Stanford Report, 28 April 2004).</ref> Boris Pasternak wrote his last complete book, ''When the Weather Clears'', in 1959.

According to Ivinskaya, Pasternak continued to stick to his daily writing schedule even during the controversy over ''Doctor Zhivago''. He also continued translating the writings of [[Juliusz Słowacki]] and [[Pedro Calderón de la Barca]]. In his work on Calderon, Pasternak received the discreet support of Nikolai Mikhailovich Liubimov, a senior figure in the Party's literary apparatus. Ivinskaya describes Liubimov as, "a shrewd and enlightened person who understood very well that all the mudslinging and commotion over the novel would be forgotten, but that there would always be a Pasternak."<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p. 292.</ref> In a letter to his sisters in [[Oxford]], England, Pasternak claimed to have finished translating one of Calderon's plays in less than a week.<ref>[[#Ivinskaya|Ivinskaya]], p. 39.</ref>

During the summer of 1959, Pasternak began writing ''The Blind Beauty'', a trilogy of [[stage play]]s set before and after [[Alexander II of Russia|Alexander II]]'s abolition of [[serfdom in Russia]]. In an interview with Olga Carlisle from ''[[The Paris Review]]'', Pasternak enthusiastically described the play's plot and characters. He informed Olga Carlisle that, at the end of ''The Blind Beauty'', he wished to depict "the birth of an enlightened and affluent middle class, open to occidental influences, progressive, intelligent, artistic".<ref>{{cite journal|url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4679/the-art-of-fiction-no-25-boris-pasternak|title=Boris Pasternak, The Art of Fiction No. 25|journal=The Paris Review|issue=24|author=Olga Carlisle|date=Summer–Fall 1960|volume=Summer-Fall 1960}}</ref> However, Pasternak fell ill with terminal lung cancer before he could complete the first play of the trilogy.