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The vision of the United States <strong>Aca</strong>demic <strong>Dec</strong>athlon ®<br />

is to provide students the opportunity to<br />

excel academically through team competition.<br />

Toll Free: 866-511-USAD (8723) Direct: 712-366-3700 Fax: 712-366-3701 Email: info@usad.org Website: www.usad.org<br />

This material may not be reproduced or transmitted, in whole or in part, by any means, including but not limited to photocopy, print, electronic, or internet<br />

display or downloading, without prior written permission from USAD. Copyright © 2012 by United States <strong>Aca</strong>demic <strong>Dec</strong>athlon. All rights reserved.<br />

2012–2013 RESOURCE GUIDE<br />

Giving Voice to the Russian Revolution: Boris Pasternak <strong>and</strong> the National Epic<br />

LANGUAGE & LITERATURE<br />

Shawnee Mission NW HS - Shawnee Mission, K


TABLE OF CONTENTS<br />

SECTION I:<br />

Critical Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4<br />

SECTION II:<br />

Doctor Zhivago,<br />

Boris Pasternak (1890–1960) . . . . . . .10<br />

Introduction to the Theme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10<br />

Background of the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11<br />

2<br />

Youth <strong>and</strong> Education (1890–1913) . . . . . . . . . . .11<br />

Emergence as a Writer, the Early <strong>Dec</strong>ades of<br />

the Twentieth Century <strong>and</strong> Political Upheaval<br />

(1913–29) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15<br />

Writing <strong>and</strong> Politics in the Thirties <strong>and</strong> Forties:<br />

Stalinism <strong>and</strong> a Second World War . . . . . . . . . . .23<br />

The Final <strong>Dec</strong>ade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31<br />

The Political Context of Doctor Zhivago . . . . . . . . .33<br />

Reading the Novel in Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34<br />

The Structure of the Novel<br />

<strong>and</strong> Its Historical Moment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35<br />

Plot Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35<br />

Chapter One . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35<br />

Chapter Two . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36<br />

Chapter Three . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37<br />

Chapter Four . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37<br />

Chapter Five . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38<br />

Chapter Six . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39<br />

Chapter Seven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40<br />

Chapter Eight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40<br />

Chapter Nine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40<br />

Chapter Ten . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41<br />

Chapter Eleven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42<br />

Chapter Twelve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42<br />

Chapter Thirteen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43<br />

Chapter Fourteen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43<br />

Chapter Fifteen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44<br />

Chapter Sixteen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44<br />

Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45<br />

Form, Plot, <strong>and</strong> Genre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49<br />

Association by Contiguity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49<br />

The Influence of Tolstoy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49<br />

Yurii Zhivago as Odysseus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49<br />

Influence of The Aeneid <strong>and</strong> Moscow<br />

as the “Third Rome” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50<br />

References to Christianity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50<br />

Narrative Point of View, Setting, <strong>and</strong> Imagery . . . .51<br />

Narrative Point of View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51<br />

Setting, Nature, <strong>and</strong> Imagery in the Depiction<br />

of the Russian Pastoral L<strong>and</strong>scape . . . . . . . . . . .51<br />

Setting <strong>and</strong> Motion: The Trains . . . . . . . . . . . . .52<br />

Setting <strong>and</strong> the City: Moscow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53<br />

Symbolism <strong>and</strong> Theme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54<br />

Life, Death, <strong>and</strong> the Nature of Art . . . . . . . . . . .54<br />

Predestination <strong>and</strong> Coincidence . . . . . . . . . . . . .54<br />

The Inevitability of the Russian Revolution:<br />

The Force of Conformism, Christianity,<br />

<strong>and</strong> the Individual as Artist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56<br />

The Poems of Yurii Zhivago: “Hamlet” . . . . . . . . . .57<br />

Section II Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59<br />

SECTION III:<br />

Shorter Selections<br />

in Russian <strong>Lit</strong>erature . . . . . . . . . . . . .60<br />

Introduction: The Connections<br />

between Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago<br />

<strong>and</strong> Its <strong>Lit</strong>erary Contemporaries <strong>and</strong> Forebears . . . .60<br />

The Life of Alex<strong>and</strong>er Pushkin (1799–1837) . . . . . .61<br />

SELECTED WORK: “Autumn,”<br />

by Alex<strong>and</strong>er Pushkin, 1833 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65<br />

Pushkin’s Poem “Autumn” (1833) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66<br />

USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 2012–2013<br />

Shawnee Mission NW HS - Shawnee Mission, K


The Life of Leo (Lev) Nikolayevich,<br />

Count Tolstoy (1828–1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .68<br />

SELECTED WORK: “After the Dance,”<br />

by Leo Tolstoy, 1903 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71<br />

Tolstoy’s Story “After the Dance” (1903) . . . . . . . . .75<br />

The Life of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov<br />

(1860–1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78<br />

SELECTED WORK: “The Lady with a Dog,”<br />

by Anton Chekhov, 1899 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81<br />

Chekhov’s “The Lady with a Dog” (1899) . . . . . . . .88<br />

The Life of Alex<strong>and</strong>er Alex<strong>and</strong>reyevich Blok<br />

(1880–1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91<br />

SELECTED WORK: “On the Field of Kulikovo,”<br />

by Alex<strong>and</strong>er Blok, 1908 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .94<br />

Blok’s “On the Field of Kulikovo” (1908) . . . . . . . . .96<br />

NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99<br />

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .105<br />

2012–2013 USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 3<br />

Shawnee Mission NW HS - Shawnee Mission, K


S E C T I O N I :<br />

CRITICAL THINKING<br />

Critical reading is a familiar exercise to students,<br />

an exercise that many of them have been engaged<br />

in since the first grade . Critical reading forms a<br />

major part (more than fifty percent) of the PSAT, the<br />

SAT, the ACT, <strong>and</strong> both Advanced Placement Tests in<br />

English . It is the portion of any test for which students<br />

can do the least direct preparation, <strong>and</strong> it is also the<br />

portion that will reward students who have been lifelong<br />

readers . Unlike other parts of the United States<br />

<strong>Aca</strong>demic <strong>Dec</strong>athlon Test in <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature,<br />

where the questions will be based on specific works<br />

of literature that the students have been studying<br />

diligently, the critical reading passage in the test, as a<br />

previously unseen passage, will have an element of surprise<br />

. In fact, the test writers usually go out of their way<br />

to choose passages from works not previously encountered<br />

in high school so as to avoid making the critical<br />

reading items a mere test of recall . From one point of<br />

view, not having to rely on memory actually makes<br />

questions on critical reading easier than the other questions<br />

because the answer must always be somewhere<br />

in the passage, stated either directly or indirectly, <strong>and</strong><br />

careful reading will deliver the answer .<br />

Since students can feel much more confident with<br />

some background information <strong>and</strong> some knowledge<br />

of the types of questions likely to be asked, the first<br />

order of business is for the student to contextualize the<br />

passage by asking some key questions . Who wrote it?<br />

When was it written? In what social, historical, or literary<br />

environment was it written?<br />

In each passage used on a test, the writer’s name is<br />

provided, followed by the work from which the passage<br />

was excerpted or the date it was published or the<br />

dates of the author’s life . If the author is well known<br />

to high school students (e .g ., Charles Dickens, F . Scott<br />

Fitzgerald, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jane Austen), no<br />

dates will be provided, but the work or the occasion will<br />

be cited . For writers less familiar to high school students,<br />

dates will be provided . Using this information,<br />

students can begin to place the passage into context . As<br />

they start to read, students will want to focus on what<br />

they know about that writer, his or her typical style <strong>and</strong><br />

concerns, or that time period, its values <strong>and</strong> its limitations<br />

. A selection from Thomas Paine in the eighteenth<br />

century is written against a different background <strong>and</strong><br />

4<br />

has different concerns from a selection written by Dr .<br />

Martin Luther King Jr . prior to the passage of the Civil<br />

Rights Act . Toni Morrison writes against a different<br />

background from that of Charles Dickens .<br />

Passages are chosen from many different kinds of<br />

texts—fiction, biography, letters, speeches, essays,<br />

newspaper columns, <strong>and</strong> magazine articles—<strong>and</strong> may<br />

come from a diverse group of writers, varying in gender,<br />

race, location, <strong>and</strong> time period . A likely question<br />

is one that asks readers to speculate on what literary<br />

form the passage is excerpted from . The passage itself<br />

will offer plenty of clues as to its genre, <strong>and</strong> the name<br />

of the writer often offers clues as well . Excerpts from<br />

fiction contain the elements one might expect to find<br />

in fiction—descriptions of setting, character, or action .<br />

Letters have a sense of sharing thoughts with a particular<br />

person . Speeches have a wider audience <strong>and</strong> a<br />

keen awareness of that audience; speeches also have<br />

some particular rhetorical devices peculiar to the genre .<br />

Essays <strong>and</strong> magazine articles are usually focused on one<br />

topic of contemporary, local, or universal interest .<br />

Other critical reading questions can be divided into two<br />

major types: reading for meaning <strong>and</strong> reading for analysis<br />

. The questions on reading for meaning are based<br />

solely on underst<strong>and</strong>ing what the passage is saying, <strong>and</strong><br />

the questions on analysis are based on how the writer<br />

says what he or she says .<br />

In reading for meaning, the most frequently asked<br />

question is one that inquires about the passage’s main<br />

idea since distinguishing a main idea from a supporting<br />

idea is an important reading skill . A question on main<br />

ideas is sometimes disguised as a question asking for an<br />

appropriate title for the passage . Most students will not<br />

select as the main idea a choice that is neither directly<br />

stated nor indirectly implied in the passage, but harder<br />

questions will present choices that do appear in the passage<br />

but are not main ideas . Remember that an answer<br />

choice may be a true statement but not the right answer<br />

to the question .<br />

Closely related to a question on the main idea of a<br />

passage is a question about the writer’s purpose . If the<br />

passage is fiction, the purpose, unless it is a digression—<strong>and</strong><br />

even digressions are purposeful in the h<strong>and</strong>s<br />

of good writers—will in some way serve the elements<br />

USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 2012–2013<br />

Shawnee Mission NW HS - Shawnee Mission, K


of fiction . The passage will develop a character, describe<br />

a setting, or advance the plot . If the passage is nonfiction,<br />

the writer’s purpose might be purely to inform;<br />

it might be to persuade; it might be to entertain; or it<br />

might be any combination of all three of these . Students<br />

may also be questioned about the writer’s audience . Is<br />

the passage intended for a specific group, or is it aimed<br />

at a larger audience?<br />

The easy part of the Critical Reading section is that the<br />

answer to the question is always in the passage, <strong>and</strong> for<br />

most of the questions, students do not need to bring<br />

previous knowledge of the subject to the task . However,<br />

for some questions, students are expected to have some<br />

previous knowledge of the vocabulary, terms, allusions,<br />

<strong>and</strong> stylistic techniques usually acquired in an English<br />

class . Such knowledge could include, but is not limited<br />

to, knowing vocabulary, recognizing an allusion, <strong>and</strong><br />

identifying literary <strong>and</strong> rhetorical devices .<br />

In addition to recognizing the main idea of a passage,<br />

students will be required to demonstrate a more specific<br />

underst<strong>and</strong>ing . Questions measuring this might restate<br />

information from the passage <strong>and</strong> ask students to recognize<br />

the most exact restatement . For such questions,<br />

students will have to demonstrate their clear underst<strong>and</strong>ing<br />

of a specific passage or sentence . A deeper<br />

level of underst<strong>and</strong>ing may be examined by asking<br />

students to make inferences on the basis of the passage<br />

or to draw conclusions from evidence in the passage .<br />

In some cases, students may be asked to extend these<br />

conclusions by applying information in the passage to<br />

other situations not mentioned in the passage .<br />

In reading for analysis, students are asked to recognize<br />

some aspects of the writer’s craft . One of these aspects<br />

may be organization . How has the writer chosen to organize<br />

his or her material? Is it a chronological narrative?<br />

Does it describe a place using spatial organization? Is it<br />

an argument with points clearly organized in order of<br />

importance? Is it set up as a comparison <strong>and</strong> contrast?<br />

Does it offer an analogy or a series of examples? If there<br />

is more than one paragraph in the excerpt, what is the<br />

relationship between the paragraphs? What transition<br />

does the writer make from one paragraph to the next?<br />

Other questions could be based on the writer’s attitude<br />

toward the subject, the appropriate tone he or she<br />

assumes, <strong>and</strong> the way language is used to achieve that<br />

tone . Of course, the tone will vary according to the<br />

passage . In informational nonfiction, the tone will be<br />

detached <strong>and</strong> matter-of-fact, except when the writer is<br />

particularly enthusiastic about the subject or has some<br />

other kind of emotional involvement such as anger, disappointment,<br />

sorrow, or nostalgia . He or she may even<br />

assume an ironic tone that takes the form of exaggerating<br />

or understating a situation or describing it as the<br />

opposite of what it is . With each of these methods of<br />

irony, two levels of meaning are present—what is said<br />

<strong>and</strong> what is implied . An ironic tone is usually used to<br />

criticize or to mock .<br />

A writer of fiction uses tone differently, depending on<br />

what point of view he or she assumes . If the author<br />

chooses a first-person point of view <strong>and</strong> becomes one of<br />

the characters, he or she has to assume a persona <strong>and</strong><br />

develop a character through that character’s thoughts,<br />

actions, <strong>and</strong> speeches . This character is not necessarily<br />

sympathetic <strong>and</strong> is sometimes even a villain, as in<br />

some of the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe . Readers<br />

have to pick up this tone from the first few sentences . If<br />

the author is writing a third-person narrative, the tone<br />

will vary in accordance with how intrusive the narrator<br />

appears to be . Some narrators are almost invisible<br />

while others are more intrusive, pausing to editorialize,<br />

digress, or, in some cases, address the reader directly .<br />

<strong>Language</strong> is the tool the author uses to reveal attitude<br />

<strong>and</strong> point of view . A discussion of language includes<br />

the writer’s syntax <strong>and</strong> diction . Are the sentences long<br />

or short? Is the length varied—is there an occasional<br />

short sentence among longer ones? Does the writer use<br />

parallelism <strong>and</strong> balanced sentence structure? Are the<br />

sentences predominantly simple, complex, compound,<br />

or compound-complex? How does the writer use tense?<br />

Does he or she vary the mood of the verb from indicative<br />

to interrogative to imperative? Does the writer shift<br />

between active <strong>and</strong> passive voice? If so, why? How do<br />

these choices influence the tone?<br />

Occasionally, a set of questions may include a grammar<br />

question . For example, an item might require students<br />

to identify what part of speech a particular word is being<br />

used as, what the antecedent of a pronoun is, or what<br />

a modifier modifies . Being able to answer demonstrates<br />

that the student underst<strong>and</strong>s the sentence structure<br />

<strong>and</strong> the writer’s meaning in a difficult or sometimes<br />

purposefully ambiguous sentence .<br />

With diction, or word choice, one must also consider<br />

whether the words are learned <strong>and</strong> ornate or simple <strong>and</strong><br />

colloquial . Does the writer use slang or jargon? Does<br />

he or she use sensual language? Does the writer use<br />

figurative language or classical allusions? Is the writer’s<br />

meaning clearer because an abstract idea is associated<br />

with a concrete image? Does the reader have instant<br />

recognition of a universal symbol? If the writer does<br />

any of the above, what tone is achieved through the<br />

various possibilities of language? Is the writing formal<br />

or informal? Does the writer approve of or disapprove<br />

of or ridicule his or her subject? Does he or she use<br />

connotative rather than denotative words to convey<br />

these emotions? Do you recognize a pattern of images<br />

or words throughout the passage?<br />

Some questions on vocabulary in context deal with<br />

a single word . The word is not usually an unfamiliar<br />

word, but it is often a word with multiple meanings,<br />

depending on the context or the date of the passage,<br />

as some words have altered in meaning over the years .<br />

2012–2013 USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 5<br />

Shawnee Mission NW HS - Shawnee Mission, K


6<br />

SAMPLE PASSAGE<br />

TO PREPARE FOR CRITICAL READING<br />

In order to prepare for the critical reading portion of the test, it may be helpful for students to take a<br />

look at a sample passage. Here is a passage used in an earlier test. The passage is an excerpt from Mary<br />

Shelley’s 1831 Introduction to Frankenstein.<br />

“We will each write a ghost story,” said Lord Byron, <strong>and</strong> his proposition was acceded to.<br />

There were four of us. The noble author began a tale, a fragment of which he printed at the<br />

end of his poem of Mazeppa. Shelley, more apt to embody ideas <strong>and</strong> sentiments in the<br />

radiance of brilliant imagery <strong>and</strong> in the music of the most melodious verse that adorns our<br />

language than to invent the machinery of a story, commenced one founded on the<br />

experiences of his early life. Poor Polidori had some terrible idea about a skull-headed<br />

lady who was so punished for peeping through a key-hole—what to see I forget:<br />

something very shocking <strong>and</strong> wrong of course; but when she was reduced to a worse<br />

condition than the renowned Tom of Coventry1 (5)<br />

, he did not know what to do with her <strong>and</strong><br />

(10) was obliged to dispatch her to the tomb of the Capulets, the only place for which she was<br />

fitted. The illustrious poets also, annoyed by the platitude of prose, speedily relinquished<br />

their uncongenial task.<br />

I busied myself to think of a story—a story to rival those which had excited us to this task.<br />

One which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature <strong>and</strong> awaken thrilling<br />

(15) horror—one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, <strong>and</strong> quicken the<br />

beatings of the heart. If I did not accomplish these things, my ghost story would be<br />

unworthy of its name. I thought <strong>and</strong> pondered—vainly. I felt that blank incapability of<br />

invention which is the greatest misery of authorship, when dull Nothing replies to our<br />

anxious invocations. “Have you thought of a story?” I was asked each morning, <strong>and</strong> each<br />

(20) morning I was forced to reply with a mortifying negative.<br />

Mary Shelley<br />

Introduction to Frankenstein (1831)<br />

1. Tom of Coventry—Peeping Tom who was struck blind for looking as Lady Godiva passed by.<br />

INSTRUCTIONS: On your answer sheet, mark the lettered space (a, b, c, d, or e) corresponding to the<br />

answer that BEST completes or answers each of the following test items.<br />

1. The author’s purpose in this passage is to 2. According to the author, Shelley’s talents<br />

a. analyze the creative process<br />

were in<br />

b. demonstrate her intellectual superiority<br />

c. name-drop her famous acquaintances<br />

a. sentiment <strong>and</strong> invention<br />

b. diction <strong>and</strong> sound patterns<br />

c. thought <strong>and</strong> feeling<br />

d. denigrate the efforts of her companions<br />

d. brightness <strong>and</strong> ornamentation<br />

e. narrate the origins of her novel<br />

e. insight <strong>and</strong> analysis<br />

USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 2012–2013<br />

Shawnee Mission NW HS - Shawnee Mission, K


3. The author’s descriptions of Shelley’s talents<br />

might be considered all of the following<br />

EXCEPT<br />

a. accurate<br />

b. prejudiced<br />

c. appreciative<br />

d. detached<br />

e. exaggerated<br />

4. The author’s attitude toward Polidori is<br />

a. amused<br />

b. sincere<br />

c. derisive<br />

d. ironic<br />

e. matter-of-fact<br />

5. The author’s approach to the task differs<br />

from that of the others in that she begins<br />

by thinking of<br />

a. her own early experiences<br />

b. poetic terms <strong>and</strong> expressions<br />

c. the desired effect on her readers<br />

d. outperforming her male companions<br />

e. praying for inspiration<br />

6. At the end of the excerpt the author feels<br />

a. determined<br />

b. despondent<br />

c. confident<br />

d. relieved<br />

e. resigned<br />

Answers <strong>and</strong> Explanations of Answers<br />

7. “Noble” (line 2) can be BEST understood to<br />

mean<br />

a. principled<br />

b. aristocratic<br />

c. audacious<br />

d. arrogant<br />

e. eminent<br />

8. All of the following constructions, likely to<br />

be questioned by a strict grammarian or a<br />

computer grammar check, are included in<br />

the passage EXCEPT<br />

a. a shift in voice<br />

b. unconventional punctuation<br />

c. sentence fragments<br />

d. run-on sentences<br />

e. a sentence ending with a preposition<br />

9. In context “platitude” (line 11) can be BEST<br />

understood to mean<br />

a. intellectual value<br />

b. philosophical aspect<br />

c. commonplace quality<br />

d. heightened emotion<br />

e. dem<strong>and</strong>ing point of view<br />

10. “The tomb of the Capulets” (line 10) is an<br />

allusion to<br />

a. Shakespeare<br />

b. Edgar Allan Poe<br />

c. English history<br />

d. Greek mythology<br />

e. the legends of King Arthur<br />

1. (e) This type of question appears in most sets of critical reading questions. (a) might appear to be<br />

a possible answer, but the passage does not come across as very analytical, nor does it seem like a<br />

discussion of the creative process but rather is more a description of a game played by four writers to<br />

while away the time. (b) <strong>and</strong> (c) seem unlikely answers. Mary Shelley’s account here sounds as if she is<br />

conscious of inferiority in such illustrious company rather than superiority. She has no need to namedrop,<br />

as she married one of the illustrious poets <strong>and</strong> at that time was the guest of the other. She narrates<br />

the problems she had in coming up with a story, but since the passage tells us that she is the author of<br />

Frankenstein, we know that she did come up with a story. The answer is (e).<br />

2. (b) This type of question asks readers to recognize a restatement of ideas found in the passage. The<br />

sentence under examination is found in lines 3–6, <strong>and</strong> students are asked to recognize that “diction <strong>and</strong><br />

sound patterns” refers to “radiance of brilliant imagery” <strong>and</strong> “music of the most melodious verse.” (a)<br />

would not be possible because even his adoring wife finds him not inventive. “Thought <strong>and</strong> feeling,”<br />

(c), appear as “ideas <strong>and</strong> sentiments” (line 3), which according to the passage are merely the vehicles to<br />

exhibit Shelley’s talents. Answer (d), incorporating “brightness,” might refer to “brilliant” in line 4, but<br />

2012–2013 USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 7<br />

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8<br />

“ornamentation” is too artificial a word for the author to use in reference to her talented husb<strong>and</strong>. (e) is<br />

incorrect, as insight <strong>and</strong> analysis are not alluded to in the passage.<br />

3. (d) This question is related to Question 2 in that it discusses Shelley’s talents <strong>and</strong> the author’s opinion<br />

of them. The writer is obviously not “detached” in her description of her very talented husb<strong>and</strong>. She is<br />

obviously “prejudiced” <strong>and</strong> “appreciative.” She may even exaggerate, but history has shown her to be<br />

accurate in her opinion.<br />

4. (a) This is another question about the writer’s attitude. Some of the adjectives can be immediately<br />

dismissed. She is not ironic—she means what she says. She is not an unkind writer, <strong>and</strong> she does not use<br />

a derisive tone. However, there is too much humor in her tone for it to be sincere or matter-of-fact. The<br />

correct answer is that she is amused.<br />

5. (c) This question deals with the second paragraph <strong>and</strong> how the author set about writing a story.<br />

Choices (a), (b), (d), <strong>and</strong> (e) may seem appropriate beginnings for a writer, but they are not mentioned<br />

in the passage. What she does focus on is the desired effect on her readers, (c), as outlined in detail in<br />

lines 13–16.<br />

6. (b) This question asks for an adjective to describe the author’s feeling at the end of the excerpt. The<br />

expressions “blank incapability” (line 17) <strong>and</strong> “mortifying negative” (line 20) suggest that “despondent”<br />

is the most appropriate answer.<br />

7. (b) This question deals with vocabulary in context. The noble author is Lord Byron, a hereditary peer<br />

of the realm, <strong>and</strong> the word in this context of describing him means “aristocratic.” “Principled,” (a), <strong>and</strong><br />

“eminent,” (e), are also possible synonyms for “noble” but not in this context. Byron in his private life<br />

was eminently unprincipled (nicknamed “the bad Lord Byron”) <strong>and</strong> lived overseas to avoid public enmity.<br />

(c) <strong>and</strong> (d) are not synonyms for “noble.”<br />

8. (d) This is a type of question that appears occasionally in a set of questions on critical reading. Such<br />

questions require the student to examine the sentence structure of professional writers <strong>and</strong> to be aware<br />

that these writers sometimes take liberties in order to make a more effective statement.<br />

They know the rules, <strong>and</strong>, therefore, they may break them! An additional difficulty is that the question<br />

is framed as a negative, so students may find it a time-consuming question as they mentally check off<br />

which constructions Shelley does employ so that by a process of elimination they may arrive at which<br />

construction is not included. The first sentence contains both choices (a) <strong>and</strong> (e), a shift in voice <strong>and</strong> a<br />

sentence ending in a preposition. Neither of these constructions is a grammatical error, but computer<br />

programs point them out. The conventional advice is that both should be used sparingly, <strong>and</strong> they should<br />

be used when avoiding them becomes more cumbersome than using them. The sentence beginning<br />

in line 14 is a sentence fragment (c), but an effective one. Choice (b) corresponds to the sentence<br />

beginning in line 6 <strong>and</strong> finishing in line 11, which contains a colon, semicolon, <strong>and</strong> a dash (somewhat<br />

unconventional) without the author’s ever losing control. This sentence is not a run-on even though many<br />

students may think it is! The answer to the question then is (d).<br />

9. (c) Here is another vocabulary in context question. Knowing the poets involved <strong>and</strong> their tastes,<br />

students will probably recognize that it is (c), the commonplace quality of prose, that turns the poets away<br />

<strong>and</strong> not one of the loftier explanations provided in the other distracters.<br />

10. (a) The allusion to “the tomb of the Capulets” in line 10 is an example of a situation where a student<br />

is expected to have some outside knowledge, <strong>and</strong> this will be a very easy question for students. Romeo<br />

<strong>and</strong> Juliet is fair game for American high school students. Notice that the other allusion is footnoted, as<br />

this is a more obscure allusion for American high school students, although well known to every English<br />

schoolboy <strong>and</strong> schoolgirl.<br />

USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 2012–2013<br />

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This set of ten questions is very typical—one on purpose,<br />

a couple on restatement of supporting ideas,<br />

some on tone <strong>and</strong> style, two on vocabulary in context,<br />

<strong>and</strong> one on an allusion . Students should learn how<br />

to use the process of elimination when the answer<br />

is not immediately obvious . The organization of the<br />

questions is also typical of the usual arrangement of<br />

Critical Reading questions . Questions on the content<br />

of the passage, the main idea, <strong>and</strong> supporting<br />

ideas generally appear first <strong>and</strong> are in the order they<br />

are found in the passage . They are followed by questions<br />

applying to the whole passage, including general<br />

questions about the writer’s tone <strong>and</strong> style . Students<br />

should be able to work their way through the passage,<br />

finding the answers as they go .<br />

Additional questions on an autobiographical selection<br />

like this passage might ask what is revealed about the<br />

biographer herself or which statements in the passage<br />

associate the author with Romanticism .<br />

Since passages for critical reading come in a wide variety<br />

of genres, students should keep in mind that other<br />

types of questions could be asked on other types of passages<br />

. For instance, passages from fiction can generate<br />

questions about point of view, about characters <strong>and</strong><br />

how these characters are presented, or about setting,<br />

either outdoor or indoor, <strong>and</strong> the role it is likely to play<br />

in a novel or short story .<br />

Speeches generate some different kinds of questions<br />

because of the oratorical devices a speaker might use—<br />

repetition, anaphora, or appeals to various emotions .<br />

Questions could be asked about the use of metaphors,<br />

the use of connotative words, <strong>and</strong> the use of patterns<br />

of words or images .<br />

The suggestions made in this section of the resource<br />

guide should provide a useful background for critical<br />

reading . Questions are likely to follow similar patterns,<br />

<strong>and</strong> knowing what to expect boosts confidence when<br />

dealing with unfamiliar material .<br />

2012–2013 USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 9<br />

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S E C T I O N I I :<br />

DOCTOR ZHIVAGO,<br />

BORIS PASTERNAK (1890–1960)<br />

Introduction to the Theme<br />

The history of Russia displays its unique position<br />

in the world, <strong>and</strong> the expression of its writers has<br />

been shaped by the complexity of national identity<br />

. Ruled for centuries by autocratic Tsars who adopted<br />

a paternalistic attitude toward the management of<br />

their population, Russia emerged from medievalism<br />

as a l<strong>and</strong> ripe for revolution . The rule of Peter the<br />

Great in the seventeenth century brought sweeping<br />

reforms with a determination to make Russia an equal<br />

of the nations of Western Europe <strong>and</strong> poised Russia<br />

on the threshold of modernity . Yet the enslavement<br />

of Russian peasants, or serfs, remained an important<br />

part of Peter’s modernization, as they provided the<br />

enforced labor for Peter’s development of Russia . The<br />

serfs would not be emancipated until 1861, under the<br />

more enlightened rule of Alex<strong>and</strong>er II; but even with<br />

emancipation, the serfs continued to be l<strong>and</strong>less, poor,<br />

<strong>and</strong> overly taxed . This feudal system remained in place<br />

long into the nineteenth century, resulting in a deep<br />

division of the Russian people into two predominant<br />

classes: nobility/intelligentsia <strong>and</strong> peasant/serf .<br />

This great divide raises the following questions for the<br />

Russian writer: How does the writer give voice to the<br />

vastly different experiences of all of Russia’s people?<br />

How does the writer cross the divide <strong>and</strong> speak to all<br />

of Russia’s people, even the least educated? And, how<br />

can writers rise from the lowest, uneducated class to<br />

achieve artistic competence? Both Leo Tolstoy <strong>and</strong><br />

Anton Chekhov faced these concerns in the nineteenth<br />

century . Tolstoy’s life, for example, bears witness to<br />

his deep compassion for the peasants <strong>and</strong> his desire to<br />

live as simply as they did, while his fiction offers an<br />

ironic display of the superficiality <strong>and</strong> hypocrisy of the<br />

Russian noble class . Chekhov, the son of a peasant <strong>and</strong><br />

gr<strong>and</strong>son of a serf who bought his freedom, entered the<br />

ranks of the emerging Russian middle class through his<br />

writing <strong>and</strong> his medical profession . While his subject is<br />

not peasant life, his fiction <strong>and</strong> drama both expose the<br />

nature of Russian feudalism <strong>and</strong> an aristocratic class<br />

rotten to the core .<br />

A second, equally important concern for Russian writers<br />

has been the vexed nature of Russia’s position in<br />

the world . St<strong>and</strong>ing at the midpoint between East <strong>and</strong><br />

10<br />

West, Russia’s national identity has been composed<br />

of a delicate balance between its two perimeters . The<br />

derivation of the name for Russia, “Rus,” for example,<br />

refers to Sc<strong>and</strong>inavian Vikings who arrived near Kiev<br />

during early medieval times; this race from the West<br />

would, by the thirteenth century, face invasion by<br />

Mongol hordes from the East . Alex<strong>and</strong>er Blok captures<br />

an important moment in this clash between cultures<br />

on Russian soil in his poem, “On the Field of Kulikovo .”<br />

The point of the poem is to remind modern Russians<br />

of the epic battle of Kulikovo in 1380 <strong>and</strong> the power<br />

of the “Rus” to st<strong>and</strong> united against Mongol invasion,<br />

even if that success was only temporary . Blok’s poetic<br />

acknowledgment of Russia’s central position between<br />

East <strong>and</strong> West suggests a key theme in the construction<br />

of Russian identity by the nation’s writers .<br />

Alex<strong>and</strong>er Pushkin reproduces eighteenth-century<br />

Russian culture in both his poetry <strong>and</strong> prose, which<br />

was deeply influenced by Western European literature<br />

<strong>and</strong> philosophy . As a member of the aristocracy,<br />

Pushkin’s first language, like that of most of his class,<br />

was French; but he learned Russian from his gr<strong>and</strong>mother<br />

<strong>and</strong> nurses, pushing the language to new<br />

heights by using the Russian vernacular as the music<br />

of his poetry . Almost fifty years after Pushkin’s death,<br />

Tolstoy’s aristocratic characters speak French at social<br />

gatherings in his majestic novel War <strong>and</strong> Peace, creating<br />

an ironic collision of cultures as Russian officers,<br />

speaking French, march against Napoleon’s “Gr<strong>and</strong>e<br />

Armée .”<br />

These two major concerns—the position of Russia in<br />

the world <strong>and</strong> the great divide between its people—<br />

would have a significant impact as Russia transformed<br />

itself in the twentieth century . The revolutions of 1905<br />

<strong>and</strong> 1917 produced a cataclysmic collision of forces<br />

resulting in the formation of the Soviet Union <strong>and</strong><br />

the virtual destruction of life as Russians had known<br />

it . The earlier attachment of Russian writers to the<br />

West—demonstrated by the influence of Shakespeare<br />

<strong>and</strong> Goethe on Pushkin, Flaubert <strong>and</strong> Zola on Tolstoy<br />

<strong>and</strong> Chekhov, <strong>and</strong> the French Symbolist poets on<br />

Blok—gave way to an emphasis on proletariat literature<br />

with its intention of reaching out to the masses in<br />

a uniquely Russian voice .<br />

USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 2012–2013<br />

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In the past, Russia had participated in literary movements<br />

that had swept Western Europe—Romanticism1 was succeeded by Realism2 in the mid-nineteenth century<br />

. Then, near the end of the nineteenth <strong>and</strong> at the<br />

beginning of the twentieth century, Russian poets were<br />

inspired by the Symbolist works of European artists in<br />

numerous genres—Richard Wagner in music, Moreau<br />

<strong>and</strong> Puvis de Chavannes in painting, <strong>and</strong> Baudelaire,<br />

Verlaine, <strong>and</strong> Mallarmé in poetry . Symbolism, 3 a reaction<br />

against Realism as Realism had earlier rejected<br />

Romanticism, came to an end with the Russian<br />

Revolution in 1917 . As Modernism, with its heavily<br />

formal experimentation <strong>and</strong> concern with interior,<br />

psychological space, shaped the literature of Western<br />

Europe <strong>and</strong> the United States between the two world<br />

wars, Russia turned in a sharply different direction .<br />

From the 1920s through the 1950s, literature, as all<br />

the arts, came increasingly under state control . Many<br />

writers were forced into exile while others were executed<br />

or committed suicide in the face of persecution<br />

<strong>and</strong> threats of arrest . Formal experimentation in art<br />

was largely suppressed, especially during the dictatorship<br />

of Stalin with its constantly changing party line .<br />

Writers were expected to serve the “proletariat,” the<br />

vast body of working-class, peasants, <strong>and</strong> former serfs,<br />

but proletarian writers often failed to achieve any sort<br />

of artistic st<strong>and</strong>ard .<br />

Those writers who were deemed “fellow travelers,”<br />

that is, who were not strictly aligned with Marxist<br />

ideology, were allowed to publish or were prevented<br />

from publishing depending upon the whim <strong>and</strong> mood<br />

of Stalin <strong>and</strong> his representatives . “Formalism,” the<br />

attention to artistic forms <strong>and</strong> structures, was strictly<br />

censured; in fact, a flourishing school of literary criticism<br />

known as Russian Formalism, was suppressed<br />

in 1930 . The Russian Formalist critics, led by Viktor<br />

Shklovsky, Roman Jakobson, <strong>and</strong> Boris Eichenbaum,<br />

among others, focused their attention on the special<br />

attributes of poetic language <strong>and</strong> on the formal features<br />

of the literary work <strong>and</strong> its component parts . Because<br />

of their refusal to pay attention to social change, as<br />

the Marxists expected them to, the Formalists were<br />

subjected to a full-fledged Marxist-Leninist offensive<br />

in 1924–5 . 4 With a political climate that was seriously<br />

deteriorating by the 1930s, Formalism was suppressed<br />

as unorthodox <strong>and</strong> false, while writers labeled as<br />

Formalists faced reprisals .<br />

Boris Pasternak’s work spans decades of change in<br />

Russian literary history . From the early years of the<br />

twentieth century to his death in 1960, Pasternak<br />

displayed a tenuous alignment with movements <strong>and</strong><br />

groups, enriched his own poetic output through his<br />

work in translating European masterpieces, <strong>and</strong> experienced<br />

a precarious social <strong>and</strong> cultural position as<br />

both an insider <strong>and</strong> outsider in Russia—he was a<br />

Jew who thought of himself as Russian first . Deeply<br />

influenced by his studies of musical composition <strong>and</strong><br />

philosophy, by the work of Shakespeare <strong>and</strong> Goethe,<br />

<strong>and</strong> by the French Symbolist poets, Pasternak was further<br />

molded as a writer through his reading of Tolstoy,<br />

Dostoevsky, Turgenev, <strong>and</strong> Chekhov, as well as his own<br />

contemporaries . He embraced features of Formalism<br />

<strong>and</strong> Symbolism in his poetry of the early decades of<br />

the twentieth century <strong>and</strong> suffered numerous reprisals<br />

later as a result of his defiant determination to<br />

maintain his individuality as an artist . His greatest<br />

achievement, Doctor Zhivago, is a sweeping epic of<br />

the Russian Revolution in the manner of Tolstoy but<br />

is modern in its form <strong>and</strong> theme . Doctor Zhivago is a<br />

formally experimental novel that is deeply conflicted<br />

by its author’s allegiance to his l<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> his class of<br />

intelligentsia but is representative of the inevitability<br />

<strong>and</strong> necessity of social change <strong>and</strong> revolution .<br />

Background of the Author<br />

I am tied to Russia by birth, by life, <strong>and</strong> by work . I<br />

cannot imagine my fate separated from <strong>and</strong> outside<br />

Russia . 5<br />

Youth <strong>and</strong> Education (1890–1913)<br />

Born on January 29, 18906 in Moscow, Boris<br />

Leonidovich Pasternak was the eldest of the four children<br />

of Leonid Pasternak <strong>and</strong> Rozaliya Kaufman . Both<br />

Pasternak parents were artistically talented; Leonid was<br />

a painter with an international reputation <strong>and</strong> Rozaliya<br />

was a concert pianist who performed in Russia <strong>and</strong><br />

abroad . In the 1890s, the decade of Boris’ birth <strong>and</strong><br />

that of his brother Aleks<strong>and</strong>r, Leonid Pasternak joined<br />

the staff of the Moscow School of Painting at the invitation<br />

of Prince Aleksei Lvov <strong>and</strong> became acquainted<br />

with the novelist Leo Tolstoy, who attended an exhibition<br />

which included Leonid’s canvases . Leonid’s<br />

introduction to Tolstoy resulted in a long friendship<br />

based upon shared artistic views; Leonid Pasternak<br />

illustrated scenes from Tolstoy’s epic novel War <strong>and</strong><br />

Peace <strong>and</strong> collaborated with him in the late 1890s to<br />

illustrate the novel Resurrection . The Pasternaks were<br />

frequently invited to Tolstoy’s country residence where<br />

Leonid sketched the novelist while Rozaliya performed<br />

pieces of Tolstoy’s favorite music .<br />

As a prominent Jewish family, the Pasternaks were<br />

fortunate that they did not suffer greatly from discrimination;<br />

the widely acknowledged talent of both parents<br />

helped create opportunities which would not otherwise<br />

have been available to their children . Furthermore,<br />

both parents had been raised in Odessa, which served<br />

as a Jewish cultural center during the late nineteenth<br />

century . And both parents were intent upon assimilating<br />

into the broader Russian culture; they thought of<br />

themselves as Muscovite <strong>and</strong> Russian first <strong>and</strong> Jewish<br />

second . 7 While the family was not destitute in the early<br />

years of Leonid <strong>and</strong> Rozaliya’s marriage, they did not<br />

live in luxury . Rozaliya was able to supplement family<br />

finances with occasional performances <strong>and</strong> tutoring,<br />

2012–2013 USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 11<br />

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12<br />

Portrait of Boris Pasternak’s parents, Leonid<br />

<strong>and</strong> Rozaliya, painted by Leonid Pasternak.<br />

Leonid was a painter with an international<br />

reputation, <strong>and</strong> Rozaliya was a concert pianist<br />

who performed in Russia <strong>and</strong> abroad.<br />

while Leonid became prominent as an artist <strong>and</strong> helped<br />

to introduce Western European modernist techniques<br />

in painting as his work gained acclaim in Munich <strong>and</strong><br />

Paris . This was the artistic <strong>and</strong> cultural environment<br />

in which Boris Pasternak grew up, surrounded by his<br />

father’s painting <strong>and</strong> his mother’s music . As a young<br />

boy, Boris displayed clear evidence of talent in sketching,<br />

but by 1903, under the influence of the music of<br />

Russian composer Alex<strong>and</strong>er Scriabin (1872–1915),<br />

Boris devoted himself to musical composition . During<br />

the summer of 1903, the Pasternaks spent their vacation<br />

in a dacha8 in the countryside outside of Moscow,<br />

<strong>and</strong> there met Scriabin . 9 Boris was deeply impressed by<br />

the composer’s music <strong>and</strong> returned to Moscow intent<br />

upon imitating Scriabin <strong>and</strong> taking up musical composition<br />

as his profession .<br />

By the time Boris met Scriabin, the Pasternak family<br />

dynamic had undergone substantial change . Boris’<br />

brother Aleks<strong>and</strong>r arrived in 1893, followed by sisters<br />

Josephine <strong>and</strong> Lydia, born in 1900 <strong>and</strong> 1902 . The<br />

family could afford servants, <strong>and</strong> the nurses engaged<br />

for the children were allowed to take Boris to Russian<br />

Orthodox Christian services . Thus, Boris <strong>and</strong> his sib-<br />

The great Russian composer Alex<strong>and</strong>er Scriabin<br />

(1872–1915). After meeting Scriabin, Boris Pasternak<br />

was deeply impressed by the composer’s music <strong>and</strong><br />

returned to Moscow intent upon imitating Scriabin <strong>and</strong><br />

taking up musical composition as his profession.<br />

lings were raised in an environment that was far more<br />

non-denominational than Jewish <strong>and</strong> largely Russian<br />

nationalist . Leonid Pasternak admitted that he did not<br />

practice his religion <strong>and</strong> grew up under the influence<br />

of a Russian education . Yet however one identified<br />

oneself, Leonid Pasternak felt, art was the great leveler .<br />

“‘Art,’” he commented, “‘is a fountain, <strong>and</strong> any thirsty<br />

person, regardless of nationality, can quench his thirst<br />

at it .’” 10<br />

Subsequent to the deep impression made on him<br />

by meeting Scriabin, Boris discovered the poetry of<br />

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) <strong>and</strong> managed to<br />

catch a fleeting glimpse of him when he came to call<br />

upon his father in 1910 . Rilke’s poetry would later<br />

serve as an important inspiration for Pasternak’s<br />

own . Demonstrating precocity not only in artistic <strong>and</strong><br />

musical skill, Pasternak was proving himself to be an<br />

apt student, which was extremely important, for Jews<br />

were allowed only restricted entry into higher education<br />

. In order to enhance his chances of admission to<br />

the university, Boris’ parents elected to place him in<br />

a highly competitive state high school . In 1901, Boris<br />

entered the Moscow Fifth Classical Gymnasium high<br />

school where he consistently received top marks in all<br />

subjects . In his final year, 1908, Boris was awarded a<br />

coveted gold medal .<br />

USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 2012–2013<br />

Shawnee Mission NW HS - Shawnee Mission, K


As Boris studied in high school, momentous events<br />

were helping to shape the future of Russia . The revolution<br />

of 1905 would remain embedded in Pasternak’s<br />

poetic imagination for the rest of his life . Crippled by a<br />

corrupt imperial <strong>and</strong> absolutist system of government,<br />

Russia was beginning to break apart . War had broken<br />

out between Russia <strong>and</strong> Japan in January 1904, resulting<br />

in disasters <strong>and</strong> military failures for which the<br />

Tsarist government was blamed . In the aftermath, civil<br />

unrest <strong>and</strong> dissatisfaction with Tsarist oppression had<br />

long smoldered <strong>and</strong> now began to sweep the Empire .<br />

While there appeared to be no concerted revolutionary<br />

movement, widespread strikes, mutinies, demonstrations,<br />

<strong>and</strong> rallies utterly disrupted civil order . In May<br />

1905, Leonid Pasternak joined a group of colleagues<br />

who signed an “Artists’ Resolution” printed in a<br />

Moscow newspaper which called for “‘full freedom of<br />

conscience, of expression, <strong>and</strong> of the press, freedom of<br />

assembly <strong>and</strong> meeting, <strong>and</strong> personal immunity .’” 11<br />

A few months earlier, all of the family had been<br />

affected by the events of “Bloody Sunday .” On January<br />

9, 1905, more than 300,000 striking workers marched<br />

in peaceful protest toward the Tsar’s Winter Palace<br />

in St . Petersburg, but in their eagerness to disperse<br />

the crowds, the Winter Palace guards fired on them,<br />

killing <strong>and</strong> wounding more than a thous<strong>and</strong> people .<br />

In February, the Gr<strong>and</strong> Duke Sergei Aleks<strong>and</strong>rovich,<br />

governor of Moscow <strong>and</strong> patron of the Moscow School<br />

of Painting, was assassinated . A stanza of Pasternak’s<br />

poem “The Year Nineteen-Five” suggests the deep<br />

impression made on the school boy:<br />

We played at snowballs <strong>and</strong><br />

Rolled them from soldiers<br />

And snowflakes<br />

And reports of the time<br />

As they fell from the sky .<br />

This l<strong>and</strong>slide of kingdoms,<br />

This drunken snow falling<br />

In the yard of the school<br />

On the corner of Povarskaya<br />

In January . 12<br />

Because of the upheavals, Leonid Pasternak’s Moscow<br />

School of Painting was forced to close in February<br />

for the rest of the academic year, but the Pasternaks<br />

were able, during a relatively calm period, to vacation<br />

again away from Moscow during the summer . Upon<br />

their return to Moscow, they found the city gripped by<br />

renewed <strong>and</strong> heightened unrest . By <strong>Dec</strong>ember, Moscow<br />

was paralyzed by a general strike, yet in the midst of<br />

this year of upheaval, Leonid Pasternak had continued<br />

to paint, depicting scenes of revolutionaries fired on by<br />

dragoons . In the face of such uncertainty about their<br />

future, the Pasternaks chose to leave Russia for Berlin<br />

at the end of 1905 . The spirit of revolution, however,<br />

had made its indelible mark upon Boris .<br />

Maxim Gorky, half-length portrait, facing front by<br />

Herman Mishkin, c. 1906. Gorky would prove to<br />

be a major influence <strong>and</strong> important colleague once<br />

Pasternak had decided upon a literary profession.<br />

In Berlin, Leonid Pasternak cemented a friendship with<br />

Russian writer, Maxim Gorky (1868–1936), <strong>and</strong> Boris<br />

accompanied his father on several visits to see him .<br />

Gorky warned Leonid that the revolution of 1905 had<br />

only been a taste of things to come . 13 Gorky would<br />

prove to be a major influence <strong>and</strong> important colleague<br />

once Boris had decided upon a literary profession . Both<br />

Boris <strong>and</strong> his brother became absorbed in the lifestyle<br />

<strong>and</strong> culture of Berlin <strong>and</strong> read German classics to each<br />

other . Boris also enjoyed the opportunity to hear contemporary<br />

composers <strong>and</strong> became increasingly familiar<br />

with the work of Richard Wagner among others .<br />

By autumn 1906, relative calm had returned to<br />

Moscow, <strong>and</strong> the Pasternaks returned to resume the<br />

normal patterns of their lives . Boris <strong>and</strong> his brother<br />

returned to school, <strong>and</strong> Boris devoted himself to reading<br />

widely in Russian <strong>and</strong> European literature . During<br />

this period, Boris discovered the poetry of Alex<strong>and</strong>er<br />

Blok <strong>and</strong> the conception of the Russian city—the<br />

ville tentaculaire14 —embodied in Blok’s vision of St .<br />

Petersburg, as well as in the work of the Symbolist<br />

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14<br />

Photograph of the world-renowned neo-Kantian<br />

philosopher Hermann Cohen. Pasternak traveled<br />

to Marburg in Germany to take advantage of<br />

an opportunity to study under Cohen.<br />

poets in Russia <strong>and</strong> abroad . Symbolist literature <strong>and</strong><br />

culture in Russia flourished during Pasternak’s youth;<br />

through it, he would come into contact with the<br />

work of Friedrich Nietzsche, Oscar Wilde, <strong>and</strong> the<br />

French symbolist poets Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane<br />

Mallarmé, Arthur Rimbaud, <strong>and</strong> Paul Verlaine . As a<br />

movement, Symbolism had originated in 1857 in the<br />

poetry of Charles Baudelaire, who was himself deeply<br />

influenced by the poetry of Edgar Allen Poe . In their<br />

manifesto, for example, the French Symbolists wrote<br />

that art should reveal absolute truths indirectly, that is,<br />

through a symbol built upon often illogical <strong>and</strong> intuitive<br />

associations . 15<br />

Pasternak later noted the influence of Blok in his<br />

Autobiographical Essay, referring to Blok’s ability<br />

to build the literary “myth” of St . Petersburg . For<br />

Pasternak, Blok’s conception of the darker, neurotic<br />

sides of the ville tentaculaire, similar to the depiction<br />

of the city in Gogol <strong>and</strong> Dostoevsky16 , became the<br />

“‘main hero of [Blok’s] story <strong>and</strong> the central character<br />

of his biography .’” 17 In Blok’s work, Pasternak wrote,<br />

the city came to life: “‘It seemed as if the page was cov-<br />

ered not by verses about wind, puddles, street-lamps<br />

<strong>and</strong> stars, but the street-lamps <strong>and</strong> puddles themselves<br />

were chasing their wind-blown ripples across the pages<br />

of the journal .’” 18<br />

Pasternak completed his studies with distinction at the<br />

gymnasium in 1908 <strong>and</strong> in the fall of 1908, Pasternak<br />

was admitted to the Moscow University Faculty of<br />

Law . Pasternak assumed that the study of law would<br />

leave time for him to pursue his music, <strong>and</strong> he worked<br />

diligently to present himself to Scriabin as a budding<br />

composer . Scriabin, recently returned to Russia from<br />

triumphant tours abroad, planned to launch important<br />

new compositions . Pasternak was privileged to attend<br />

several of Scriabin’s rehearsals, <strong>and</strong> wrote in his autobiography,<br />

Safe Conduct:<br />

The music was let loose . Multi-coloured, boundlessly<br />

shattering, <strong>and</strong> multiplying like lightning,<br />

it teemed <strong>and</strong> leaped across the platform . It<br />

was set in tune <strong>and</strong> rushed with feverish haste<br />

toward concord . And suddenly rising to a roar<br />

of unprecedented unanimity, with a whirlwind<br />

raging in the bass, it would break off, dying away<br />

entirely <strong>and</strong> flattening out along the footlights . 19<br />

In February 1909, Pasternak had the chance to play for<br />

Scriabin . While Scriabin was complimentary, he did<br />

not offer the level of support <strong>and</strong> reassurance which<br />

Pasternak sought; <strong>and</strong> Pasternak left Scriabin’s residence<br />

that night with the determination to ab<strong>and</strong>on<br />

a musical career, convinced that his talent was not<br />

sufficiently great . But Scriabin offered a piece of advice<br />

which Pasternak would follow: to ab<strong>and</strong>on law <strong>and</strong><br />

take up the study of philosophy .<br />

In November 1910, Leo Tolstoy died, <strong>and</strong> Boris<br />

accompanied his father to the scene of his death . As<br />

Leonid Pasternak had sketched <strong>and</strong> painted Tolstoy on<br />

numerous occasions, he now undertook the mission of<br />

sketching him in death in the station-master’s hut at<br />

the Astapova rail station where his body lay, “a small<br />

wrinkled figure lying on a bed surrounded by fir saplings<br />

<strong>and</strong> lit by the setting sun .” 20 Pasternak’s earliest<br />

surviving writings appeared during the period following<br />

Tolstoy’s death .<br />

While at the university, Pasternak had partially supported<br />

himself by giving private tutoring lessons <strong>and</strong> had<br />

also fallen in love with his cousin Olya Freidenberg . In<br />

the summer of 1910, he declared his love for her, only<br />

to receive her rejection two days later . Olya resisted<br />

Pasternak’s efforts to shape her into his own vision <strong>and</strong><br />

insisted on her independence <strong>and</strong> freedom . Pasternak<br />

moved on from this infatuation, however, <strong>and</strong> by 1911,<br />

he had begun to write in earnest . In addition, he was<br />

immersed in reading Rilke; among his earliest poetic<br />

drafts are found impressionist translations of Rilke’s<br />

poems . Furthermore, Pasternak was gaining exposure<br />

to aesthetic theory in reading the philosophies of Henri<br />

Bergson <strong>and</strong> Edmund Husserl . Both philosophers were<br />

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Photograph of Boris Pasternak in his twenties.<br />

linked with phenomenology, the study of conscious<br />

experience, <strong>and</strong> the study of transcendental idealism,<br />

or the perception of things as they appear to the<br />

observer . The work of Bergson <strong>and</strong> Husserl focused<br />

on the nature of perception <strong>and</strong> the investigation of<br />

epistemology, the study of how humans construct<br />

knowledge .<br />

Pasternak learned of a unique opportunity to study<br />

under world-renowned neo-Kantian 21 philosopher<br />

Hermann Cohen who was scheduled to retire at the<br />

end of the summer of 1912 . So, Pasternak traveled to<br />

Marburg in Germany to take advantage of an opportunity<br />

to enroll during Cohen’s final semester . In<br />

1912, Marburg was not only one of Europe’s leading<br />

academic centers, but was also a stunningly beautiful<br />

medieval town, which utterly captivated Pasternak’s<br />

imagination . Pasternak would never forget his experiences<br />

there . One of his best known <strong>and</strong> most widely<br />

anthologized poems, “Marburg,” turns the experience<br />

of the town mingled with the loss of love into the subject<br />

of poetry:<br />

And when in your room I fell to my knees,<br />

Embracing this mist, this perfection of frost<br />

(How lovely you are!), this smothering turbulence,<br />

What were you thinking? ‘Be sensible!’ Lost!<br />

Here lived Martin Luther . The Brothers Grimm,<br />

there .<br />

And all things remember <strong>and</strong> reach out to them:<br />

The sharp-taloned roofs . The gravestones . The<br />

trees .<br />

And each is alive . And each is an emblem . 22<br />

Following his rejection by Freidenberg, Pasternak had<br />

fallen in love again with another young woman named<br />

Ida Vysotskaya . In fact, she may be the subject of the<br />

unsuccessful declaration referenced in the lines quoted<br />

above . In addition to his failures at love, Pasternak<br />

was engaged in serious study <strong>and</strong> working on a thesis<br />

. He would impress Cohen so much that Cohen<br />

would suggest that he stay on in Marburg to complete<br />

his philosophical studies . But it was in Marburg<br />

that Pasternak made the decision to turn away from<br />

philosophy <strong>and</strong> toward literature . As he wrote to his<br />

friend Shura Shtikh, Pasternak had now “‘ab<strong>and</strong>oned<br />

everything for art <strong>and</strong> nothing else .’” 23 Pasternak did,<br />

however, return to Moscow for his final year of study<br />

in 1912, writing his thesis on Cohen’s philosophy <strong>and</strong><br />

completing his degree in 1913 .<br />

Using the background of philosophical study, Pasternak<br />

made his first public statement of aesthetic theory<br />

to a gathering of friends, reading a paper he called<br />

“Symbolism <strong>and</strong> Immortality,” in which he outlined<br />

his underst<strong>and</strong>ing of the subjectivity of perception<br />

<strong>and</strong> the symbolic essence of art . “‘Poetry,’” Pasternak<br />

wrote, “‘is madness without a madman . Madness is<br />

natural immortality . Poetry is immortality permitted<br />

by culture .’” 24<br />

Emergence as a Writer, the Early <strong>Dec</strong>ades of<br />

the Twentieth Century <strong>and</strong> Political Upheaval<br />

(1913–29)<br />

In 1912–13, Pasternak became associated with a publishing<br />

group called Lirika; even though the enterprise<br />

was short-lived, lasting only a year, it brought out<br />

an important collective poetic miscellany in 1913<br />

which included Pasternak’s poetic debut Twin in the<br />

Stormclouds . Elements of maturity—a “realist impressionism”—<strong>and</strong><br />

modernism begin to surface in a few of<br />

the lyrics included in this collection:<br />

Black spring! Pick up your pen, <strong>and</strong> weeping,<br />

Of February, in sobs <strong>and</strong> ink,<br />

Write poems, while slush in thunder<br />

Is burning in the black of spring25 It is at this point as well that Pasternak began to<br />

work the image of the city into his poetry . In a letter,<br />

Pasternak wrote: “‘…the city as a stage competes, <strong>and</strong><br />

enters into tragic correlation, with the auditorium<br />

of the Word, or <strong>Language</strong>, that engulfs us .’” 26 Beyond<br />

the Symbolist notion of the “spread-out” city, however,<br />

Pasternak incorporates the technology of the city<br />

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<strong>and</strong> urban life—urban reality “speaks” the poet <strong>and</strong><br />

becomes the equivalent of the poet’s predicament:<br />

Arising from the thunderous rhombus<br />

Of city squares before the dawn,<br />

By unrelenting showers my song is<br />

Sealed with seals of leaden rain27 As Pasternak’s fascination with Symbolism waned, the<br />

movement itself was becoming increasingly obsolete as<br />

a mode of artistic expression for modern life, <strong>and</strong> a new<br />

movement, Futurism, was taking shape . In Moscow,<br />

“Cubo-Futurists,” led in part by Vladimir Mayakovsky<br />

(1893–1930), increased the range of poetic themes by<br />

incorporating modern technology <strong>and</strong> urban civilization<br />

while at the same time challenging traditional<br />

taste by introducing shocking <strong>and</strong> indelicate images .<br />

Despite their adoption of theories similar to those of<br />

Filippo Marinetti, the leader of Futurism in Italy, the<br />

Cubo-Futurists had nonetheless rebuffed him during<br />

his tour of Russia, determined to claim their own space<br />

in theoretical debates .<br />

By 1914 Pasternak had begun to align himself with<br />

Russian Futurism, <strong>and</strong> in the spring of 1914, Pasternak<br />

met Mayakovsky in a Moscow coffee house for the<br />

first time . Mayakovsky would remain a major force in<br />

Pasternak’s life as an artist for a long time to come; he<br />

wrote of this meeting with Mayakovsky: “‘I carried him<br />

away with me from the boulevard <strong>and</strong> into my life .’” 28<br />

This sense of shared poetic sensibility stemmed from<br />

Pasternak’s belief that Mayakovsky located his poetry<br />

in “‘the labyrinth of the modern city where the lonely<br />

soul of modern man has got lost <strong>and</strong> become morally<br />

confused…’ .” 29 Under the influence of Mayakovsky,<br />

Pasternak could not fully return to the Symbolist form<br />

of his earlier lyrics .<br />

In July 1914, Russia mobilized as the world prepared<br />

for war . Pasternak, safe from being drafted into combat<br />

because of an earlier riding accident which had left<br />

one leg slightly shorter than the other, watched from<br />

the sidelines as men traveled to recruitment centers<br />

to join the army . On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz<br />

Ferdin<strong>and</strong>, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was<br />

assassinated by Serbian nationalists . This was the<br />

spark which set off the fuse of global war—on July<br />

28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, beginning<br />

the chain of events which drew Russia, France,<br />

Britain, Japan, <strong>and</strong> later Italy to support Serbia against<br />

Austria-Hungary, while Germany aligned itself with<br />

Austria-Hungary <strong>and</strong> declared war on Russia <strong>and</strong> the<br />

Allies on August 1 .<br />

Pasternak’s lyrics of the time centered on war’s devastation;<br />

one poem described the ruined l<strong>and</strong>scape as<br />

a “mouth with blackened, toothless gums,” 30 but, in<br />

fact, residents of Moscow were relatively unaware of<br />

what was going on at the distant battlefront . For the<br />

duration of the war, Pasternak supported himself by<br />

tutoring, continued writing lyrics, <strong>and</strong> began to earn<br />

16<br />

Photograph of Vladimir Mayakovsky with his<br />

lover <strong>and</strong> muse Lilya Brik, c.1915. Pasternak<br />

first met Mayakovsky in 1914, <strong>and</strong> Mayakovsky<br />

would remain a major force in Pasternak’s<br />

life as an artist for a long time to come.<br />

money from translation . By 1915, <strong>and</strong> perhaps under<br />

the continuing influence of Mayakovsky, Pasternak had<br />

not only written wartime poems of greater length, but<br />

had also tried his h<strong>and</strong> at writing fiction . The Apelles<br />

Mark was Pasternak’s first longer work of fiction; set<br />

in Italy <strong>and</strong> influenced by his travels there in 1912,<br />

the semi-autobiographical story follows the course of<br />

a poet who searches for his own authentic voice in<br />

the face of a powerful rival <strong>and</strong> is loosely based on<br />

Mayakovsky . The term “apelles mark” appears in the<br />

work of the Roman writer Pliny the Elder (23–79 B .C .E .),<br />

who identifies it as a symbol of mastery or the authentic<br />

poetic “signature .” 31 The story suggests, indeed,<br />

that, at this early stage of his career, Pasternak was<br />

actively in search of his own identity as an artist <strong>and</strong><br />

was both attracted to <strong>and</strong> repelled by Mayakovsky’s<br />

own extremely powerful personality . Both the story<br />

<strong>and</strong> the year, 1915, mark the moment when Pasternak<br />

would begin to reshape his poetic personality <strong>and</strong> style .<br />

From the end of 1915 into the first half of 1916,<br />

Pasternak spent time in the Urals, the mountain chain<br />

which runs from north to south in Western Russia;<br />

their eastern edge marks the boundary between Europe<br />

<strong>and</strong> Asia . Removing himself from the Futurist society<br />

in Moscow <strong>and</strong> other influences, Pasternak could<br />

devote time to finding the path to his own voice . While<br />

there, Pasternak worked at a chemical factory <strong>and</strong> continued<br />

to write in a place where the war could seem<br />

even more remote . In an important article written during<br />

this time, “The Black Goblet,” Pasternak outlined<br />

his evolving poetic aesthetics . Using as its emblem<br />

the black goblet stamped on packing cases containing<br />

fragile items, the essay links Russian Futurism <strong>and</strong><br />

European Post-Impressionism32 , both influenced by<br />

Impressionism <strong>and</strong> Symbolism . Pasternak makes an<br />

important distinction in this essay—between the two<br />

poles of “Lyricism” <strong>and</strong> “History”—both exhibiting<br />

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truths independent of experience <strong>and</strong> both absolute .<br />

The position Pasternak takes is in favor of lyric purity<br />

<strong>and</strong> away from poetic commitment to historical <strong>and</strong><br />

social change, including a rejection of Mayakovsky’s<br />

political engagement <strong>and</strong> wartime satire .<br />

For several years, Pasternak had belonged to the publishing<br />

group Tsentrifuga, <strong>and</strong> in 1917, the group<br />

brought out Pasternak’s next volume of poetry, Over<br />

the Barriers (also translated as Above the Barriers) . The<br />

volume represents the next step forward in Pasternak’s<br />

development in presenting the world as the spokesperson<br />

for the poet . At the same time, Pasternak<br />

continued to distance his work from Mayakovsky’s .<br />

The volume contained forty-nine poems, some of<br />

which had been previously published, but most of<br />

which were new . “Marburg,” written in 1916, appears<br />

as the final item in the volume . The poetry reflects the<br />

contemporary atmosphere of war; “The Last Day of<br />

Pompeii,” for example, evokes the destruction of a civilization<br />

<strong>and</strong> ends a poetic cycle focused on disasters .<br />

Next the volume turns to a spring sequence, beginning<br />

with “First Glimpse of the Urals” <strong>and</strong> ending with this<br />

stanza describing dawn over the mountains:<br />

On a snow-crusted veil draped with velveted orange<br />

And fashioned from damask <strong>and</strong> threaded with gold,<br />

Like maned monarchs mounting, the pine trees arose<br />

And in order of precedence regally strode . 33<br />

Pasternak was in the process of discovering a more<br />

natural voice in these poems, where, once again, the<br />

imagery of the surrounding world seems to speak<br />

rather than the poet . Furthermore, Pasternak would<br />

again retreat to the Urals in the winter of 1916–17,<br />

working once more at a chemical plant <strong>and</strong> writing but<br />

not publishing a great deal .<br />

Sadly, due to the timing of its release in early 1917, the<br />

volume Over the Barriers failed to gain the recognition<br />

it deserved . On February 27, 1917, the Tsarist state<br />

effectively came to an end, signaling the dawn of major<br />

change in Russian society . Once news of the Revolution<br />

reached him, Pasternak returned to Moscow where<br />

the city was in turmoil . Within a matter of days in<br />

February, workers’ strikes had spread from Petrograd<br />

(its name changed from St . Petersburg in 1914) to<br />

Moscow, <strong>and</strong> demonstrations had begun dem<strong>and</strong>ing<br />

an end to autocracy <strong>and</strong> protesting Russia’s involvement<br />

in world war . Both the army <strong>and</strong> the Duma (the<br />

Russian parliament which the Tsar had tried to disb<strong>and</strong>)<br />

turned on the Tsar when he tried to order an end<br />

to rioting through the use of force, <strong>and</strong> he was left with<br />

little choice but to abdicate on March 2 . The Tsar was<br />

placed under house arrest with his family .<br />

In the wake of the Tsar’s departure, a Provisional<br />

Government was formed, but Socialists were assembling<br />

a rival force of their own—as the Petrograd Soviet<br />

claimed to represent the workers . Alex<strong>and</strong>er Kerensky<br />

(1881–1970), a member of the Socialist Revolutionary<br />

Party, took on an increasingly central role in government,<br />

ultimately serving as Prime Minister . Kerensky<br />

promoted basic human freedoms, including freedom<br />

of speech, <strong>and</strong> released political prisoners, but faced<br />

enormous challenges posed by the growing Bolshevik<br />

Party headed by Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) . Under<br />

Lenin, the Bolsheviks rapidly gained power, leading to<br />

the October Revolution in 1917, during which Lenin<br />

<strong>and</strong> his followers revolted against the Provisional<br />

Government, replacing it with a system of government<br />

by local councils, or “soviets,” elected by workers <strong>and</strong><br />

peasants . Forces loyal to the Tsar, known as the White<br />

Army, immediately declared war on the Bolsheviks’<br />

Red Army, throwing Russia into a civil war which<br />

would last until 1923 <strong>and</strong> would end with the establishment<br />

of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics .<br />

In the very early days of the Revolution, there was an<br />

awareness of drastic change in the fabric of social life,<br />

but there was also a heady spirit of joy in the shared<br />

experience of liberty . Pasternak remembered how the<br />

public squares filled with people “‘thinking with one<br />

accord .’” 34 For many, these early days recalled the<br />

revolutionary fervor of the early days of the French<br />

Revolution . In the whirlwind of cataclysmic events,<br />

Pasternak continued to write, working on his next volume<br />

of poetry, My Sister, Life (1922), whose subtitle is<br />

“Summer of the Year of 1917,” to commemorate the<br />

year when most of the poems in the cycle were written .<br />

Pasternak remembered that:<br />

In that celebrated summer of 1917, in the interval<br />

between two revolutionary periods, it seemed<br />

as if together with the people the roadways, trees<br />

<strong>and</strong> stars held meetings <strong>and</strong> delivered speeches .<br />

From end to end the air was gripped in a blazing,<br />

thous<strong>and</strong>-league inspiration, <strong>and</strong> it appeared as<br />

a personality with a name, seemed clairvoyant<br />

<strong>and</strong> animated . 35<br />

It was just such a spirit that Pasternak sought to convey<br />

in this new poetic volume . A second influence on<br />

the poetry of this period, although he chose not to<br />

acknowledge it autobiographically, was his infatuation<br />

with Elena Vinograd, another in a string of one-sided<br />

attractions which failed to materialize into mutual<br />

love .<br />

Out of these combined forces, Pasternak produced<br />

his first poetic masterpiece . Pasternak felt that he<br />

had recorded what he felt about the revolution in the<br />

volume, <strong>and</strong> while its poems are not about the revolution,<br />

they celebrate Pasternak’s own sense of poetic<br />

freedom . 36 Although elusive in meaning, the volume<br />

gathers momentum as the poems form a narrative<br />

whose poetic hero is nature itself . In “Spring Rain,”<br />

the only poem actually published in 1917 <strong>and</strong> then collected<br />

in the 1922 volume, Pasternak combines nature,<br />

freedom, <strong>and</strong> revolutionary fervor:<br />

This is not night, it’s not rain, nor is it<br />

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A roaring chorus of ‘Hurrah for Kerensky!’ 37<br />

This is a blinding debouch in the forum<br />

From catacombs dim, hitherto without exit .<br />

These are not roses, not mouths, nor the murmurs<br />

Of crowds . By this theatre—here is the sight:<br />

Proudly it foams <strong>and</strong> pounds on our asphalt—<br />

The surf of Europe’s wavering night . 38<br />

The tenor of life in Russia, however, soon changed .<br />

In March 1918, the capital was moved to Moscow as<br />

Russia also signed a peace treaty with Germany . But the<br />

end of Russia’s participation in global war only brought<br />

the beginning of civil warfare within . Mismanagement<br />

by the Bolsheviks <strong>and</strong> workers’ control of the factories<br />

led to widespread shortages in food <strong>and</strong> fuel . Pasternak,<br />

among numerous other writers, noticed that under<br />

the Soviet government, freedom was smothered . As<br />

Pasternak wrote in a letter, “‘Here Soviet rule has<br />

gradually degenerated into a sort of philistine, atheistic<br />

almshouse with pensions, rations, <strong>and</strong> subsidies…<br />

They keep people starving <strong>and</strong> make them profess their<br />

lack of faith as they pray for salvation from lice…Was<br />

this worth all the fuss <strong>and</strong> bother?’” 39 Interestingly,<br />

though, partly due to the shortage of paper, cultural <strong>and</strong><br />

poetic gatherings increased during the early days of the<br />

Revolution . Poetry took on the shape of a public “happening”<br />

as a “café period” of Soviet literature emerged .<br />

Mayakovsky, for example, ran his “Poets’ Café,” which<br />

offered performances more reminiscent of circus acts<br />

than literary gatherings . But for Pasternak, a far more<br />

private person, making a spectacle of his own poetic<br />

persona was not an option, so he rarely recited in<br />

public . Furthermore, in the general decline of publishing,<br />

short-lived journals appeared during the days of<br />

the civil war, <strong>and</strong> Pasternak’s work, including “Spring<br />

Rain,” appeared in them .<br />

Overlapping his work on My Sister, Life was Pasternak’s<br />

development of his next volume of poetry, Themes <strong>and</strong><br />

Variations, whose poems were composed between 1916<br />

<strong>and</strong> 1922 . The volume appeared in 1923 in Berlin,<br />

where Pasternak lived from August 1922 through<br />

the first two months of 1923 . Unlike its predecessor,<br />

this volume did not develop a continual narrative<br />

sequence, but it did evoke similar emotional states<br />

<strong>and</strong> displayed the technical virtuosity of My Sister,<br />

Life . The title suggests Pasternak’s preoccupation with<br />

the poetic structuring of themes around variations <strong>and</strong><br />

modifications of those themes; however, the technical<br />

difficulty of the poems makes many of them virtually<br />

untranslatable, so no complete version of the volume<br />

is available in English .<br />

The volume owes much to the influence of Alex<strong>and</strong>er<br />

Pushkin (1799–1837), whose poetry, especially “The<br />

Prophet,” served Pasternak as an emblem of creative<br />

force . 40 Further distancing himself from Mayakovsky,<br />

who had declared in 1913 that Pushkin <strong>and</strong> others<br />

should be “‘thrown overboard from the steamship of<br />

18<br />

modernity,’” 41 Pasternak rediscovered a Pushkin who<br />

was quite relevant to his own emerging conception<br />

of art during the civil war period . In important ways,<br />

though, the volume looks to Pasternak’s future, not<br />

only with its evocations of Goethe <strong>and</strong> Shakespeare,<br />

whose works Pasternak would translate, but also in the<br />

couplet below, which looks ahead to Pasternak’s later<br />

narrative masterpiece, Doctor Zhivago:<br />

I shall say farewell to you verses, my mania .<br />

I’ve appointed your meeting with me in a novel . 42<br />

Along with poetry, then, Pasternak was developing his<br />

reputation in prose, writing short stories <strong>and</strong> drafting<br />

a short fragment of a novel that appeared in a journal<br />

in 1922 under the title Zhenya Luvers’ Childhood .<br />

Pasternak’s earnings from his own work during this<br />

time, however, were not enough to keep his family<br />

from starving, so he supplemented his earnings by<br />

translating world masterpieces into Russian <strong>and</strong> by<br />

working as a clerk in a library . In 1920, he translated<br />

Goethe, <strong>and</strong> between 1920 <strong>and</strong> 1922, he worked on<br />

Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist . As the Russian Civil War<br />

dragged on, more artists, including Pasternak, became<br />

dependent on government ration allocations that were<br />

often late, thus by January 1921, Pasternak was out of<br />

money <strong>and</strong> food .<br />

Leonid Pasternak also realized that he could not support<br />

his family in the economic conditions after the<br />

Revolution, so in the summer of 1921, he, his wife, <strong>and</strong><br />

his daughters left Russia for Germany . With the New<br />

Economic Policy (NEP) adopted in 1921, foreign travel<br />

became easier, <strong>and</strong> diplomatic links had been recently<br />

reestablished with Germany . Boris <strong>and</strong> his brother<br />

Aleks<strong>and</strong>r, however, chose to remain in Moscow, at<br />

least for the time being . With the New Economic Policy<br />

in place, there was a relative relaxation of restrictions,<br />

<strong>and</strong> capitalist enterprise resumed on a smaller scale,<br />

but oppression had not been completely ab<strong>and</strong>oned,<br />

<strong>and</strong> concentration camps, persecution of the clergy,<br />

<strong>and</strong> show trials continued . In 1922, Pasternak was surviving<br />

on earnings from poems published in a number<br />

of journals <strong>and</strong> miscellanies . Another work of prose<br />

fiction, Three Chapters from a Tale, appeared in June<br />

1922 <strong>and</strong> introduced themes <strong>and</strong> characters which<br />

would reappear in later works .<br />

The political atmosphere of the new order emerging<br />

near the end of the civil war made it increasingly difficult<br />

for artists to work independently of political<br />

themes . Mayakovsky, unlike Pasternak, had thrown<br />

himself fully into cooperation with the government,<br />

but Alex<strong>and</strong>er Blok became quickly disillusioned with<br />

the Revolution <strong>and</strong> felt that he could no longer write<br />

poetry in such an atmosphere . Even though Blok was<br />

critically ill, he was denied permission to travel abroad<br />

for treatment <strong>and</strong> died in August 1921 . Pasternak met<br />

Blok just months before he died <strong>and</strong> witnessed the<br />

insults <strong>and</strong> catcalls with which he was showered at a<br />

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Bolshevik troops march in Red Square during the 1917 Russian Revolution. In the very early days<br />

of the Revolution, there was an awareness of drastic change in the fabric of Russia’s<br />

social life as well as a heady spirit of joy in the shared experience of liberty.<br />

public reception, an episode Pasternak later recalled in<br />

his Autobiographical Essay . 43<br />

These experiences gave Pasternak increased sensitivity<br />

toward another poet who had suffered criticism<br />

from Soviet critics <strong>and</strong> had aligned herself with Blok,<br />

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) . Pasternak first met<br />

Akhmatova in January 1922; he had been reading<br />

her work for several years <strong>and</strong> had an appreciation<br />

for the work of the Acmeist44 group of poets to which<br />

she belonged . Anna Akhmatova’s husb<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> fellow<br />

poet in the group, Nikolai Gumilyov (1886–1921), had<br />

been executed for conspiracy in August 1921, within<br />

two weeks of Blok’s death, <strong>and</strong> Akhmatova had seriously<br />

contemplated suicide . Gumilyov’s fate served<br />

as an example to all of what could happen to the<br />

poet under Soviet repression . In an earlier response<br />

to critical attacks on Akhmatova, Pasternak dedicated<br />

<strong>and</strong> sent a copy of My Sister, Life to her, writing,<br />

“‘To Anna Akhmatova, poet <strong>and</strong> comrade in misfortune…<br />

.’” 45 During this time, Pasternak also discovered<br />

the poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva (1892–1941), who<br />

was abroad when he picked up a copy of her volume<br />

Mileposts . Tsvetaeva’s husb<strong>and</strong> had fought with the<br />

White Guards, <strong>and</strong> she left Russia to join her husb<strong>and</strong>,<br />

who emigrated to escape capture <strong>and</strong> arrest . Pasternak<br />

found himself, along with the poet Osip M<strong>and</strong>elstam<br />

<strong>and</strong> Akhmatova, charmed by her lyrical power <strong>and</strong><br />

began a correspondence with her in June 1922, which<br />

would last for a number of years .<br />

In June 1921, Pasternak met <strong>and</strong> fell in love with<br />

Evgeniya Lurye, daughter of a prominent Jewish family<br />

from Petrograd <strong>and</strong> a student of painting . They<br />

were married in Petrograd in February 1922 . Pasternak<br />

continued widening his circle of artistic colleagues<br />

<strong>and</strong> continued to promote their work along with his<br />

own . Though he had earlier been reluctant, Pasternak<br />

was now more amenable to giving poetry readings . As<br />

Pasternak’s fame spread, he was summoned by Leon<br />

Trotsky (1879–1940), the second man in comm<strong>and</strong> in<br />

Soviet government <strong>and</strong> Lenin’s heir-apparent, to talk<br />

about his philosophy, his work under Hermann Cohen,<br />

<strong>and</strong> his poetry . Ostensibly, Trotsky was engaged in literary<br />

research for the newspaper Pravda <strong>and</strong> for a book<br />

he would release a year later, <strong>Lit</strong>erature <strong>and</strong> Revolution .<br />

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Apparently Trotsky found Pasternak’s work very difficult<br />

to read, <strong>and</strong> so he made no mention of him<br />

in his book . In a letter written to a friend after the<br />

interview, Pasternak affirmed his determination to<br />

defend his individualism <strong>and</strong> not to devote himself to<br />

“social” themes . The real reason for the interview may<br />

well have been Trotsky’s desire to know more about<br />

Pasternak’s reasons for requesting leave to travel to<br />

Germany <strong>and</strong> to determine if Pasternak planned to<br />

return . 46 Pasternak <strong>and</strong> his new wife had good reasons<br />

for wanting to travel: Pasternak was worried about his<br />

future as a writer under a Soviet regime, but he also<br />

wanted to see his family <strong>and</strong> introduce them to his<br />

wife . In August 1922, the Pasternaks left for Germany,<br />

arriving to find that country in the throes of a deepening<br />

economic crisis .<br />

In Berlin, Pasternak completed little work, <strong>and</strong> in early<br />

1923, he <strong>and</strong> his wife returned to Moscow . Before leaving,<br />

Pasternak sat in March for his father’s last portrait<br />

of him; neither father nor son knew it would be their<br />

last meeting . When the Pasternaks returned to Russia,<br />

they were expecting their first child, Evgenii, who<br />

would arrive on September 23, 1923 . Back in Russia,<br />

Pasternak was drawn partly back into Mayakovsky’s<br />

circle <strong>and</strong> the newly formed publishing group LEF<br />

(the acronym for Left Front of the Arts) . Pasternak’s<br />

poem “Kremlin in a Blizzard” appeared in the first<br />

issue of LEF, but Pasternak’s growing concern at the<br />

demise of lyricism in the Soviet state is reflected in<br />

his work on the poem Malady Sublime, a work of epic<br />

proportions—379 lines—<strong>and</strong> a vast meditation on the<br />

malady of the age:<br />

Rhymes, where is your place?<br />

Where are you not to be discovered?<br />

We have our place since not for the first time<br />

Is the blizzard relieved by sentries<br />

And pickets have been posted in the epic .<br />

We have our place since terror in the theatre<br />

Sings to the stalls the same old song<br />

That once a tenor sang from score<br />

About the malady sublime . 47<br />

The brief selection from the poema, 48 which appeared<br />

in the first issue of LEF for 1924, asks “rhymes” to<br />

reveal their place in an age which installs representatives<br />

of repression to police poetic <strong>and</strong> dramatic<br />

art—the “sentries” <strong>and</strong> “pickets” are there to protect<br />

the interests of the state . The rhymes reply that they<br />

have their place now <strong>and</strong> have always had their place<br />

in a world where the “malady sublime” is the nature of<br />

human existence .<br />

On January 21, 1924, Lenin died, <strong>and</strong> his body was<br />

laid in state in Moscow, where thous<strong>and</strong>s came to pay<br />

their last respects . Pasternak recorded his memory<br />

of having seen Lenin in 1921 in a later extension of<br />

Malady Sublime:<br />

20<br />

I recall: the manner of his speech<br />

Pierced the nape of my neck with sparks<br />

Like the rush of globe lightning .<br />

[…]<br />

He was like a rapier thrust .<br />

Chasing after the spoken word<br />

He pursued his own line with flapping coat<br />

And jutting uppers of his boots .<br />

[…]<br />

He directed the stream of thought<br />

And, because of that, the country . 49<br />

The lines suggest the power of a figure like Lenin to<br />

inspire Pasternak’s admiration <strong>and</strong> his sense of the<br />

direction the revolution could have taken had Lenin<br />

lived .<br />

Working in prose again, Pasternak published his story<br />

“Aerial Ways” in the journal Russian Contemporary<br />

in 1924; the journal was a forum for exceptional <strong>and</strong><br />

unorthodox talent—an increasing rarity in a state<br />

where independent journals were being forced to shut<br />

down . In the fall of 1924, Pasternak began working<br />

in the Party Central Committee’s Lenin Institute,<br />

compiling a bibliography of all foreign press articles<br />

on Lenin . This position afforded Pasternak the unique<br />

opportunity to browse through newspapers <strong>and</strong> journals<br />

where he read about James Joyce, Marcel Proust,<br />

<strong>and</strong> Joseph Conrad, among others . The meager salary<br />

for this position, however, hardly amounted to enough<br />

to support his family, <strong>and</strong> Pasternak struggled to find<br />

commissions for translations <strong>and</strong> ways to get his work<br />

into print .<br />

Thus far, during the first half of the 1920s, the Russian<br />

literary scene had been split between orthodox proletarian<br />

writers <strong>and</strong> those who were considered less<br />

politically correct fellow travelers . A political atmosphere<br />

of relative tolerance prevailed, but in June<br />

1925, the Central Committee passed a resolution “On<br />

Party Policy in the Field of <strong>Lit</strong>erature,” which clarified<br />

an ongoing policy of tolerance toward fellow travelers<br />

while emphasizing “‘the necessity for creation of a literature<br />

aimed at a genuinely mass readership of workers<br />

<strong>and</strong> peasants… .’” 50 The document was ambivalent, so<br />

both sides—proletarian writers <strong>and</strong> fellow travelers—<br />

felt somewhat appeased . But Pasternak was cautious<br />

<strong>and</strong> concerned—<strong>and</strong> rightly so, for the document is<br />

now viewed as the prelude to the “gradual integration<br />

of Soviet Russian literature into state policy .” 51<br />

In 1925, Pasternak began work on another extended<br />

piece, a verse narrative entitled Spektorsky, but<br />

its composition was interrupted <strong>and</strong> its conception<br />

changed throughout the remainder of the 1920s . The<br />

main character, Sergei Spektorsky, is a young Russian<br />

intellectual before the war, who anticipates the coming<br />

of war <strong>and</strong> revolution . Because he needed money,<br />

Pasternak published the first three chapters in 1925;<br />

two more years would elapse before Pasternak returned<br />

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Photograph of Pasternak with the poet Anna Akhmatova<br />

in the 1940s. Pasternak first met Akhmatova in<br />

1922; he had been reading her work for several<br />

years <strong>and</strong> had an appreciation for the work of the<br />

Acmeist group of poets to which she belonged.<br />

to this work . In the meantime, he continued to plan<br />

longer poetic cycles, specifically Nineteen Five, which<br />

Pasternak began to research in the summer of 1925 .<br />

The work on this poem progressed rapidly, conceived<br />

by Pasternak as a chronicle of the year 1905 in verse<br />

form, <strong>and</strong> though it contained reminiscence, the work<br />

served more as an assemblage of external sources<br />

detailing a revolution whose memory he could more<br />

safely evoke than the 1917 Revolution . Coincidentally,<br />

Sergei Eisenstein, the great Russian film director, was<br />

shooting his own version of the 1905 Revolution<br />

entitled The Battleship Potemkin, which featured the<br />

mutiny of the crew of the battleship against their<br />

Tsarist officers . Pasternak’s epic poem consists of a<br />

series of episodes, which, in the visual power of their<br />

imagery, suggest the progression of cinematic scenes,<br />

<strong>and</strong> in their nostalgia evoke a loyalty to the earlier<br />

revolution . The subject matter had immediate official<br />

sanction <strong>and</strong> widespread appeal, appearing in four editions<br />

between 1927 <strong>and</strong> 1937 .<br />

Just as he completed Nineteen Five, Pasternak began<br />

work on his next long narrative poem in March 1926,<br />

Lieutenant Schmidt . This poem grew out of the earlier<br />

one <strong>and</strong> was based on the life of Pyotr Petrovich<br />

Schmidt who was executed for leading a mutiny in the<br />

Black Sea fleet during the 1905 Revolution . Schmidt<br />

had become a posthumous hero during the 1917<br />

Revolution, so Pasternak had a great deal of material to<br />

draw from as he crafted his poetic character . Schmidt’s<br />

martyrdom evokes the passion of Christ <strong>and</strong> the fate<br />

of other martyred literary characters like Dickens’s<br />

Sidney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities . 52 As Schmidt<br />

writes to his beloved in Part 3 of Pasternak’s poem:<br />

All commotion has ended . St<strong>and</strong>ing afar,<br />

With all the power of my feelings I sense<br />

That this fate which befalls is an enviable one .<br />

I have lived <strong>and</strong> laid down my life for my friends . 53<br />

Two intertwined occurrences combined in early 1926<br />

to further impact the course of Pasternak’s life <strong>and</strong><br />

poetic work . Pasternak’s ongoing correspondence with<br />

Marina Tsvetaeva constituted a virtual love affair in<br />

letters <strong>and</strong> had caused him marital difficulties . In<br />

March, Pasternak read the manuscript of her Poem<br />

of the End, a poetic rendering of the end of her affair<br />

with Konstantin Rodzevitch . Pasternak was riveted by<br />

its dramatic <strong>and</strong> rhythmic power <strong>and</strong> the universality<br />

of its emotion, <strong>and</strong> he wrote to his sister Josephine,<br />

“‘Only Scriabin, Rilke, Mayakovsky <strong>and</strong> Cohen have<br />

stirred me so .’” 54 Reading this stunning poem convinced<br />

Pasternak of the ongoing viability of the lyric .<br />

As Pasternak wrote to Tsvetaeva: “‘Lyrically contained,<br />

Poem of the End is right to the last step your own<br />

asserted world . Perhaps because it is lyric poetry <strong>and</strong><br />

written in the first person singular .’” 55<br />

On the same day he read the manuscript, Pasternak<br />

received a letter from his father which noted that Rilke<br />

had mentioned Boris’ verses favorably . Pasternak was<br />

stunned, adding in his memoirs, “‘It was the second<br />

shock of the day . I went over to the window <strong>and</strong> burst<br />

into tears . I could not have been more surprised had I<br />

been told that they were reading me in heaven .’” 56 For<br />

months after, Pasternak, Tsvetaeva, <strong>and</strong> Rilke carried<br />

on a three-sided correspondence which ended with<br />

Rilke’s death in <strong>Dec</strong>ember 1926 . Pasternak harbored<br />

the notion of meeting Rilke in Paris with Tsvetaeva,<br />

which further complicated the increasingly strained<br />

relationship with his wife, who left for a rest cure<br />

in Germany in the spring of 1926 . During her three<br />

months away, Evgeniya remained largely silent, not<br />

responding to Pasternak’s frequent letters <strong>and</strong> his<br />

growing awareness of their emotional estrangement,<br />

but on her return in October, the Pasternaks were able<br />

to restore their relationship to temporary harmony .<br />

In <strong>Dec</strong>ember 1926, Rilke died, ending any hope<br />

that Pasternak had of meeting him <strong>and</strong> influencing<br />

Pasternak’s creative process as he worked on the trial<br />

scene in Lieutenant Schmidt . In the ensuing years,<br />

Pasternak dedicated work to Rilke’s memory <strong>and</strong><br />

began translating two of Rilke’s longer poems . Perhaps<br />

these strong influences from the West—Tsvetaeva in<br />

exile <strong>and</strong> Rilke in Austria—drew Pasternak to distance<br />

himself increasingly from LEF, the literary group with<br />

which he had been associated for several years . In<br />

1927, Novy Lef was set up as a publishing vehicle <strong>and</strong><br />

extension of LEF, <strong>and</strong> the issues of the journal confirmed<br />

Pasternak’s fears that it was an embodiment<br />

of the “‘utterly impenetrable hypocrisy <strong>and</strong> servility<br />

that have become the basis <strong>and</strong> obligatory note’” 57 of<br />

contemporary Soviet society <strong>and</strong> literature . Pasternak<br />

resigned in June 1927, beginning a series of resigna-<br />

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tions by more liberal members including that of the<br />

renowned film director Sergei Eisenstein . Furthermore,<br />

Pasternak’s personal relationship with Mayakovsky,<br />

who was closely associated with LEF, had, by 1928,<br />

come to an end .<br />

For months in 1927 <strong>and</strong> 1928, Pasternak was idle <strong>and</strong><br />

depressed, but early in 1928, he had slowly begun to<br />

resume his work <strong>and</strong> to take greater stock of the impact<br />

of Rilke on his development as a poet . He asked friends<br />

<strong>and</strong> family to send him biographical information, <strong>and</strong><br />

began work on the first part of his autobiography, Safe<br />

Conduct . Pasternak dedicated Part I, which appeared in<br />

the journal Zvesda in 1929, to Rilke but spent much of<br />

this section reminiscing about Scriabin <strong>and</strong> philosophy<br />

<strong>and</strong> his own studies in Marburg . Despite the scarcity<br />

of explicit references, Pasternak’s Safe Conduct evokes<br />

a nostalgia which aligns it with Rilke’s own semiautobiographical<br />

work .<br />

Russia was in the midst of increasing turmoil as the<br />

relatively liberal New Economic Policy came to an end<br />

in 1928, followed by renewed terror <strong>and</strong> hysteria under<br />

22<br />

Photograph of Pasternak (second from left) with friends, including Lilya Brik, renowned film<br />

director Sergei Eisenstein (third from left) <strong>and</strong> Vladimir Mayakovsky (center).<br />

the oppression of Stalin’s growing power . In May of<br />

1928, Pasternak wrote his cousin: “‘As you know, the<br />

terror has started again, without those moral foundations<br />

or justifications which they once used to find for<br />

it… .’” 58 Pasternak looked to writer Maxim Gorky as<br />

the artist who could stabilize cultural <strong>and</strong> historical<br />

continuity in a dangerous political atmosphere . Gorky<br />

was a major figure in Soviet literature who rose from<br />

the working class <strong>and</strong> orphan-hood to become a highly<br />

regarded proletarian writer . After the 1905 Revolution,<br />

Gorky was exiled <strong>and</strong> lived in Italy; he had opposed<br />

the 1917 Revolution as well as Lenin’s censorship <strong>and</strong><br />

oppression <strong>and</strong> tried to help writers <strong>and</strong> artists who<br />

were struggling . During the 1920s <strong>and</strong> 1930s, Gorky<br />

worked on an unfinished epic novel, The Life of Klim<br />

Samgin, along with reminiscences of Lenin, Tolstoy,<br />

<strong>and</strong> Chekhov . Living outside of Russia’s extreme<br />

climate for the sake of his health, Gorky was full of<br />

anticipation for the positive changes in the Soviet<br />

regime that he might be able to bring about when<br />

Pasternak met him in May 1928 . But Pasternak found<br />

himself sadly disappointed by Gorky’s inability to<br />

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ing resolution to the challenges for writers . When<br />

Pasternak published a new version of Malady Sublime<br />

later in 1928, the reference to Gorky’s “‘rectilinear<br />

glance’” 59 had disappeared .<br />

In 1928 Pasternak finally returned to Spektorsky, the<br />

poetic narrative begun in 1925, <strong>and</strong> published another<br />

installment in the first issue of the journal Krasnaya<br />

nov’ . The next two chapters appeared quickly in succeeding<br />

issues of the journal <strong>and</strong> showed Pasternak’s<br />

changing conception of the work, which turned more<br />

toward the hero’s relationship with Maria, a character<br />

loosely based on Tsvetaeva . But Pasternak’s progress on<br />

this work lapsed again for a few more years . Pasternak<br />

also brought out earlier poems in new editions, especially<br />

a re-conceptualized <strong>and</strong> revised edition of Over<br />

the Barriers, which came out in 1929 . In the cauldron<br />

of this reworking, Pasternak found his theme for years<br />

to come—the city envisioned as “the arena of historical<br />

events .” 60 A poem that Pasternak worked on in 1927,<br />

“Space” (alternatively translated as “Expanse”), pointed<br />

toward this new direction:<br />

There is the city—<strong>and</strong> where can one count<br />

The enticements of a Muscovite congress?<br />

The burning wool of ill-weathers,<br />

Allurement of unfathomed darkness?<br />

There is the city—<strong>and</strong> just look<br />

How crimson it blazes at night .<br />

By actual event alone it’s illuminated<br />

From within, like a lampion bright .<br />

It has closed about like a wonder in stone—<br />

Birth’s rattling, clattering gift-offering .<br />

And chance’s c<strong>and</strong>le-stump glimmers within<br />

As if in a small cardboard kremlin .<br />

From its hills it has scattered these lanterns<br />

In order to drip, to melt down <strong>and</strong> light up<br />

History, like the tallow<br />

Of some c<strong>and</strong>le bearing no title . 61<br />

By 1929 Pasternak had begun to turn increasingly away<br />

from the shorter lyric <strong>and</strong> toward narrative, the broad<br />

expanse of history, <strong>and</strong> the daily affairs of humanity<br />

as the mode for conveying his poetic vision . The stage<br />

was being set for the appearance of Doctor Zhivago .<br />

Writing <strong>and</strong> Politics in the Thirties <strong>and</strong> Forties:<br />

Stalinism <strong>and</strong> a Second World War<br />

A new decade opened as Pasternak continued to<br />

work on the second <strong>and</strong> third parts of Safe Conduct<br />

in a changing political climate marred, in part, by<br />

Mayakovsky’s suicide in April 1930 . Pasternak<br />

dedicated the third part of his autobiography to<br />

Mayakovsky <strong>and</strong> to the generation they shared . For<br />

Pasternak, Mayakovsky’s death symbolized the fate of<br />

the artist in the midst of a reconfigured Soviet Russia,<br />

which now claimed to control literary texts <strong>and</strong> their<br />

authors . Pasternak saw Mayakovsky’s death as an act<br />

Photograph of Pasternak with his<br />

second wife, Zinaida Neuhaus.<br />

of rebellion against an oppressive state that he had<br />

previously supported while he defined his own view of<br />

art in Safe Conduct as “‘resistance to the inevitable .’” 62<br />

In <strong>Dec</strong>ember 1929, Pasternak’s revised version of Over<br />

the Barriers appeared without incident other than<br />

responses by peasants who found Pasternak’s verse<br />

unintelligible . In the summer of 1930, he finally completed<br />

Spektorsky—the finished volume would appear<br />

in 1931—<strong>and</strong> began an affair with Zinaida Neuhaus,<br />

the wife of pianist Genrikh Neuhaus, neighbors he<br />

had met while vacationing outside of the city of Kiev .<br />

Pasternak <strong>and</strong> Zinaida would leave <strong>and</strong> divorce their<br />

respective spouses, live together as man <strong>and</strong> wife, <strong>and</strong><br />

eventually marry in 1934 .<br />

At the time Pasternak was vacationing in Irpen <strong>and</strong><br />

beginning his affair with Zinaida, the Soviet regime<br />

had increased pressure on the intelligentsia . The year<br />

1930 is known in Russian literary history as “‘The<br />

Year of Acquiescence’” 63 because writers were finally<br />

forced to submit to control by political authority; Stalin<br />

himself intervened in literary matters, <strong>and</strong> the Russian<br />

Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) acted as<br />

the Party representative in disb<strong>and</strong>ing fellow traveler<br />

literary groups . Writers were constantly tested to<br />

demonstrate their loyalty to the regime, yet Pasternak<br />

strove to remain aloof . This year also initiated what<br />

would continue to be a constantly changing political<br />

atmosphere—periods of severe repression were<br />

followed by periods of relative thaw <strong>and</strong> restoration<br />

of liberal cultural values, often without explanation .<br />

In the spring of 1931, the last two chapters of Safe<br />

Conduct appeared in the Soviet journal Red Virgin Soil,<br />

Spektorsky would shortly appear, <strong>and</strong> there seemed to<br />

be a brief thaw in political policies as fellow traveler<br />

writers interpreted some of Stalin’s remarks as being<br />

indicative of his dissatisfaction with the aesthetic<br />

quality of proletarian literature . Yet the thaw was followed<br />

by another inexplicable swing in the regime’s<br />

pendulum of favor <strong>and</strong> disfavor toward certain styles of<br />

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writing . And even though Pasternak was not allowed to<br />

leave, his first wife Evgeniya <strong>and</strong> their son were given<br />

permission to travel to Germany .<br />

Having finished two longer works, Pasternak turned<br />

back to lyric, but lyric which began to engage with history<br />

in potentially dangerous ways . Pasternak wrote<br />

a poem which appears as a dialogue with Stalin <strong>and</strong><br />

compares him to Peter the Great <strong>and</strong> Nicholas I . The<br />

poem appeared in the 1932 edition of Second Birth,<br />

but Pasternak removed it from subsequent editions<br />

for complex reasons, not the least of which was that a<br />

dialogue with Stalin, even a poetic one, could suggest<br />

that Pasternak was too close to Stalin’s regime .<br />

Not one day’s passed—a century or more,<br />

Yet strong is temptation, as of old,<br />

To gaze unflinching, without fear,<br />

With hope of glorious things <strong>and</strong> good .<br />

[…]<br />

Yet only now has come the time to say,<br />

While mindful of our different generation:<br />

The dawn of Great Peter’s glorious days<br />

Was dark with mutiny <strong>and</strong> executions .<br />

So never falter, forward march,<br />

By this bold parallel consoled,<br />

While you’re alive, no bygone relic,<br />

Before posterity condoles . 64<br />

The poem echoes Pushkin’s poetic dialogue with Tsar<br />

Nicholas I <strong>and</strong> seems to convey hope for a future in<br />

which tolerance will prevail . In addition to the new<br />

engagement with history, Pasternak’s style was also<br />

undergoing a revision toward increased simplicity <strong>and</strong><br />

more use of the personal voice .<br />

In the summer of 1931, Pasternak returned to the Urals<br />

<strong>and</strong> was shocked by what he saw . Invited on the trip<br />

as part of a plan to re-educate fellow-traveler writers,<br />

Pasternak saw an ongoing, relentless homogenization<br />

of the population forced into lockstep obedience to<br />

the regime, <strong>and</strong> he returned to Moscow earlier than<br />

planned . The negative impact of this journey, however,<br />

was offset by Pasternak’s first trip to Georgia in the<br />

Caucasus Mountains in the fall . Pasternak <strong>and</strong> Zinaida<br />

traveled together at the invitation of Georgian poet<br />

Paolo Yashvili; the trip initiated a lifelong friendship<br />

between Pasternak <strong>and</strong> the Georgian poets <strong>and</strong> gave<br />

Pasternak a new body of poetic work that he could<br />

translate into Russian <strong>and</strong> bring to a wider reading<br />

audience . Back in Moscow, Pasternak was moved by the<br />

experience to exclaim at a literary gathering that “‘not<br />

everything has been destroyed by the revolution .’” 65<br />

But just at the point when Pasternak felt confident that<br />

poetry would survive Soviet oppression, RAPP critics<br />

began to target him in the spring of 1932 . No matter<br />

how hard he tried, Pasternak could not succeed in his<br />

efforts to remain inconspicuous to the Soviet regime<br />

<strong>and</strong> their watchdogs . In the spring of 1932, torn by<br />

24<br />

Georgian poet Paolo Yashvili. Yashvili invited Pasternak<br />

<strong>and</strong> Zinaida to Georgia in the Caucasus Mountains,<br />

<strong>and</strong> the trip initiated a lifelong friendship between<br />

Pasternak <strong>and</strong> the Georgian poet, <strong>and</strong> gave Pasternak<br />

a new body of poetic work that he could translate into<br />

Russian <strong>and</strong> bring to a wider reading audience.<br />

relentless attacks by RAPP critics <strong>and</strong> by his loyalty to<br />

both his wives <strong>and</strong> his children, Pasternak attempted<br />

suicide . He was unsuccessful, <strong>and</strong>, luckily for his state<br />

of mind, the atmosphere for writers was briefly clearing<br />

once more . In April, RAPP was painted as the organ<br />

responsible for mediocrity in literature, <strong>and</strong> fellow<br />

traveler writers were upheld as setting st<strong>and</strong>ards for<br />

literary quality . The regime decreed the formation of a<br />

new Writers’ Union, which was now required to examine<br />

writers’ orthodoxy . But Pasternak remained quiet,<br />

suspicious of this new thaw in the government attitude<br />

toward artists . In the summer of 1932, he published<br />

his next collection of poems, Second Birth, <strong>and</strong> he was<br />

allowed, as a guest of the government, to travel to the<br />

Urals again .<br />

In the new volume, Second Birth, Pasternak offers a<br />

willingness to confront the challenges of being a poet<br />

in his own time <strong>and</strong> achieves a new simplicity of style<br />

in contrast to his earlier, very complicated lyrics; but<br />

the overall volume lacks a conceptual frame or the<br />

necessary links among sections to create a sequence .<br />

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There is a tension in the volume between Pasternak’s<br />

hope for a liberating movement for artists <strong>and</strong> his<br />

willingness to embrace socialism . Further complicating<br />

this tension is Pasternak’s awareness of the barbarity<br />

of the socialist state . Using ancient Rome as his metaphor<br />

<strong>and</strong> the poet as actor, Pasternak reveals his sense<br />

of this destiny in a poem which opens one of the sections<br />

in the volume:<br />

Oh, had I known the way of things<br />

When I embarked on my debut,<br />

That blood-spurting lines of verse can kill,<br />

Choke to death <strong>and</strong> flood the throat .<br />

All jokes with such an undertone<br />

Would have been renounced outright .<br />

My beginnings were so long ago,<br />

My first commitment was so slight .<br />

Yet growing age, like ancient Rome,<br />

In place of childish tricks <strong>and</strong> jests<br />

Requires no read-through of the role<br />

But wants the player done to death .<br />

When passion high dictates the lines,<br />

It sends a slave out on the stage .<br />

And then, as art comes to an end,<br />

We feel the breath of soil <strong>and</strong> fate . 66<br />

This volume was, however, Pasternak’s least favorite—he<br />

believed that it contained a degree of falsity<br />

<strong>and</strong> demonstrated a compromise with the socialist<br />

regime67 —so he wrote very little verse for the next ten<br />

years .<br />

Pasternak, as he had been the year before, was struck<br />

by what he saw in the Urals in the summer of 1932 .<br />

There he saw the widespread beginning of famine .<br />

However, the plight of the peasants was kept secret by<br />

the government, who refused to make any mention<br />

of it in the newspapers . Pasternak was incensed, but<br />

there was little will on the part of the government to<br />

alleviate the peasants’ suffering . Pasternak’s reports<br />

about this suffering to the newly forming Writers’<br />

Union went unheard as the writers gathered for a<br />

meeting with Stalin in Gorky’s apartment where they<br />

engaged in discussions about literature <strong>and</strong> listened as<br />

Stalin outlined his new artistic method called “‘socialist<br />

realism .’” 68 Pasternak did not attend this meeting,<br />

<strong>and</strong> the new initiative only worried him as he sensed<br />

that Stalin’s latest term for literature, deliberately left<br />

undefined, held ominous intent .<br />

In November, another incident occurred which caused<br />

Pasternak additional concern; Stalin’s wife died, <strong>and</strong><br />

though the cause of death was not released, rumors<br />

circulated that she had committed suicide . A number<br />

of writers signed a joint statement of condolence<br />

published in the press, which Pasternak did not sign,<br />

but to which he added his own personal note of condolence<br />

. Pasternak continued to hold himself aloof from<br />

groups closely aligned with the regime while maintain-<br />

Photograph of the poet Osip M<strong>and</strong>elstam, who was<br />

arrested on charges of anti-Stalinism. Pasternak<br />

<strong>and</strong> Bukharin came to M<strong>and</strong>elstam’s defense by<br />

personally appealing to Stalin <strong>and</strong> helped to save<br />

him. But, M<strong>and</strong>lestam was arrested a second time,<br />

exiled to a correction camp, <strong>and</strong> died. The feeling<br />

that he might have unwittingly betrayed M<strong>and</strong>elstam<br />

remained with Pasternak for the rest of his life.<br />

ing an appearance of submission to the greater will<br />

of the government <strong>and</strong> a willingness to accept Soviet<br />

reality—a delicate balancing act at best .<br />

Due to deterioration in the political climate <strong>and</strong> the<br />

loss of freedoms enjoyed ever so briefly by artists,<br />

Pasternak wrote only a h<strong>and</strong>ful of lyrics in the ensuing<br />

years . In March 1933, the censors banned Safe<br />

Conduct; the volume would not appear in the Soviet<br />

Union again for fifty years . Pasternak was furious, <strong>and</strong><br />

in a letter to his parents, he outlined the situation in<br />

Soviet Russia as being similar to the worsening conditions<br />

in Germany when National Socialism (the early<br />

stages of Nazism) began to take hold . Gorky, to whom<br />

Pasternak had appealed when his autobiography was<br />

banned, returned to Russia in 1933 to play more of a<br />

role in the Writers’ Union . Gorky believed that Soviet<br />

socialism could act as a barrier to the rise of the fascist<br />

destruction of culture in Europe; to this end, Gorky<br />

marshaled groups of writers to visit the republics of<br />

the Soviet Union, <strong>and</strong> Pasternak successfully appealed,<br />

on the strength of his translations of Georgian poets,<br />

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26<br />

Photograph of Nicolai Bukharin from 1929. At the<br />

Writers’ Congress in 1934, Bukharin advanced<br />

Pasternak as one of the three poets embodying<br />

true poetic art unfettered by official decree <strong>and</strong><br />

propag<strong>and</strong>a. Bukharin’s speech stood out for its<br />

courageous support of artistic endeavor <strong>and</strong> caused<br />

a backlash against his position. Although Bukharin<br />

was removed from the Writers’ Union as a result<br />

of this speech, Pasternak, with Bukharin’s support,<br />

had become the central figure in Soviet literature.<br />

to be included in the group designated to travel to<br />

Georgia . Pasternak continued hoping for a better future<br />

for writers, based on his belief that Gorky could have<br />

a positive effect on Stalin, <strong>and</strong> he urged his parents to<br />

return from Germany as increasingly disturbing news<br />

emerged about the persecution of Jews there .<br />

Under the editorial leadership of Nikolai Bukharin,<br />

the second most important paper in the Soviet Union,<br />

Izvestia, increasingly offered space to cultural issues .<br />

Bukharin, like Gorky, believed that Soviet socialism<br />

could protect Russia from the intrusion of fascism,<br />

<strong>and</strong> attracted leading literary talents to contribute<br />

to the paper—Pasternak was his featured writer . In<br />

May 1934, Pasternak’s friend <strong>and</strong> fellow poet, Osip<br />

M<strong>and</strong>elstam (1891–1938), was arrested on charges<br />

of anti-Stalinism for having recited a satiric jibe at<br />

Stalin on the sidewalks of Moscow . Both Pasternak <strong>and</strong><br />

Bukharin came to M<strong>and</strong>elstam’s defense by personally<br />

appealing to Stalin <strong>and</strong> helped to save him . This<br />

softening bolstered Pasternak’s sense that writers could<br />

survive in Soviet Russia, but Pasternak remained suspicious<br />

as he worked to incorporate his sense of history<br />

<strong>and</strong> the political atmosphere into his work .<br />

Just before the First Soviet Writers’ Congress in 1934,<br />

shifts in policy seemed imminent once more . Critics<br />

attacked Pasternak for being out of step with Soviet<br />

ideology <strong>and</strong> upheld the work of the dead Mayakovsky<br />

as a st<strong>and</strong>ard for orthodox art . However, Bukharin led<br />

the effort by liberals to block Mayakovsky’s “canonization,”<br />

<strong>and</strong> he <strong>and</strong> his followers insisted on resisting<br />

the homogenization of Soviet art . Just at this time,<br />

in June 1934, Stalin called Pasternak to discuss the<br />

M<strong>and</strong>elstam affair after M<strong>and</strong>elstam’s attempted suicide<br />

. Stalin’s underlying motive may have been to<br />

check up on both Pasternak’s <strong>and</strong> Bukharin’s loyalty<br />

to party policy, <strong>and</strong>, even more importantly, to find<br />

out if Pasternak knew about M<strong>and</strong>elstam’s satiric<br />

poem . But, the dialogue was left unresolved, for Stalin<br />

ended the conversation when Pasternak asked for a<br />

personal meeting . Pasternak would always wonder if<br />

he could have done more to help M<strong>and</strong>elstam, but the<br />

result of the phone call was a temporary relaxation<br />

in artistic policies <strong>and</strong> a relatively mild sentence of<br />

banishment for M<strong>and</strong>elstam . This reprieve did not<br />

last long, though, for in May 1938, M<strong>and</strong>elstam was<br />

accused once more of anti-Soviet views <strong>and</strong> arrested .<br />

He was exiled to a correction camp near Vladivostok,<br />

where he died almost immediately in <strong>Dec</strong>ember 1938 .<br />

Pasternak’s sense of the enigmatic nature of Stalin’s<br />

call <strong>and</strong> his feeling that he might have unwittingly<br />

betrayed M<strong>and</strong>elstam remained with him for the rest<br />

of his life . 69 An important outcome of these events was<br />

that Pasternak, enjoying great prominence as a poet at<br />

this point in his career, began to serve as a barometer<br />

for the pressure of the struggles between the more<br />

liberal <strong>and</strong> more orthodox factions in the cultural <strong>and</strong><br />

political debates underway in the writers’ congresses .<br />

At the First All-Union Writers’ Congress in 1934,<br />

Pasternak enjoyed prominence in the surveys of Soviet<br />

literature published before the congress <strong>and</strong> in the<br />

attention paid to him there . The congress afforded<br />

Bukharin the opportunity to advance Pasternak as one<br />

of the three poets embodying true poetic art unfettered<br />

by official decree <strong>and</strong> propag<strong>and</strong>a . But Bukharin’s<br />

speech stood out for its courageous support of artistic<br />

endeavor <strong>and</strong> caused a backlash against his position .<br />

Pasternak gave a short address to the congress in which<br />

he gave the appearance of neutrality, but his message<br />

expressed clear dedication to art <strong>and</strong> not to propag<strong>and</strong>a<br />

. He argued that Soviet writers should be loyal<br />

to the values of Tolstoy as a writer in rebellion against<br />

the Tsarist state—an effort by Pasternak to have it both<br />

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ways, to insist on dedication to art but also to advance<br />

the theory that the artist must be rebellious against the<br />

status quo . After the congress, even though Bukharin<br />

was removed from the Writers’ Union as a result of<br />

his speech, Pasternak, with Bukharin’s support, had<br />

become the central figure in Soviet literature . In 1934,<br />

Pasternak could write to his father in Germany, “‘I<br />

have become a part of my times <strong>and</strong> the state, <strong>and</strong> its<br />

interests have become my own .’” 70 Forces afloat in the<br />

political atmosphere would shift once again, though, as<br />

Gorky, previously so connected to Stalin <strong>and</strong> so favored<br />

by the government, came increasingly under attack in<br />

Pravda in early 1935 . Gorky’s fall from Stalin’s favor<br />

signaled more repression to come .<br />

The renewal of political crisis drove Pasternak into<br />

depression, but he was unable to give in to feelings of<br />

despair as he was unexpectedly tapped to attend the<br />

International Writers’ Congress in Paris, organized<br />

by French socialist writers André Gide <strong>and</strong> André<br />

Malraux . This congress had been arranged with the<br />

intent of demonstrating that culture could, in fact, coexist<br />

with socialism in a way that it never could with<br />

fascism . The Soviet delegation was to be led by Gorky,<br />

who was unable to attend, raising the suspicions of<br />

those in more liberal camps that he was prevented<br />

from joining the delegation by Stalin . Instead, Stalin<br />

chose delegates who were utterly mediocre . Malraux<br />

<strong>and</strong> Gide protested loudly to the Soviet embassy,<br />

insisting that Pasternak be included in the delegation,<br />

<strong>and</strong> Stalin comm<strong>and</strong>ed Pasternak to attend . Pasternak<br />

spoke once at the congress, upholding once more his<br />

belief in personal independence <strong>and</strong> opposing any<br />

“union” of writers . Despite this appeal against the<br />

very existence of a writers’ union, he was chosen as a<br />

director of the International Association of Writers in<br />

Defense of Culture .<br />

Being in Paris also afforded Pasternak the opportunity<br />

to see Tsvetaeva for the first time in a number of years .<br />

Both were in creative slumps, <strong>and</strong> Tsvetaeva, though<br />

unwilling to behave like Pasternak <strong>and</strong> embrace an<br />

appearance of compliance with the regime, longed to<br />

return to Russia . Despite his official status as a representative<br />

of the Soviet government in Paris, Pasternak<br />

could offer little assurance to Tsvetaeva that she would<br />

be safe from arrest or deportation if she did return .<br />

Feeling his false status deeply, Pasternak was even<br />

more depressed upon his return to Russia . When Stalin<br />

proclaimed Mayakovsky the premier Soviet poet in<br />

Pravda, Pasternak welcomed the announcement with<br />

a sense of relief that this act might free him from<br />

becoming further embedded in potentially dangerous<br />

situations . Pasternak was wise to be concerned, for<br />

the poet Akhmatova found herself in danger with the<br />

arrest of her husb<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> son . Both she <strong>and</strong> Pasternak<br />

appealed to Stalin <strong>and</strong> were able to secure their release,<br />

but further oppression was not far off . The year 1935<br />

marked the highpoint of personal freedom in the Soviet<br />

Photograph of renowned theater director Vsevolod<br />

Meyerhold. Pasternak was commissioned by<br />

Meyerhold to translate Shakespeare’s Hamlet,<br />

as Meyerhold had great plans for producing<br />

the play in a series of performances by various<br />

directors. Unfortunately, the state closed<br />

Meyerhold’s theater on suspicions of Formalism,<br />

<strong>and</strong> in 1939 Meyerhold was arrested as an<br />

enemy of the people, <strong>and</strong> his wife was killed.<br />

Union, <strong>and</strong> the hope prevailed that a proletarian dictatorship<br />

could evolve into a state that embraced <strong>and</strong><br />

represented all of its people . There was a promise of<br />

a new constitution which could increase the democratization<br />

of the society, <strong>and</strong> in the midst of this new<br />

spirit, Pasternak felt free to write again, publishing two<br />

new poems in Izvestia in January 1936 .<br />

One of the poems, “The Artist,” paralleled the artist<br />

with Stalin in an effort to suggest the stubborn character<br />

of the artist—like Stalin—<strong>and</strong> the humanism of<br />

Stalin—like the artist . Stalin had, in fact, proclaimed<br />

a doctrine of “humanism” at the beginning of 1935,<br />

but all the bright prospects with which the new year<br />

of 1936 had dawned began to dim, as new evidence<br />

of cultural oppression emerged in the form of attacks<br />

against writers viewed as “formalists .” Such writ-<br />

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ers, more dedicated to artistic form than to social<br />

change <strong>and</strong> sociological representation in literature,<br />

threatened orthodox compliance with the regime . The<br />

attacks in Pravda began with a critique of Russian<br />

composer Dmitry Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth<br />

of Mtsensk, <strong>and</strong> centered upon formalism71 as an aesthetic<br />

flaw . The aesthetic prescriptions mentioned in<br />

Pravda, <strong>and</strong> apparently approved by Stalin, did not<br />

identify the nature of formalism, leaving the definition<br />

of formalism <strong>and</strong> the writers practicing it fluid so that<br />

the government could change the objects of its attack<br />

at will .<br />

In February, the executive board of the Writers’ Union<br />

met in Minsk <strong>and</strong> discussed the differences between<br />

Mayakovsky <strong>and</strong> Pasternak as representatives of adherence<br />

to or deviation from Soviet doctrine, respectively .<br />

Pasternak gave a speech at this meeting entitled “On<br />

Modesty <strong>and</strong> Daring,” suggesting a veiled reference<br />

to Mayakovsky as modest <strong>and</strong> himself as daring <strong>and</strong><br />

calling for a break with the established conventions<br />

of political correctness . Pasternak even reinvented the<br />

term “socialist realism” to include the work of Tolstoy<br />

as a prime example of the rebellious essence of art .<br />

This was Pasternak’s first public comment on the<br />

nature of socialist realism, but he deliberately detached<br />

the term from its orthodox meaning to give it a twist<br />

of his own . “‘Art,’” Pasternak insisted, “‘is unthinkable<br />

without risk <strong>and</strong> spiritual self-sacrifice; freedom <strong>and</strong><br />

boldness of imagination have to be gained in practice…’”<br />

72 In spite of this brave position, the campaign<br />

against formalism entered a new stage, <strong>and</strong> writers<br />

were denounced arbitrarily . Pasternak spoke at a second<br />

meeting of the Writers’ Union assembled in March<br />

in which he continued his defense of individualism<br />

against collectivization <strong>and</strong> called for direct contact<br />

with Stalin . As a result, the meetings lost steam, <strong>and</strong><br />

purges against writers, for the moment, slowed .<br />

Gorky’s last major piece, an article entitled “On<br />

Formalism,” compared the debate over formalism to<br />

the enslavement of the individual in fascist states <strong>and</strong><br />

demonstrated his fears about the climate for writers<br />

in the Soviet Union . Stalin’s draft of a constitution<br />

came days before Gorky’s death . Though it had been<br />

hailed as the gateway to new freedom, the constitution<br />

limited freedoms, preserving only the form of<br />

democracy . Pasternak’s response in Izvestia was to recommend<br />

patience to see how the constitution would<br />

fare in actual practice . But the pendulum had begun<br />

to swing again, <strong>and</strong> Pasternak’s name appeared as a<br />

signatory, dem<strong>and</strong>ing the death sentence for sixteen<br />

suspected terrorists, including two former prominent<br />

party leaders .<br />

It is possible that Pasternak never authorized the use<br />

of his signature, but the more likely explanation is<br />

that not signing could have been taken as an indication<br />

of disloyalty—two writers of the Writers’ Union<br />

were, after all, among the sixteen accused . Regardless,<br />

28<br />

Photograph of Marina Tsvetaeva from 1939. Tsvetaeva<br />

had returned to the Soviet Union where she was unable<br />

to attract a readership for her poetry or the support of<br />

the authorities. Sadly, she committed suicide in 1941.<br />

Pasternak’s favorable position began to deteriorate as<br />

he refused to attack Gide’s exposé of Soviet society<br />

in Retour de l’U .R .S .S . Pasternak was immediately<br />

condemned as antipatriotic . In a new trial of terrorists<br />

begun in January 1937, a number of writers’ names—<br />

but not Pasternak’s—appeared in support of execution .<br />

Bukharin had already been targeted for reprisal <strong>and</strong><br />

was removed as editor of Izvestia; now Pasternak<br />

would need to repent . Yet he refused to do so, only<br />

affirming that he was one with the nation <strong>and</strong> the<br />

party . In February 1936, Bukharin was arrested, <strong>and</strong> a<br />

purge of members of the Writers’ Union ensued .<br />

Pasternak escaped arrest, though, as an article appeared<br />

which denounced him as Russia’s premier poet but<br />

distinguished him from Bukharin awaiting trial . The<br />

article, written by a literary critic named N . Izgoev,<br />

acting as the mouthpiece for the regime, assigned<br />

Pasternak the role of translator, applauding his translation<br />

of Georgian poets <strong>and</strong> suggesting that his own<br />

poetic talent had evaporated . The regime had found<br />

a way to mitigate Pasternak’s anti-Soviet stance <strong>and</strong><br />

allow him a marginal position as a translator rather<br />

than as an artist in the national culture . Pasternak was<br />

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fortunate to weather the storm of the early days of the<br />

“Great Terror” 73 <strong>and</strong> would from this point forward be<br />

neutralized in the eyes of the government, relegated by<br />

it to the periphery of Soviet literature .<br />

During the trial of a prominent Soviet general,<br />

Tukhachevsky, <strong>and</strong> other Red army comm<strong>and</strong>ers, in<br />

June 1937, Pasternak refused to add his name to those<br />

of other writers supporting the death penalty . Pasternak<br />

was beginning to realize that adding his name to the<br />

signatories would not change the outcome either way<br />

nor was it any guarantee of his personal safety . The terror<br />

began to close in on Pasternak’s friend the Georgian<br />

poet, Paolo Yashvili, <strong>and</strong>, as Pasternak stood his ground<br />

in refusing to participate in persecution, he expected<br />

arrest at any moment . In July, Yashvili committed suicide,<br />

but more blows were to come with the arrest of<br />

another of Pasternak’s Georgian poet friends, Titsian<br />

Tabidze, in the fall . Tabidze died of beatings endured in<br />

prison just two months after his arrest, but Pasternak<br />

was not to learn of Tabidze’s fate until the 1950s .<br />

Throughout this period of fear of arrest, Pasternak<br />

continued to work, translating Shakespeare’s sonnets<br />

<strong>and</strong> beginning to craft a novel whose extant chapters<br />

appeared in journals from 1937 to 1939 . Pasternak’s<br />

new prose style was spare <strong>and</strong> restrained in the fragments<br />

of this novel that was intended to span the years<br />

1905 through 1917, <strong>and</strong> some of the material reveals<br />

the early workings of what would become Doctor<br />

Zhivago .<br />

Pasternak spent much of this period of the Great Terror<br />

in relative seclusion in Peredelkino with Zinaida <strong>and</strong><br />

their new son, Leonid, born in 1938; <strong>and</strong> he began<br />

to turn his attention to a new literary model, Anton<br />

Chekhov . Pasternak was fortunate to be ignored by<br />

the press <strong>and</strong> was awarded no medals in the awards<br />

list of 1939—those who did receive medals could<br />

not approach Pasternak’s level of artistry—thus his<br />

absence from the list clearly pointed to his fall<br />

from government favor . Largely oblivious to this,<br />

though, Pasternak immersed himself in translating<br />

Shakespeare’s Hamlet, commissioned by the theater<br />

director Vsevolod Meyerhold . In 1938, Meyerhold had<br />

great plans for producing the play in a series of performances<br />

by various directors, which even included the<br />

artistic direction of the painter Pablo Picasso; but this<br />

conception of the play would never be staged, for in<br />

January, Meyerhold’s theater was suspected of formalism<br />

<strong>and</strong> closed .<br />

In 1939, though, Meyerhold had the chance to work in<br />

Leningrad <strong>and</strong> asked Pasternak for a translation; he felt<br />

that only Pasternak could convey the emotional intensity<br />

of the original . In June 1939, however, Meyerhold<br />

was arrested as an enemy of the people, <strong>and</strong> his wife<br />

was killed, events that confirmed Pasternak’s determination<br />

to finish the translation . Once again, Pasternak<br />

was on the government radar <strong>and</strong> expected arrest daily;<br />

somehow, though, he escaped notice . Having aban-<br />

doned his novel fragments, Pasternak moved ahead<br />

with his Hamlet, believing he was creating a work<br />

that was not just a reproduction of the original, but<br />

an authentic Russian text . Pasternak’s Hamlet would<br />

be a “recreation of its model in a new cultural <strong>and</strong> historical<br />

context .” 74 Pasternak thought of Hamlet as his<br />

alter-ego: not weak, but courageously resisting pressure<br />

as he searches for the truth . In Pasternak’s version,<br />

Hamlet’s deeply reflective monologues are necessary<br />

<strong>and</strong> are the precondition to heroic action .<br />

In 1939–40, Pasternak thought that his translation<br />

of the play would be staged by the Moscow Art<br />

Theater, but Stalin’s expressed opinion of the play as<br />

“‘decadent’” 75 stopped rehearsals . However, Pasternak<br />

never stopped working on the play, incorporating the<br />

vernacular of Chekhov into his translation; twelve<br />

versions of his translation survive as a clear indication<br />

of his continual rereading <strong>and</strong> study of Shakespeare .<br />

Pasternak read his translation publicly in the spring<br />

of 1940, revealing the power of his reinvention of<br />

Hamlet as Russian poetry . As Europe was falling to<br />

Hitler’s militaristic advances, Pasternak published<br />

Selected Translations, a volume of translations of<br />

German, English, <strong>and</strong> French writers, which featured<br />

a new translation of Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 66 .” This<br />

sonnet was especially relevant to Pasternak’s political<br />

situation, exemplified in lines like: “‘And art made<br />

tongue-tied by authority .’” 76<br />

Before the outbreak of war, Pasternak’s mother died,<br />

<strong>and</strong> his father <strong>and</strong> sisters moved to Engl<strong>and</strong> where<br />

British resistance to Hitler gave hope to the world .<br />

Given the enormous pressure of outside forces, the<br />

Soviet government had no choice but to slacken its<br />

program of purges <strong>and</strong> oppression . Anna Akhmatova’s<br />

work reappeared on Russian bookshelves after an<br />

absence of almost twenty years . And Pasternak was<br />

writing poetry again . In June 1941, the Nazis invaded<br />

<strong>and</strong> so Russia entered the war, ending the alliance<br />

Stalin had forged with Hitler . Pasternak hoped that<br />

this turn of events would end mass terror in Russia .<br />

As German planes bombed Moscow, the civilian<br />

population was evacuated, including Pasternak’s wife<br />

<strong>and</strong> children, while Pasternak was mobilized in an<br />

anti-aircraft brigade, unable to travel to Chistopol in<br />

the Tatar region to be with his family . In the midst of<br />

war, Pasternak continued to work on his translation of<br />

another Shakespearean play, Romeo <strong>and</strong> Juliet .<br />

In September 1941, Pasternak learned of Marina<br />

Tsvetaeva’s suicide . Tsvetaeva had returned to the<br />

Soviet Union where she was unable to attract readership<br />

for her poetry or the support of the authorities .<br />

Both Tsvetaeva’s husb<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> daughter were arrested<br />

shortly after her arrival, <strong>and</strong> she may have feared the<br />

same fate . After her evacuation to the Tatar Republic,<br />

Tsvetaeva felt herself isolated <strong>and</strong> lost hope in her prospects<br />

for the future; on August 31, she hanged herself .<br />

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In October 1941 Pasternak was finally evacuated to<br />

Chistopol where he could reunite with his family<br />

<strong>and</strong> fellow writers . He entertained himself by writing<br />

original drama but would ab<strong>and</strong>on the project in<br />

his growing awareness that little was changing in the<br />

Soviet regime . When he returned to Moscow in 1942,<br />

Pasternak brought out a slim volume of poems begun<br />

in 1936, titled On Early Trains . This volume, together<br />

with his translations of Shakespeare, earned Pasternak<br />

a nomination to the highest Soviet literary award, the<br />

Stalin Prize . This appeared to signal an apparent thaw<br />

in the regime’s attitude toward Pasternak, but he did<br />

not receive the award . The critics, however, responded<br />

positively to On Early Trains; Stefan Schimanski, a<br />

Russian critic writing in a British journal in 1943,<br />

pointed to Pasternak as the only poet in Soviet Russia<br />

who “‘survived all storms <strong>and</strong> mastered all events . He<br />

is the real hero of the struggle between individualism<br />

<strong>and</strong> collectivism, romanticism <strong>and</strong> realism, morality<br />

<strong>and</strong> technique, art <strong>and</strong> propag<strong>and</strong>a .’” 77<br />

Such international recognition of Pasternak may have<br />

prompted authorities to acquiesce to Pasternak’s<br />

requests to be sent to the battlefront to witness the<br />

war firsth<strong>and</strong> . Pasternak visited the front at Briansk in<br />

August 1943, at a time when Soviet military superiority<br />

was increasingly evident, to gather reminiscences<br />

of the soldiers <strong>and</strong> publish them as a book . Pasternak<br />

displayed a fearlessness <strong>and</strong> accessibility that utterly<br />

belied the false impressions of him created by<br />

Soviet authorities . In a sketch of his experiences with<br />

the army, Pasternak reflected upon the comparison<br />

between the Soviet regime <strong>and</strong> Nazism, <strong>and</strong> wrote, “‘If<br />

revolutionary Russia ever had need of a crooked mirror<br />

which would distort her features into a grimace<br />

of hatred or ignorance, then here it is: Germany was<br />

destined to produce it .’” 78 The censors repressed these<br />

reflections, but they represent Pasternak’s only published<br />

comments on fascism .<br />

After his return from the front, Pasternak published<br />

part of a poem in progress entitled “Nightglow” in<br />

Pravda, but when he delivered the next piece, the<br />

newspaper rejected it outright . Discouraged, Pasternak<br />

returned to translating Shakespeare . Moving back to<br />

Moscow, Pasternak discovered that his apartment had<br />

been destroyed <strong>and</strong> found refuge with friends; once<br />

again he was able to take part in intimate evening gatherings<br />

<strong>and</strong> read his poems to an audience . Two new<br />

books of Pasternak’s poetry appeared—Earthly Expanse<br />

(1943) <strong>and</strong> a volume of selected poems—<strong>and</strong> the fact<br />

that these volumes appeared at all was an indication<br />

of relative Soviet euphoria as the war drew to an end .<br />

Pasternak was increasingly popular at the midpoint<br />

of the decade, often reading publicly <strong>and</strong> filling the<br />

halls where he spoke . But as his public increased, his<br />

relations with officials in the literary establishment<br />

became strained . Yet Pasternak continued to believe<br />

in better days ahead, exclaiming “‘Suddenly I am<br />

30<br />

wonderfully free . Everything around me is wonderfully<br />

my own .’” 79 He could not know that the government<br />

program of repression, reprisals, <strong>and</strong> internment in<br />

the Gulag Archipelago80 would only increase after<br />

the war . Carried along by this new sense of euphoria,<br />

Pasternak continued his translations of the Georgian<br />

poets <strong>and</strong> published numerous essays of literary criticism<br />

. During his visit to Tbilisi, Georgia, in October<br />

1945, Pasternak found enormous inspiration <strong>and</strong><br />

re-invigoration . Later, Pasternak would suggest that<br />

coming to Georgia had furthered his determination to<br />

write a novel about his generation .<br />

However, Pasternak’s sense of freedom was dashed by<br />

two significant losses in his family: both Pasternak’s<br />

stepson by his second wife, Adrian, <strong>and</strong> his father died<br />

in the spring of 1945 . The death of his father drew<br />

Pasternak to reassess his own work as a writer in the<br />

light of his father’s achievements in the world of art<br />

<strong>and</strong> to consider how his work <strong>and</strong> his father’s had been<br />

shaped by the different worlds in which they lived . As<br />

he took stock, Pasternak found that appreciation for<br />

his work was growing abroad, largely because of Stefan<br />

Schimanski’s earlier article, which drew readers to<br />

view Pasternak as an artist whose works could flourish<br />

despite socialist repression . Schimanski followed<br />

his article with an introduction to English translations<br />

of Pasternak’s prose, which provided an even more<br />

detailed analysis of Pasternak’s work <strong>and</strong> his place in<br />

Russian literary history . Pasternak’s international reputation<br />

was especially strengthened by Schimanski’s<br />

comparison of his work to Pushkin, whose status<br />

in Russian literature parallels Shakespeare’s in the<br />

West . 81 Schimanski’s edition was illustrated with<br />

reproductions of Leonid Pasternak’s art along with<br />

family photographs, which were especially meaningful<br />

to Pasternak, who received his copy of the book<br />

shortly after his father’s death . In the introduction,<br />

Schimanski, who had met <strong>and</strong> interviewed Leonid<br />

Pasternak about the project in Oxford, Engl<strong>and</strong>, quoted<br />

Leonid’s comments about his son: “‘I always said to<br />

him: Be honest in your art—<strong>and</strong> your enemies will be<br />

powerless against you .’” 82<br />

In the late summer of 1946, a new climate of repression<br />

appeared, referred to as “Zhdanovism .” This<br />

period was named after Andrei Zhdanov, the committee<br />

secretary in charge of party ideology who<br />

announced decrees intended to control all artistic production<br />

. Zhdanov initiated a new wave of repressions<br />

coinciding with the beginning of the Cold War <strong>and</strong> the<br />

Soviet Union’s increasing isolation from the Western<br />

world . Anna Akhmatova, whose fame had spread during<br />

the war, served as one of the primary targets of the<br />

Soviet regime . Her works were suppressed, she was<br />

stripped of her membership in the Writers’ Union, <strong>and</strong><br />

she was condemned to loss of income <strong>and</strong> starvation .<br />

The new round of purges, which lasted until Stalin’s<br />

death, brought all artistic production under direct state<br />

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Photograph of Pasternak with Olga Ivinskaia<br />

(l) <strong>and</strong> her daughter Irina (r) from 1959. Olga<br />

would become Pasternak’s mistress until his<br />

death, <strong>and</strong> sadly, Olga would suffer more from<br />

Soviet repression because of her association<br />

with Pasternak than Pasternak would himself.<br />

control . Pasternak had not yet been mentioned in the<br />

attacks, but he felt it was only a matter of time, <strong>and</strong><br />

he remained secluded as he continued to write . In the<br />

fall of 1946, the attacks began: his translations were<br />

criticized, <strong>and</strong> he was found lacking in political awareness<br />

. As a result of the campaign against him that<br />

had intensified throughout 1947, a collection of his<br />

poems initially approved for printing was ultimately<br />

suppressed in April 1948 .<br />

During the height of the political storms against him,<br />

Pasternak met the woman who would become his<br />

mistress until his death; this was the last romance<br />

of his life . 83 Olga Ivinskaia, more than twenty years<br />

younger than the fifty-six-year-old Pasternak, shared a<br />

passion for poetry along with an underst<strong>and</strong>ing of his<br />

work that his two wives had not been capable of . But<br />

Pasternak could not ab<strong>and</strong>on his second wife Zinaida<br />

<strong>and</strong> their son, so his life was divided between two<br />

households . Sadly, Olga would suffer more from Soviet<br />

repression because of her association with Pasternak<br />

than Pasternak would himself .<br />

In June 1947, Alex<strong>and</strong>er Fadeev, a leading Soviet<br />

mouthpiece in the Writers’ Union, warned all representatives<br />

of the “‘formalist-aesthete’s school’” to<br />

“‘Beware of those who cling to you!’” 84 Pasternak,<br />

among numerous others, was the target of this warning<br />

. Internationally, though, Pasternak’s reputation<br />

only continued to grow, forcing the Soviet authorities to<br />

approach him with caution . Thus, in 1947, Pasternak<br />

was given commissions to continue his translations of<br />

world masterpieces, which appeared in enormous print<br />

runs . However, no word about Pasternak appeared in a<br />

Soviet journal or newspaper until Stalin’s death .<br />

Despite the authorities’ reasoning that if Pasternak<br />

were inundated by translation he could complete no<br />

original work of his own, Pasternak began the first<br />

chapters of Doctor Zhivago in 1948 <strong>and</strong> even managed<br />

a contract to publish the novel in the Soviet Union<br />

that would never be honored . As soon as the typescript<br />

of the first parts of the novel was finished, Pasternak<br />

began to circulate it to friends <strong>and</strong> colleagues who<br />

then sent it to exiles in the West . In 1949, the climate<br />

in the Soviet Union worsened even further against<br />

incursions of foreign bourgeois culture <strong>and</strong> turned<br />

explicitly anti-Semitic . In the autumn, Olga Ivinskaia<br />

was arrested <strong>and</strong> interrogated for months, especially<br />

about her relationship with the “‘old Jew,’” 85 Pasternak .<br />

She was sent to a prison camp for anti-Soviet political<br />

activities for five years, where she remained steadfast<br />

under questioning about Pasternak <strong>and</strong> probably saved<br />

him from arrest .<br />

In the fall of 1947, Pasternak had been nominated by a<br />

group of English supporters for the Nobel Prize, along<br />

with the Soviets’ favorite, Mikhail Sholokhov, best<br />

known for his And Quiet Flows the Don, one of the<br />

most widely read works of socialist realism . But the<br />

prize was awarded to André Gide . In the wake of Olga’s<br />

arrest, Pasternak threw himself into his work, continuing<br />

his novel along with translations of Goethe’s Faust .<br />

The most absorbing experience of Pasternak’s life as<br />

a writer would be his work on Doctor Zhivago; the<br />

composition spanned a period of ten years, from 1946<br />

to 1955, <strong>and</strong> was imbued with every aspect of his life<br />

at the time . In the midst of constant reprisal <strong>and</strong> loss<br />

of illusion about Russia’s future, Pasternak persevered<br />

with the work that he felt would be the culmination<br />

of <strong>and</strong> justification for his worldwide reputation as an<br />

artist . In step with British writers <strong>and</strong> critics <strong>and</strong> their<br />

work in the journal Transformations, Pasternak found<br />

himself drawn to their notion of the “‘politics of the<br />

unpolitical,’” 86 to their critiques of communism <strong>and</strong><br />

fascism, <strong>and</strong> to their sense of the role of Christianity in<br />

the modern world . Pasternak began to attend Russian<br />

Orthodox services in 1946 <strong>and</strong> incorporated Christian<br />

motifs in his work . For Pasternak, Christianity offered<br />

an alternative to communism <strong>and</strong> fascism, which<br />

he felt were more alike than different; <strong>and</strong> in Doctor<br />

Zhivago, Christianity emerges as a corrective to the<br />

negative political atmosphere . As in everything else,<br />

though, Pasternak was non-dogmatic; one of his<br />

characters in the novel is a defrocked priest, <strong>and</strong> the<br />

Jew, Misha Gordon, occasionally acts as Pasternak’s<br />

alter ego .<br />

The Final <strong>Dec</strong>ade<br />

As Pasternak continued translating Goethe <strong>and</strong><br />

Shakespeare <strong>and</strong> writing his novel, he suffered a heart<br />

attack in the fall of 1952 . While recuperating in a<br />

sanatorium, Pasternak learned of Stalin’s death in<br />

March 1953 . An immediate change in the atmosphere<br />

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32<br />

Photograph of Italian publisher Giangiacomo<br />

Feltrinelli, who wanted to find new works of<br />

Soviet literature to bring to Western readers.<br />

Doctor Zhivago was published in Italian in 1957<br />

despite Soviet officials’ attempts to intimidate<br />

Pasternak into withdrawing his novel from Feltrinelli<br />

<strong>and</strong> to stop Feltrinelli from publishing it.<br />

of the nation followed Stalin’s death; Pasternak experienced<br />

it on a personal level as Olga Ivinskaia was<br />

released under a new decree of amnesty for political<br />

prisoners, <strong>and</strong> his poems were brought back into print .<br />

Pasternak’s translation of Hamlet was performed for<br />

the first time at the Leningrad Pushkin Theater in the<br />

spring of 1954, <strong>and</strong> its anti-tyrannical message was<br />

blatant, but Pasternak was unable to see it because of<br />

his focus on Doctor Zhivago . Conservatives continued<br />

to hold power over literature, culture, <strong>and</strong> ideology,<br />

<strong>and</strong> Pravda printed attacks on the poems from Doctor<br />

Zhivago, which were circulating in print as a preamble<br />

to the novel’s publication . Once again, Pasternak<br />

was being promoted as a potential Nobel Laureate in<br />

1954, but the prize was awarded to Ernest Hemingway<br />

instead .<br />

Pasternak completed Doctor Zhivago in the midst of<br />

conflict with the Soviet regime . Writers called increasingly<br />

for release from the pressure of the regime, but<br />

Pasternak felt these timid calls failed to go far enough .<br />

In March 1956, a young Italian communist named<br />

Sergio D’Angelo arrived in the Soviet Union with a<br />

“I won the Nobel Prize for literature. What<br />

was your crime?” Cartoon for which Bill<br />

Mauldin won the Pulitzer Prize in 1959.<br />

Copyright 1958 by Bill Mauldin.<br />

commission from publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli<br />

to find new works of Soviet literature to bring to the<br />

western reader . D’Angelo met with Pasternak <strong>and</strong> proposed<br />

an Italian translation of his novel—Pasternak’s<br />

response was to give him a copy of the manuscript<br />

with the warning, “‘You are hereby invited to watch me<br />

face the firing squad .’” 87 Pasternak decided to face the<br />

backlash from Soviet authorities without flinching; he<br />

was determined to bring the novel that had cost him<br />

ten years of work into print .<br />

During a temporary thaw in the summer of 1956,<br />

two journals actually considered bringing out Doctor<br />

Zhivago, but Pasternak’s novel challenged the very basis<br />

for the existence of the socialist state <strong>and</strong> threatened<br />

the doctrines of Marxism, <strong>and</strong> no amount of excision<br />

of offensive passages could save the novel from official<br />

suppression . The Party itself, however, was in some<br />

trouble, facing uprisings in Pol<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> Hungary <strong>and</strong><br />

the imminent exposure of Stalin’s crimes . Ultimately,<br />

the editorial board of Novy Mir (New World), which<br />

had offered to publish the novel, was forced to reject it<br />

in light of the tenuous political situation . By July 1957,<br />

Nikita Khrushchev’s power was at its highest point,<br />

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<strong>and</strong> his speeches on Soviet policy toward literature <strong>and</strong><br />

art left no doubt that conservatism would prevail .<br />

While Pasternak continued sending unpublished work<br />

abroad, extracts of Doctor Zhivago appeared in a Polish<br />

quarterly in the summer of 1957 . In November, the<br />

novel was published in Italian despite Soviet officials’<br />

attempts to intimidate Pasternak into withdrawing his<br />

novel from Feltrinelli <strong>and</strong> to stop Feltrinelli from publishing<br />

it . The novel was an international sensation,<br />

selling out its first printing of six thous<strong>and</strong> copies on<br />

the first day . Work began on English <strong>and</strong> French translations<br />

before the appearance of the Italian version .<br />

Soviet officialdom chose to respond to the worldwide<br />

attention to the appearance of the novel with silence .<br />

In October 1958, Pasternak received word that he had<br />

been awarded the Nobel Prize in <strong>Lit</strong>erature, <strong>and</strong> he<br />

initially accepted . But rising threats put him in danger<br />

of arrest once again . On Wednesday, October 29,<br />

only a few days after sending the Swedish academy a<br />

telegram of acceptance, Pasternak declined the Nobel<br />

Prize . 88 With this act, Pasternak was able to avert a<br />

governmental attack that could include not only him<br />

<strong>and</strong> his family, but other writers <strong>and</strong> artists associated<br />

with him . During this time, Pasternak <strong>and</strong> his<br />

lover Olga Ivinskaia discussed double suicide, as he<br />

feared he would be forced into exile . At Olga’s insistence,<br />

Pasternak agreed to send a letter she drafted to<br />

Khrushchev, adding the line, “‘I cannot imagine my<br />

fate separated from <strong>and</strong> outside Russia .’” 89 With this<br />

letter <strong>and</strong> a longer one published in Pravda, the campaign<br />

against him began to die down . Yet Pasternak<br />

refused to bow to pressure for long; in January 1959, he<br />

claimed in an interview with a British correspondent,<br />

“the writer is the Faust of modern society, the only<br />

surviving individualist in a mass age . To his orthodox<br />

contemporaries he seems a semi-madman . The Union<br />

of Soviet Writers would like me to go on my knees to<br />

them—but they will never make me .” 90<br />

Pasternak’s poem “The Nobel Prize” appeared in a<br />

London newspaper; in it he expresses his view of the<br />

hopelessness of his situation:<br />

I am lost like a beast in an enclosure .<br />

Somewhere are people, freedom <strong>and</strong> light .<br />

Behind me is the noise of pursuit,<br />

And there is no way out . 91<br />

Mixed with the turmoil of his professional life was<br />

the turmoil of his personal life as he faced the difficult<br />

decision of breaking with his family <strong>and</strong> committing<br />

himself utterly to Olga . His inability to leave his family<br />

after so many years brought his relationship with<br />

Olga to a crisis . However, with the loss of Olga as a<br />

mediator with the authorities, Pasternak was brought<br />

into the prosecutor’s office in Moscow <strong>and</strong> accused<br />

of crimes against the state . The motivation may have<br />

been to force Pasternak out of Moscow in advance of<br />

British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s visit to<br />

Photograph of Boris Pasternak<br />

outside his home in 1958.<br />

the Soviet Union . But Pasternak had other reasons to<br />

leave Moscow; he went to Georgia at the invitation of<br />

Tabidze’s widow . On his return to Moscow, Pasternak<br />

found himself at the center of a blockade between<br />

himself <strong>and</strong> the outside world . He was not allowed<br />

to receive foreign correspondence until the spring of<br />

1959 . Furthermore, despite estimates in the West<br />

that the Soviet Union would allow the publication of<br />

Doctor Zhivago in a year or two, the novel would not<br />

appear in Russia for thirty years . In the fall of 1959,<br />

Pasternak wrote to the British poet Stephen Spender,<br />

“‘My situation is worse, more unbearable <strong>and</strong> endangered<br />

than I can say or you [can] think of .’” 92<br />

In May 1960, Pasternak suffered a massive heart<br />

attack, <strong>and</strong> three days later, doctors diagnosed lung<br />

cancer . Pasternak guessed that he was terminally ill;<br />

during the night on May 30, he died in his sleep . The<br />

Soviet press met his death with silence, <strong>and</strong> Soviet<br />

authorities attempted to keep crowds from coming to<br />

the cemetery . Yet despite their efforts, several thous<strong>and</strong><br />

people gathered at the gravesite . In the aftermath<br />

of Pasternak’s death, the KGB, the Soviet national<br />

security agency, confiscated his manuscripts, <strong>and</strong>,<br />

because she had been given power of attorney over his<br />

literary affairs, Olga Ivinskaia was arrested once again .<br />

In 1961, the Soviet Union began lifting the ban on<br />

publishing Pasternak’s work, but not Doctor Zhivago .<br />

It was not until the sweeping changes made under<br />

Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s that Pasternak’s literary<br />

reputation could be fully restored, <strong>and</strong> the novel<br />

finally appeared in Novy Mir at the beginning of 1988 .<br />

The Political Context<br />

of Doctor Zhivago<br />

Called “[a]n extraneous smudge on our Socialist country”<br />

93 by the Soviet Communist Party for his defiance<br />

of the state, Boris Pasternak displayed unflinching<br />

courage in the face of his government’s determination<br />

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to suppress his work as a writer . Pasternak’s reply to<br />

these attacks was always to emphasize his role as an<br />

artist in the creation of a historical moment: “‘You<br />

have the right,’” Pasternak once told a visitor, “‘to ask<br />

whether I believe what I have written . My answer is<br />

yes . I have borne witness as an artist; I have written<br />

about the times I lived through .’” 94 Yet Pasternak never<br />

lost his deep love for his motherl<strong>and</strong>, nor could he conceive<br />

of his life or his work anywhere else . Pasternak’s<br />

alter-ego, Yurii Zhivago gives eloquent expression to<br />

his feelings for his native l<strong>and</strong> in terms which must<br />

have approached Pasternak’s own sentiments:<br />

And this vast expanse is Russia, his incomparable<br />

mother; famed far <strong>and</strong> wide, martyred, stubborn,<br />

extravagant, crazy, irresponsible, adored, Russia<br />

with her eternally splendid, <strong>and</strong> disastrous, <strong>and</strong><br />

unpredictable adventures . Oh, how sweet to be<br />

alive! 95<br />

As the biography in the previous section of this guide<br />

has demonstrated, Pasternak’s own position in his<br />

native l<strong>and</strong> was complex—born a Jew, for example,<br />

Pasternak was already at the periphery of acceptability<br />

in his society . Yet his parents’ prominence as artists<br />

gave him a more privileged position <strong>and</strong> access to<br />

education than most young Russian Jewish men of his<br />

era would have enjoyed, <strong>and</strong> he <strong>and</strong> his family always<br />

viewed themselves as Russian above all . Pasternak’s<br />

experiences growing up, then, closely followed those<br />

of most members of the Russian intelligentsia . His<br />

sympathies, therefore, as revolution came to Russia,<br />

were ambivalent . On the one h<strong>and</strong>, Pasternak returned<br />

often in his work to the Revolution of 1905, seeing its<br />

potential for sweeping away the multiple abuses of an<br />

utterly autocratic society . He could even feel enormous<br />

excitement at the wave of massive change brought<br />

about by the February Revolution in 1917, but as the<br />

October Revolution <strong>and</strong> its aftermath thrust the country<br />

into civil war, Pasternak was consumed with doubt<br />

that Russia could improve, as he had hoped, under a<br />

strict <strong>and</strong> oppressive Soviet regime .<br />

Doctor Zhivago gives voice to that doubt <strong>and</strong> fear,<br />

allowing the events to unfold <strong>and</strong> to surround its<br />

characters . The novel’s very honesty gave rise to a<br />

horrendous backlash on the part of Soviet authorities,<br />

who could not allow even a hint of a negative view of<br />

the revolution to surface in the national art <strong>and</strong> culture<br />

<strong>and</strong> take hold in the minds of its inhabitants . Thus,<br />

the novel had to be suppressed <strong>and</strong> Pasternak silenced .<br />

Reading the Novel in Translation<br />

Doctor Zhivago was famous before it came into print<br />

in the initial translation in Italian, <strong>and</strong>, until recently,<br />

the 1958 English translation has been the only one<br />

available to English readers . In 2010, Richard Pevear<br />

<strong>and</strong> Larissa Volokhonsky produced a new translation<br />

that was acclaimed as a more faithful rendition of<br />

34<br />

the Russian original . However, as Pasternak himself<br />

believed, dedication to literal faithfulness can spoil the<br />

rendering of a work in another language; in his translations<br />

from English to Russian, for example, Pasternak<br />

sought to produce a new, truly Russian work based on<br />

the original, <strong>and</strong> this is what many critics believe he<br />

accomplished in his Russian Hamlet . In Pasternak’s<br />

view:<br />

…translations are impossible because the primary<br />

fascination of the work of art lies in its<br />

uniqueness . How then can this be repeated<br />

in translation? Translations are conceivable,<br />

because ideally they too should be works of art<br />

<strong>and</strong>, in sharing a common text, should remain<br />

on a level with the original, through their own<br />

uniqueness . 96<br />

In her comments on the new translation of the novel,<br />

Pasternak’s niece, Ann Pasternak Slater, acknowledges<br />

the prodigious accomplishments of the Pevear/<br />

Volokhonsky translating team, especially for their<br />

translations of Tolstoy <strong>and</strong> Dostoevsky . 97 At the same<br />

time, however, she deplores the manner in which<br />

Pevear <strong>and</strong> Volokhonsky reach for literal faithfulness<br />

<strong>and</strong> lose the spirit of the language . While Slater<br />

acknowledges that Pevear <strong>and</strong> Volokhonsky restore<br />

omissions from the original in the Hayward <strong>and</strong> Harari<br />

translation, she argues that such restoration comes at a<br />

price . She writes: “On a first reading, one is distracted<br />

by locutions that are somehow not quite right—often<br />

not strikingly, but continuously <strong>and</strong> insidiously so .<br />

They just don’t sound English .” 98 She offers a compelling<br />

example of major differences in translation .<br />

Hayward <strong>and</strong> Harari translate the following passage<br />

from Chapter 5 as:<br />

An enormous crimson moon rose behind the<br />

crows’ nests in the Countess’s garden . At first it<br />

was the color of the new brick mill in Zybushino,<br />

then it turned yellow like the water tower in<br />

Biriuchi (141) .<br />

Pevear <strong>and</strong> Volokhonsky render the same passage as:<br />

Beyond the crow’s nests of the countess’s garden<br />

appeared a blackish purple moon of monstrous<br />

dimensions . At first it looked like the brick steam<br />

mill in Zybushino; then it turned yellow like the<br />

Biriuchi railway pump house . 99<br />

As Slater wisely observes, it’s difficult to see how a<br />

moon looks like a brick steam mill or how the phrase<br />

“monstrous dimensions” of a “blackish purple moon”<br />

evokes the same image as “[a]n enormous crimson<br />

moon .” Clearly the Hayward/Harari passage reproduces<br />

the spirit <strong>and</strong> elegance of Pasternak’s own sense of<br />

nature “fused with mechanised modernity .” 100 Slater’s<br />

conclusion about the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation<br />

is that it is “Not inaccurate, <strong>and</strong> lacking everything .” 101<br />

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Slater’s example is only one of numerous ineptitudes<br />

in the new translation . Another passage meant to<br />

evoke the emotions of Zhivago’s internal monologue<br />

appears in the Hayward/Harari translation as:<br />

Oh, how one wishes sometimes to escape from<br />

the meaningless dullness of human eloquence,<br />

from all those sublime phrases, to take refuge<br />

in nature, apparently so inarticulate, or in the<br />

wordlessness of long, grinding labor, of sound<br />

sleep, of true music, or of a human underst<strong>and</strong>ing<br />

rendered speechless by emotion! (139) .<br />

In the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation, the same passage<br />

is rendered:<br />

Oh, how one wants sometimes to go from such<br />

giftlessly high-flown, cheerless human wordiness<br />

into the seeming silence of nature, into the arduous<br />

soundlessness of long, persistent labor, into<br />

the wordlessness of deep sleep, of true music,<br />

<strong>and</strong> of a quiet, heartfelt touch grown mute from<br />

fullness of soul! (121) .<br />

The new translation of this passage is truly awkward,<br />

words like “giftlessly,” “arduous soundlessness,”<br />

stretch the reader’s ability to grasp the image, while<br />

senses of touch <strong>and</strong> sound are needlessly mingled in “a<br />

quiet, heartfelt touch grown mute .” The innate poetry<br />

of Zhivago’s consciousness is hopelessly tangled in<br />

the wordiness of the new translation, while Hayward<br />

<strong>and</strong> Harari capture the spirit of the imagery without<br />

losing the eloquence of the language in English . While<br />

Pasternak’s earlier work is incredibly complex <strong>and</strong><br />

associative, Slater argues that, by contrast, the novel<br />

“was suicidally vivid <strong>and</strong> forthright . The poems that<br />

accompany it are translucent .” 102 The first step, then,<br />

toward reading a lengthy <strong>and</strong> complex novel from a<br />

culture, a time, <strong>and</strong> a language far different from the<br />

language <strong>and</strong> culture of contemporary America, is the<br />

choice of a good translation . The choice for this guide,<br />

therefore, is the Hayward/Harari translation .<br />

The Structure of the Novel<br />

<strong>and</strong> Its Historical Moment<br />

The novel is divided chronologically into two parts:<br />

Part One, which consists of four chapters, whose<br />

events take place from 1902 to the beginning of the<br />

Revolution in 1917, <strong>and</strong> Part Two, which consists of<br />

thirteen chapters, dated from the summer of 1917 to<br />

the end of the 1940s or the early 1950s . The poems<br />

which constitute the last chapter of Part Two date<br />

largely from a very productive period in Zhivago’s<br />

life when, during his second stay in Varykino in the<br />

winter of 1921, he wrote constantly . In addition to the<br />

arrangement of the novel into parts <strong>and</strong> chapters, there<br />

are also three formal divisions of the novel . The first<br />

division is the narrative portion of the novel, which<br />

tracks Yurii Zhivago’s life from the death of his mother<br />

in 1902 to his own death in 1929 . The second division<br />

occurs in Chapter 16, the Epilogue, a narrative that<br />

follows Misha Gordon <strong>and</strong> Nika Dudorovsky during<br />

World War II in the summer of 1943 as they meet the<br />

girl they believe to be Yurii <strong>and</strong> Lara’s daughter, Tania,<br />

<strong>and</strong> continues into their joint reading of Yurii’s book<br />

five or ten years (the narrative is deliberately vague)<br />

later . The final formal division is Chapter 17, which<br />

contains the poems of Yurii Zhivago .<br />

Plot Summary<br />

Chapter One<br />

The novel opens in Tsarist Russia under Nicholas II as<br />

Yura (Yurii Zhivago’s name as a child) <strong>and</strong> his uncle<br />

Nikolai attend his mother’s funeral procession <strong>and</strong><br />

burial in a Moscow cemetery . Chapter One, “The Five<br />

O’Clock Express,” consists of eight sections which<br />

follow Yura’s childhood from the age of ten in the<br />

winter of 1902 to the summer of 1903 when, together<br />

with his uncle, he visits the estate of the writer Ivan<br />

Voskoboinikov . As his mother’s coffin is covered<br />

with earth in the first section, Yura’s uncle, Nikolai<br />

Nikolaievich, 103 leads the weeping boy from the graveyard<br />

. Yura <strong>and</strong> his uncle pass the night in a monastery<br />

where Uncle Nikolai, a defrocked priest, still has contacts;<br />

Yura awakens during a snowstorm <strong>and</strong> worries<br />

about his mother sinking lower <strong>and</strong> lower into the<br />

ground . He has only faint memories of the fame of his<br />

family <strong>and</strong> remembers little of his father, but he does<br />

know that now he is poor .<br />

The scene moves to summer 1903 as Yura <strong>and</strong> his<br />

uncle travel to the Kologrivov estate in Duplyanka;<br />

on the way, Nikolai asks a peasant which are the<br />

master’s l<strong>and</strong>s <strong>and</strong> which the peasants’, an incident<br />

which begins to highlight the state of Russia under<br />

Tsarist absolutism . At the estate, Nikolai works with<br />

Voskoboinikov, editing the galley proofs of his latest<br />

book on the l<strong>and</strong> question . Voskoboinikov asks Nikolai<br />

about the reason for his defrocking, which Nikolai<br />

avoids answering, but Nikolai takes the opportunity<br />

to talk about being true to Christ . In the distance they<br />

hear a train which has stopped in the marsh, not its<br />

usual practice—this is an early sign of Pasternak’s<br />

method of coincidence, where characters are connected<br />

by incidents which occur simultaneously, but whose<br />

significance they don’t immediately know . Yura w<strong>and</strong>ers<br />

the estate looking for Nika Dudorov, a boy near<br />

his own age who lives there, but doesn’t find him, <strong>and</strong><br />

faints after praying for his mother .<br />

The scene shifts to the site of the train which has<br />

stopped unexpectedly . There Misha Gordon, a boy<br />

of eleven, is traveling with his father who pulls the<br />

emergency cord when a man jumps from the train .<br />

The passengers, including the widow Tiverzina, whose<br />

husb<strong>and</strong> was burned to death in a rail accident, exit<br />

the train to look at the body which is identified as the<br />

millionaire Zhivago, traveling with his lawyer . Before<br />

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jumping to his death, Zhivago appeared to appeal to<br />

Misha’s father, Grigory Osipovich, for help . In the<br />

final section of the chapter, the scene shifts back to the<br />

Kologrivov estate where Nika, who does not want to be<br />

bothered with the younger Yura, hides from him . Nika,<br />

the son of a terrorist <strong>and</strong> a Georgian princess, is in<br />

his fourteenth year <strong>and</strong> would rather spend time with<br />

fifteen-year-old Nadia Kologrivova than Yura Zhivago .<br />

Nika <strong>and</strong> Nadia take a boat out on the pond, <strong>and</strong>, in<br />

fighting over a lilypad, they both fall out . The chapter<br />

ends with Nika wishing he could fall in the pond again<br />

with Nadia .<br />

Chapter Two<br />

Chapter Two, “A Girl from a Different World,” opens in<br />

1905 at a time when Russia’s war with Japan is not yet<br />

over, but waves of revolution are beginning to sweep<br />

the l<strong>and</strong> . Amalia Karlovna Guishar arrives in Moscow<br />

with her son Rodion <strong>and</strong> daughter Larisa to open a<br />

dressmaking business on the advice of Komarovsky, a<br />

lawyer <strong>and</strong> friend of her late husb<strong>and</strong> . The Guishars<br />

take lodgings in the Montenegro Hotel, <strong>and</strong> it quickly<br />

becomes clear that there is an illicit relationship<br />

between Madame Guishar <strong>and</strong> Komarovsky . Lara, now<br />

sixteen, begins to realize the nature of the relationship<br />

between her mother <strong>and</strong> Komarovsky <strong>and</strong> is uncomfortable<br />

with the way he looks at her . Both attracted<br />

<strong>and</strong> repelled by Komarovsky, Lara thinks about his taking<br />

her to a party <strong>and</strong> kissing her; now she fears that<br />

she might give in to his attempts to seduce her .<br />

The mood shifts as the month changes to October,<br />

<strong>and</strong> the section opens on scenes of unrest among<br />

railway workers who decide to strike . Pavel Antipov,<br />

the track overseer tries to tell the district manager of<br />

the railroad about the need for repair, but the manager<br />

drives off with more important things to think<br />

about . Another character, Tiverzin, whose mother has<br />

already appeared in Chapter One at the scene of Yura’s<br />

father’s suicide, comes out of the shadows, passes the<br />

manager’s wife as she waits for her husb<strong>and</strong>, <strong>and</strong> sees<br />

the apprentice Yusupka being beaten by his supervisor<br />

Khudoleiev . Tiverzin fights with Khudoleiev to try to<br />

free Yusupka <strong>and</strong> then runs off, thinking about revolution<br />

. Meanwhile, the workers’ committee votes to<br />

begin the strike, <strong>and</strong> Tiverzin goes home to learn not<br />

only that Pavel Antipov has been arrested for his part<br />

in the strike, but also that the Tsar has signed a manifesto—peasants<br />

are to have l<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> be equal with<br />

gentry . The Tiverzins decide to take in the son of Pavel,<br />

Pasha Antipov, as the Tsar’s manifesto of October 17<br />

is issued .<br />

The Tsar’s manifesto has produced little result, though,<br />

for during a demonstration by workers <strong>and</strong> peasants,<br />

the Tsar’s Cossacks wait to ambush them . The<br />

demonstration’s organizers seek shelter in a school<br />

building where they have an impromptu meeting, but<br />

they cannot know that when they go back out into the<br />

36<br />

Still from the 1965 film of Doctor Zhivago<br />

showing Tonia (played by Geraldine Chaplin)<br />

<strong>and</strong> Yurii Zhivago (played by Omar Sharif).<br />

street, the Tsar’s dragoons will charge . As the massacre<br />

begins, the dragoons leave “threads of blood on the<br />

snow” (37) . Tiverzina <strong>and</strong> Pasha Antipov have gotten<br />

caught up in the bloody demonstration, <strong>and</strong> Tiverzina<br />

has been hit on the back but not badly hurt . Yura’s<br />

uncle Nikolai, who happens to be staying with his<br />

relatives the Sventitskys, sees the demonstrators from<br />

a window <strong>and</strong> thinks of Petersburg <strong>and</strong> of the writer<br />

Gorky <strong>and</strong> of the irony that he has come from the<br />

bedlam of Petersburg to find peace in Moscow to write .<br />

Yura is living with his relatives the Gromekos <strong>and</strong><br />

their daughter Tonia . The Gromekos have also taken<br />

in Misha Gordon, who appeared in Chapter One at the<br />

scene of the Zhivago suicide, <strong>and</strong> the three young people<br />

have been reading Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata .<br />

Vyvolochnov, a follower of Tolstoy, visits Nikolai <strong>and</strong><br />

wants him to speak at a meeting, but he <strong>and</strong> Nikolai<br />

can’t agree on how to go about alleviating the peasants’<br />

suffering . The scene shifts to Komarovsky’s luxurious<br />

apartment where he <strong>and</strong> his crony Satanidi tell each<br />

other bawdy stories—a marked contrast to the theme<br />

of sexual abstinence in The Kreutzer Sonata referenced<br />

in the previous section . In a further development of<br />

the intertwining themes of sexuality <strong>and</strong> chastity, Lara<br />

comes back to the Guishar home after Komarovsky<br />

seduces her <strong>and</strong> realizes with shame that she’s a<br />

fallen woman . The relationship between Lara <strong>and</strong><br />

Komarovsky continues, though, as the weather thaws,<br />

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<strong>and</strong> Komarovsky begins to fear that he is becoming<br />

obsessed with Lara . Lara, flattered by the attention,<br />

is horrified at herself, <strong>and</strong> even though Komarovsky<br />

offers to marry her, she can’t see her way out of the<br />

suffocating life she leads .<br />

The scene shifts to <strong>Dec</strong>ember 1905, during the<br />

uprising in the Presnia district of Moscow where the<br />

Guishar flat is located . Lara now knows Nika Dudorov<br />

<strong>and</strong> Pasha Antipov <strong>and</strong> realizes that Antipov is falling<br />

in love with her . In the midst of increasing danger, the<br />

Guishars retreat to the Montenegro Hotel . As Madame<br />

Guishar’s seamstresses are called out on strike, Lara<br />

tries to reason with her mother, who fails to underst<strong>and</strong><br />

what’s happening . In the ensuing scene, time moves<br />

forward to the cultivated <strong>and</strong> hospitable home of the<br />

Gromekos in January 1906 . During the concert being<br />

given at the Gromeko party, the cellist gets word that a<br />

family member is near death . Alex<strong>and</strong>er Alex<strong>and</strong>rovich<br />

Gromeko accompanies the cellist, taking Misha <strong>and</strong><br />

Yura with him to the hotel where they see the woman<br />

who has tried to commit suicide; however, they don’t<br />

know that the woman is Lara’s mother . Komarovsky<br />

is there with Lara, <strong>and</strong> Yura, who does not yet know<br />

Lara, watches the intimacy of the interaction between<br />

them . On the drive back home, Misha tells Yura that<br />

he knows that it was Komarovsky who drove Yura’s<br />

father to drink <strong>and</strong> ultimately to commit suicide .<br />

Chapter Three<br />

Chapter Three, “The Sventitskys’ Christmas Party,”<br />

begins “one winter,” so the year remains unspecified<br />

until the next section of the chapter places the<br />

scene in November of 1911 . Yura, along with Tonia<br />

Gromeko, <strong>and</strong> Misha Gordon, is scheduled to graduate<br />

in the spring of 1912 from the university, where he<br />

has studied medicine <strong>and</strong> thought about the mystery<br />

of life <strong>and</strong> death while dissecting cadavers . As Anna<br />

Ivanovna Gromeko, who has been ill with pneumonia,<br />

feels worse, she calls for Yura <strong>and</strong> asks him to comfort<br />

her . Yura responds by speaking about resurrection <strong>and</strong><br />

ends by insisting that there is no such thing as death;<br />

the result is that Anna Ivanovna improves . Later Yura<br />

learns from Anna Ivanovna that he has a half brother<br />

named Evgraf, <strong>and</strong> she also insists that Yura <strong>and</strong> Tonia<br />

become engaged .<br />

The next scene shifts backward in time to Lara <strong>and</strong><br />

1906 when her liaison with Komarovsky has driven her<br />

beyond the bounds of her endurance . Sitting in school<br />

just before summer vacation, Lara makes the decision<br />

to escape <strong>and</strong> takes a position with the Kologrivovs<br />

as a governess . Lara spends three years there happily<br />

away from Komarovsky until her brother comes to her<br />

to say that he has gambled <strong>and</strong> lost money <strong>and</strong> begs<br />

her to ask Komarovsky for a loan . But Lara can’t face<br />

the possibility of seeing Komarovsky again <strong>and</strong> gets<br />

the money from Kologrivov instead . In the spring of<br />

1911, Lara has enrolled in university courses, but as<br />

her charge, Lipa Kologrivova, has graduated from high<br />

school, Lara is no longer needed as a governess . She<br />

goes with the Kologrivovs to their estate at Duplyanka<br />

for the last time in the summer of 1911 . By Christmas<br />

1911, Lara has made a fateful decision to make<br />

Komarovsky pay for his actions or kill him . When she<br />

arrives at Komarovsky’s home, his housekeeper tells<br />

her that he’s at the Sventitsky Christmas party . Lara<br />

heads there but stops off to tell Pasha Antipov her plan;<br />

however, she cannot bring herself to do so . While on<br />

the way to the Sventitsky party with Tonia, Yura sees<br />

a c<strong>and</strong>le burning in a window—he does not know yet<br />

that Pasha <strong>and</strong> Lara, who will soon become so important<br />

in his life, sit talking behind that window . When<br />

Lara arrives at the party, Yura <strong>and</strong> Tonia are in the ballroom<br />

where they witness the attempted shooting . Lara<br />

shoots at Komarovsky but misses <strong>and</strong> slightly wounds<br />

another man instead . Yura recognizes her as the girl he<br />

had seen in the room of her suicidal mother .<br />

When Yura <strong>and</strong> Tonia return home from the party, they<br />

find that Anna Ivanovna has died, <strong>and</strong> Yura is forced<br />

to relive his mother’s death <strong>and</strong> the agony of “grief<br />

<strong>and</strong> ecstasy” (86) . Once the funeral service is over, the<br />

carriage carries the mourners to the same churchyard<br />

where Yura’s mother was buried, <strong>and</strong> he thinks about<br />

art: “he realized that art has two constant, two unending<br />

concerns: it always meditates on death <strong>and</strong> thus<br />

always creates life . All great, genuine art resembles<br />

<strong>and</strong> continues the Revelation of St . John” (90) . As the<br />

chapter ends, Yura is filled with inspiration to write a<br />

poem that would bring together the present moment<br />

of mourning with the raging blizzard of his mother’s<br />

funeral .<br />

Chapter Four<br />

Chapter Four, entitled “The Hour of the Inevitable,”<br />

serves as a turning point for the next section of the<br />

novel . As the chapter opens, Lara is feverish <strong>and</strong> half<br />

conscious after the shooting <strong>and</strong> attempted murder .<br />

Komarovsky takes her to a room in a woman lawyer’s<br />

house <strong>and</strong> is determined to keep her from prosecution,<br />

but the woman lawyer dislikes her . Kologrivov visits,<br />

gives her money, <strong>and</strong> arranges for other lodgings . Lara<br />

tries to break off with Pasha Antipov because of her<br />

past, but he persuades her to marry him in the late<br />

spring of 1912 . However, the wedding night changes<br />

Pasha as he learns all about Lara’s past <strong>and</strong> her affair<br />

with Komarovsky . Nine days after their wedding, Lara<br />

<strong>and</strong> Pasha set off to work as teachers in the town of<br />

Yuriatin in the Urals .<br />

The scene shifts to the second autumn of World War I<br />

in 1915 at a time when the Russian army is retreating<br />

from the Germans . Yura, now addressed in the text as<br />

Yurii, has completed his medical studies <strong>and</strong> has married<br />

Tonia, who is expecting their baby . Lara <strong>and</strong> Pasha<br />

Antipov, still in Yuriatin, now have a three-year-old<br />

daughter, but the marriage is troubled as Pasha, who<br />

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has never really been able to forgive Lara’s past, thinks<br />

that she doesn’t love him . When Pasha sees the lights<br />

of an army train, he thinks he has found a way out of<br />

his unhappy marriage . Lara is stunned at his decision<br />

to join the army in Siberia, <strong>and</strong>, once he leaves, she<br />

hears from him less <strong>and</strong> less . To re-establish contact<br />

with Pasha, Lara trains as a nurse <strong>and</strong> decides to look<br />

for him on the Hungarian border .<br />

The next scene opens where a Red Cross train has halted<br />

with Misha Gordon aboard on his way to meet Yurii .<br />

Misha sees the devastation of war in the countryside<br />

<strong>and</strong> finally finds the village where Yurii is stationed .<br />

As the war progresses, the Russian front line continuously<br />

moves as the army begins to break through<br />

the Austrian front . Pasha Antipov is captured, but<br />

Galiullin thinks he has seen Antipov killed . Galiullin,<br />

the son of a janitor, has already appeared as Yusupka<br />

in Chapter Two, enduring abuse <strong>and</strong> beatings from his<br />

employer Khudoleiev; now he plans his revenge on his<br />

former boss . Galiullin also discovers that Lara is looking<br />

for information about Pasha . The scene returns to<br />

Gordon <strong>and</strong> Yurii, who spend a great deal of time in<br />

each other’s company, talking incessantly . Galiullin’s<br />

father, who has been horribly mangled, dies in Lara’s<br />

presence; in fact Lara, Gordon, <strong>and</strong> Yurii all appear<br />

together in this scene, but Yurii does not recognize<br />

Lara . The scene ends with a prolepsis104 hinting that<br />

some things will be revealed at a future meeting . As<br />

they wait for transportation to take Gordon back, Yurii<br />

<strong>and</strong> Gordon witness a Cossack teasing an old Jew . Yurii<br />

tells him to stop <strong>and</strong> observes that the battle is engaged<br />

in the midst of the Jewish pale, or district . Later Yurii<br />

tells Gordon about seeing the Tsar during the first<br />

spring at the front; Yurii describes how he felt sorry for<br />

the Tsar who seemed confused <strong>and</strong> unable to make a<br />

speech to the troops .<br />

On the following day, Yurii’s detachment evacuates,<br />

<strong>and</strong> he sees Gordon to his carriage . Yurii gets hit by<br />

a shell, is knocked unconscious, <strong>and</strong> wakes up in<br />

the hospital where both he <strong>and</strong> Galiullin have been<br />

brought . Lara, now a nurse in the hospital, comes in,<br />

<strong>and</strong> both Yurii <strong>and</strong> Galiullin recognize her . Galiullin<br />

tells her that Antipov has been taken prisoner, but he<br />

is deliberately lying to protect her, as he thinks Pasha<br />

is dead . Yurii hears that Gordon <strong>and</strong> Dudorov have<br />

managed to get his book published . Lara realizes she<br />

met Galiullin in 1905, <strong>and</strong>, as the chapter ends in early<br />

1917, the Revolution has begun in Petersburg . The<br />

beginning of the Revolution marks the end of Part One .<br />

Chapter Five<br />

Part Two begins with Chapter Five, “Farewell to the<br />

Old .” The chapter opens in the summer of 1917 in the<br />

village of Meliuzeievo where Russian troops <strong>and</strong> convoys<br />

are deployed . Yurii, Galiullin, <strong>and</strong> Lara are living<br />

in the village, as Yurii <strong>and</strong> Lara are brought together<br />

increasingly by their work . World War I continues as<br />

38<br />

Film still from the 1965 film of Doctor Zhivago showing<br />

Lara (Julie Christie) about to shoot at Komarovsky.<br />

the Russian Revolution begins, <strong>and</strong> Yurii writes to his<br />

wife <strong>and</strong> mentions Lara . Tonia misunderst<strong>and</strong>s the<br />

reference to Lara <strong>and</strong> writes back that Yurii should go<br />

to the Urals with her . Yurii replies that he does not<br />

underst<strong>and</strong> why she suspects an affair .<br />

The next scene opens on the roads in <strong>and</strong> out of<br />

Meliuzeievo; the district of Zybushino is proclaimed<br />

an independent republic led by a miller <strong>and</strong> deserters<br />

from the infantry . Zybushino has been a legendary seat<br />

of trouble, the republic lasts two weeks, <strong>and</strong> the deserters<br />

fall back <strong>and</strong> set up camp . The village hospital has<br />

been set up in a countess’ house where Mademoiselle<br />

Fleury, left over from the Countess’ staff as a governess,<br />

plots a love affair between Yurii <strong>and</strong> Lara . As the<br />

citizens meet after the fall of the republic, Ustinia,<br />

a former cook in the countess’ household, becomes<br />

a public speaker <strong>and</strong> Mlle . Fleury approves of her<br />

boldness .<br />

Yurii prepares to leave <strong>and</strong> goes to Galiullin where he<br />

sees the comm<strong>and</strong>ant <strong>and</strong> Commissar Gints . There is<br />

talk of rousting the deserters/rebels with Red Cossacks,<br />

but Yurii is disgusted by this <strong>and</strong> leaves to see Lara .<br />

Yurii goes to her room, <strong>and</strong> they meet in a scene<br />

which employs the imagery of nature to foreshadow<br />

their love affair: “Everything was fermenting, growing,<br />

rising with the magic yeast of life” (141) . Yurii goes to<br />

the square to listen to revolutionary speeches, looks at<br />

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the moonlit night, then hears the voice of Commissar<br />

Gints, who speaks against the Bolsheviks . When<br />

next Yurii sees Lara, she is doing laundry <strong>and</strong> speaks<br />

of going to the Urals . They talk about councils <strong>and</strong><br />

villagers, peasants <strong>and</strong> the l<strong>and</strong> question, <strong>and</strong> the commissar<br />

who strikes them as a greenhorn . Yurii urges<br />

Lara to leave <strong>and</strong> talks about Russia with its roof torn<br />

off <strong>and</strong> freedom dropped from the sky:<br />

Mother Russia is on the move, she can’t st<strong>and</strong><br />

still, she’s restless <strong>and</strong> she can’t find rest, she’s<br />

talking <strong>and</strong> she can’t stop . And it isn’t as if only<br />

people were talking . Stars <strong>and</strong> trees meet <strong>and</strong><br />

converse, flowers talk philosophy at night, stone<br />

houses hold meetings . It makes you think of the<br />

Gospel, doesn’t it? (146) .<br />

After Lara leaves Meliuzeievo, the scene shifts to the<br />

arrival of the Cossacks on the train who surround<br />

the rebels <strong>and</strong> draw swords . Commissar Gints tries<br />

to speak to the surrounded men but threatens them<br />

instead, <strong>and</strong> the rebels <strong>and</strong> Cossacks join in following<br />

him to the station where he tries to speak to them<br />

again . When Gints falls in the water barrel he’s st<strong>and</strong>ing<br />

on, a rebel shoots him . Mlle . Fleury helps Yurii get<br />

on a train to Moscow, as many are fleeing the scene of<br />

fighting . Yurii does manage to get on a train jammed<br />

with people, <strong>and</strong> he then changes trains where he<br />

shares a compartment with a young man who turns<br />

out to be the deaf-mute hailed in Meliuzeievo as<br />

miraculously gifted with speech . Yurii begins thinking<br />

of Lara <strong>and</strong> falls asleep convinced of the revolution’s<br />

potential greatness . When Yurii wakes up, he is again<br />

confronted by his companion, who reminds him of<br />

a character in Dostoevsky . The deaf-mute identifies<br />

himself as “Pogorevshikh the deaf-mute” <strong>and</strong> admits<br />

his role in setting up the republic in Zybushino .<br />

Pogorevshikh insists that revolution has the power<br />

to rebuild after absolute destruction <strong>and</strong> gives Yurii a<br />

duck when they arrive in the station .<br />

Chapter Six<br />

Chapter Six, “The Moscow Encampment,” opens as<br />

Yurii arrives at his house, where Tonia opens the door .<br />

The servant Markel informs him that Moscow is in<br />

shambles . Yurii learns that Tonia has given up part of<br />

the house to an academy . As they talk about the future<br />

<strong>and</strong> fear of famine <strong>and</strong> cold, Yurii gives Tonia the duck,<br />

a rarity in starving Moscow . Tonia tells Yurii that his<br />

uncle Nikolai is back <strong>and</strong> that he’s been Bolshevized .<br />

Yurii sees his young son who does not recognize him<br />

<strong>and</strong> feels depressed . Yurii <strong>and</strong> Tonia throw a party,<br />

but Yurii feels it is a betrayal of those who are starving<br />

because they have duck <strong>and</strong> vodka . Yurii also<br />

notices how his old friends Gordon, Dudorov, <strong>and</strong><br />

Shura Shlesinger have changed . Nikolai arrives, <strong>and</strong><br />

Yurii feels that theirs is the meeting of two artists .<br />

The company speaks of the workers, the serfs, <strong>and</strong> the<br />

revolution; Yurii believes “that Russia is destined to<br />

become the first socialist state” (182) .<br />

The scene shifts to September with winter coming, but<br />

the Zhivagos can’t stock up, <strong>and</strong> Yurii sees the “great<br />

Russian city” (184) struggling . People in Moscow, desperate<br />

for firewood, pull down fences <strong>and</strong> houses to<br />

burn to keep warm . Just before the October Revolution<br />

begins, Yurii finds a wounded man <strong>and</strong> takes him to the<br />

hospital; the man he has saved is a prominent political<br />

leader who protects Yurii for years to come . The<br />

next scene shifts to fighting in the streets of Moscow<br />

as the October Revolution begins; Yurii tends to his<br />

sick son but can’t go out to get supplies as the streets<br />

are not safe . When he is able to leave the house, Yurii<br />

reads that the Soviets have taken Petersburg . Another<br />

moment of fateful coincidence occurs as Yurii notices<br />

a boy with “Kirghiz eyes .” He does not yet know it, but<br />

the boy is his half-brother, Evgraf . On his return home,<br />

Yurii speaks ironically of the new turn of events in the<br />

revolution to his father-in-law:<br />

This new thing, this marvel of history, this revelation,<br />

is exploded right into the very thick of<br />

daily life without the slightest consideration for<br />

its course . It doesn’t start at the beginning, it<br />

starts in the middle, without any schedule, on<br />

the first weekday that comes along, while the<br />

traffic in the street is at its height . That’s real<br />

genius . Only real greatness can be so unconcerned<br />

with timing <strong>and</strong> opportunity (195) .<br />

The scene turns to winter, the first of three terrible<br />

winters, which seem merged into one . Civil war will<br />

break out in the next year, <strong>and</strong> Russia will experience<br />

the Bolshevization of life by “men of iron will in black<br />

leather jackets” <strong>and</strong> “Mephistophelean smiles” (196) .<br />

Yurii has continued at the hospital, but his family is<br />

destitute . As he searches for wood, Yurii realizes that<br />

private trade has been abolished, every part of life is<br />

being re-organized, <strong>and</strong> the shops are boarded up . Yurii<br />

tends to a patient who has typhus <strong>and</strong> writes out an<br />

order to send her to the hospital . The patient’s antique<br />

alarm clock had, after years of silence, suddenly begun<br />

to chime, <strong>and</strong> the patient believes it heralds her<br />

doom . At the patient’s apartment house, Yurii meets<br />

Galiullin’s mother who mentions Lara; when he goes<br />

home his own alarm clock seems to have fixed itself,<br />

<strong>and</strong> Yurii thinks “‘My hour for typhus has struck”<br />

(206) .<br />

Before he shows symptoms of typhus, Yurii goes to<br />

see the party member he once saved because he <strong>and</strong><br />

his family are starving; he gets an allocation of food,<br />

<strong>and</strong> then collapses . Yurii is delirious for two weeks <strong>and</strong><br />

dreams of the streets where he collapsed, of writing,<br />

<strong>and</strong> of the boy with Kirghiz eyes . He thinks the boy is<br />

the spirit of his death <strong>and</strong> writes a poem in his head<br />

entitled “Turmoil,” which evokes the time between<br />

entombment <strong>and</strong> resurrection . As Yurii gets better, he<br />

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finds out that Evgraf has been providing food, <strong>and</strong> that<br />

he is the boy with the Kirghiz eyes . Evgraf has left word<br />

with Tonia that they should leave <strong>and</strong> get back to the<br />

l<strong>and</strong>, so the chapter ends in April as they set out for the<br />

Varykino estate near Yuriatin in the Urals .<br />

Chapter Seven<br />

Chapter Seven, “Train to the Urals,” returns briefly<br />

to the end of March 1918 as Yurii <strong>and</strong> his family prepare<br />

to leave Moscow . They wonder who now owns<br />

the estate that once belonged to Tonia’s gr<strong>and</strong>father<br />

Krueger, <strong>and</strong> wonder as well how they will find a train<br />

to take them there . The government is issuing credit<br />

slips for food at distribution centers, so Yurii <strong>and</strong> his<br />

father-in-law are able to obtain food . When the family<br />

arrives at the train station, they find long lines where<br />

the procedure for boarding is extremely complicated,<br />

<strong>and</strong> they also see conscripts who are being sent to fight<br />

at the front . The family does manage to board a train<br />

<strong>and</strong> spends three days in a freight car with people from<br />

all walks of life . When they stop at a station along the<br />

way, they find that the peasants are selling food on<br />

the black market as free enterprise is forbidden . Yurii<br />

learns that one of the conscripts is a very young man<br />

who was betrayed by his uncle <strong>and</strong> left on the train to<br />

take his uncle’s place as a conscript .<br />

Yurii, watching the passing countryside, thinks about<br />

where the reality is in Russia . At one point, the train’s<br />

engineer does not want to continue because of danger,<br />

but he’s forced to keep the train running . At a ruined<br />

station <strong>and</strong> a deserted village, the name of Strelnikov<br />

is mentioned . At another point along the snowbound<br />

track, the passengers all pile out <strong>and</strong> shovel snow to<br />

clear the tracks . As the train finally moves, Yurii <strong>and</strong><br />

Tonia hear fighting—two women are battling over an<br />

ugly conscript <strong>and</strong> the young boy left by his uncle . As<br />

the train rolls through the mountains, the weather<br />

begins to warm, the snow melts, <strong>and</strong> water rushes<br />

in the creeks <strong>and</strong> streams . The passengers hear news<br />

that the Whites, the supporters of the Tsarist regime,<br />

are getting the upper h<strong>and</strong> in the north <strong>and</strong> have taken<br />

Yuriatin . Yurii learns that Galiullin is their leader <strong>and</strong><br />

also overhears that Strelniknov is on the trail of the<br />

counter-revolutionaries .<br />

While Yurii sleeps on the train, two conscripts escape,<br />

<strong>and</strong> it appears that the two women fighting over them<br />

have left as well . One of the women, Tiagunova, has<br />

killed the other by pushing her off the train, <strong>and</strong><br />

Tiagunova moves on with the young conscript, Vasia .<br />

As the passengers collect firewood for the train, Yurii<br />

<strong>and</strong> his father-in-law, Alex<strong>and</strong>er, talk about what<br />

they’ll do if they find themselves in danger in Yuriatin;<br />

Alex<strong>and</strong>er tells Yurii that the age of private property in<br />

Russia is over . As the train moves on, Yurii hears explosions<br />

<strong>and</strong> realizes that they are near the front; he gets<br />

off the train when it stops <strong>and</strong> is questioned by a sentry<br />

who takes him to another train to be questioned . There<br />

40<br />

he meets Strelnikov who tells him that the Whites have<br />

been driven back . Before he releases him, Strelnikov<br />

asks Yurii why he wants to go to Varykino <strong>and</strong> seems<br />

suspicious of Yurii, but finally he lets him go . As Yurii<br />

leaves, Strelnikov thinks of Lara <strong>and</strong> his daughter <strong>and</strong><br />

realizes they belong to another life . Strelnikov is now<br />

revealed as the alias for Pasha Antipov .<br />

Chapter Eight<br />

At the beginning of Chapter Eight, “Arrival,” Yurii<br />

returns to the train where his family waits for him <strong>and</strong><br />

feels that they’ve entered a provincial world where the<br />

connection with Moscow has snapped . Even the sentry<br />

who escorts him back to the train <strong>and</strong> longs to return<br />

home for spring planting, feels that “class war has run<br />

between us like the black cat of discord, <strong>and</strong> just look<br />

what it’s doing” (255) . Once Yurii returns to the rail<br />

car, Tonia introduces him to Samdeviatov, a Bolshevik,<br />

<strong>and</strong> as the train shuttles back <strong>and</strong> forth, Yurii <strong>and</strong><br />

Samdeviatov talk about Marxism; both agree that what<br />

is going on is madness, an “absurd nightmare” (260) .<br />

Samdeviatov insists, though, that these events are<br />

also historically inevitable . Then Samdeviatov shares<br />

his knowledge of Mikulitsyn, the estate manager at<br />

Varykino, <strong>and</strong> his son Liberius, a member of the Forest<br />

Brotherhood—a unit of the great people’s army . Yurii<br />

justifiably worries that, as Tonia is a descendant of the<br />

great l<strong>and</strong>owner Krueger, they will be conspicuous .<br />

Once they finally arrive, they find that Samdeviatov<br />

has telephoned ahead to get the station master to<br />

help them get to Varykino . On the way, the carriage<br />

driver mentions the legend of Bacchus, the blacksmith<br />

who made himself a set of iron guts, <strong>and</strong> the Forest<br />

Brotherhood . Even the carriage driver recognizes the<br />

strong resemblance between Tonia <strong>and</strong> her deceased<br />

gr<strong>and</strong>father . Once they arrive at the house, Mikulitsyn<br />

seems confused <strong>and</strong> unhappy to see the Zhivagos,<br />

whose presence could put his own family in danger .<br />

Finally, though, he relents <strong>and</strong> agrees to let them stay<br />

in an annex . Yurii notices the wonderful window in<br />

Mikulitsyn’s study, <strong>and</strong> Mikulitsyn’s wife mentions<br />

that Pasha Antipov was a teacher in Yuriatin <strong>and</strong> that<br />

the rumor is that Strelnikov is Antipov risen from the<br />

dead .<br />

Chapter Nine<br />

Chapter Nine, “Varykino,” opens in the winter of 1918<br />

after a productive summer <strong>and</strong> fall for Yurii, who has<br />

worked the l<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> made improvements to the house<br />

<strong>and</strong> feels happy . Yurii has the time to write while it is too<br />

cold to go outside <strong>and</strong> begins a notebook . Samdeviatov<br />

has proven a great help <strong>and</strong> has shown himself to be an<br />

educated man as familiar with Dostoevsky as with the<br />

Communist Manifesto . Together in the evenings the<br />

family reads Tolstoy, Pushkin, Stendhal, <strong>and</strong> Dickens .<br />

Once the spring of 1919 approaches, Yurii thinks Tonia<br />

is pregnant <strong>and</strong> feels that the year of working hard has<br />

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Film still from the 1965 film of Doctor Zhivago showing Yurii (Omar Sharif) treating Komarovsky’s (Rod Steiger) wound.<br />

brought them together, <strong>and</strong> the gifts of much needed<br />

necessities, like soap, from Samdeviatov have helped<br />

them survive . Yurii begins to write about the principle<br />

of art but feels, at the same time, the first symptoms<br />

of a weak heart . Yurii writes <strong>and</strong> dreams; one night he<br />

hears a woman’s voice in his dreams but can’t identify<br />

the woman . Yurii finds inspiration in Pushkin, finding<br />

his poetry a measure of Russian life, <strong>and</strong> Goethe,<br />

thinking that “every man is born a Faust” (284) .<br />

Though he hasn’t practiced medicine while in Varykino,<br />

Yurii diagnoses a peasant with lupus <strong>and</strong> goes often to<br />

the town of Yuriatin to visit the library . He receives a<br />

visit from the ever-mysterious Evgraf, who stays two<br />

weeks <strong>and</strong> then vanishes . At the library, Yurii notices<br />

the people there <strong>and</strong> sees Lara reading . He hesitates to<br />

talk to her <strong>and</strong> realizes that the voice he heard in his<br />

dream was hers . He finds her address from her order<br />

cards <strong>and</strong> discovers that she lives across the street from<br />

a house decorated with sculptures of female mythological<br />

figures . Yurii visits Lara <strong>and</strong> tells her about his<br />

meeting with Strelnikov; he says as well that he thinks<br />

he’s doomed as the revolutionaries want nothing but<br />

constant change <strong>and</strong> turmoil . Lara’s daughter Katia<br />

comes in, <strong>and</strong> Lara introduces her to Yurii .<br />

After inviting Yurii to stay a bit longer, Lara tells him<br />

that Strelnikov is her husb<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> that he shelled<br />

Yuriatin even though he knew that she <strong>and</strong> their<br />

daughter were there . She believes that he doesn’t come<br />

to see or acknowledge them because he’s trying to<br />

protect them . She also mentions that Galiullin, now a<br />

White colonel, is helping them, but that Strelnikov is<br />

fighting him . She’s tried to see Strelnikov but, because<br />

of long lines, she’s never been able to get in . The<br />

chapter ends two months later, after Yurii has begun<br />

to spend the night at Lara’s . He’s consumed with guilt<br />

<strong>and</strong> close to breaking off his relationship with Lara,<br />

but on his way back to Varykino decides not to end<br />

the relationship yet . He hears a shot fired as he gallops<br />

through the countryside <strong>and</strong> finds his way blocked by<br />

three armed men who force him to go with them to<br />

replace their dead army surgeon .<br />

Chapter Ten<br />

“The Highway,” Chapter Ten, opens on the ancient<br />

post road in Siberia where the provisional government<br />

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has been taken over by an admiral named Kolchak who<br />

has taken the title of Supreme Ruler . It’s now spring,<br />

Easter 1919, near the monastery where the congregation<br />

is going to mass . One among them, Galuzina,<br />

worries about the state of Russia <strong>and</strong> thinks about<br />

how the Jews are the reason for the country’s troubles .<br />

When she returns home, she feels a pain <strong>and</strong> thinks<br />

about the lack of doctors . The scene shifts to an illegal<br />

meeting of the Central Committee where the members<br />

call for the return of the Soviets; Tiverzin is there along<br />

with Pasha Antipov’s father Pavel <strong>and</strong> Mikulitsyn’s<br />

son Liberius . This scene ends with the Committee<br />

dem<strong>and</strong>ing a resolution . Later, along the highway, the<br />

villagers have a party for Red Army recruits . Suddenly,<br />

they hear explosions <strong>and</strong> find that the Cossacks are<br />

sweeping through the town looking for someone . The<br />

recruits, with the son of Galuzin, a village shop owner,<br />

among them, hide in a barn <strong>and</strong> finally run off into<br />

the forest .<br />

Chapter Eleven<br />

When Chapter Eleven, “The Forest Brotherhood,”<br />

opens, a year has passed since Yurii was taken captive<br />

in the spring of 1919 . Yurii is with the partisans <strong>and</strong><br />

has been only loosely guarded but has not succeeded<br />

in several attempts to escape . Liberius Mikulitsyn,<br />

the partisan comm<strong>and</strong>er, is fond of Yurii, but Yurii<br />

does not like the enforced companionship . The partisan<br />

army is constantly on the move, trying to drive<br />

Kolchak from Siberia <strong>and</strong> battling the White Army;<br />

Yurii finds it difficult to distinguish between Red <strong>and</strong><br />

White . In one of the villages they pass through, Yurii<br />

meets Pelagia Tiagunova, who had been with him on<br />

the train to Varykino . She gives Yurii news of the past<br />

two years <strong>and</strong> tells him that she has come to live with<br />

her sister Galuzina . She works at the pharmacy in the<br />

nearby town of Pazhinsk <strong>and</strong> realizes, when Yurii tells<br />

her that he will have to requisition all of the pharmacy’s<br />

supplies, that she will no longer have work . The<br />

pharmacy stock includes cocaine to which Liberius<br />

Mikulitsyn is addicted .<br />

The scene shifts then to eighteen months after Yurii’s<br />

capture when Yurii is caught in a battle <strong>and</strong> is forced<br />

to defend himself, even though, as a doctor, he is not<br />

supposed to fight . Yurii realizes that the White soldiers<br />

are little more than boys, cadets with whom he<br />

feels kinship; in his view they are “heroically dying<br />

children” (333) . But when the telephonist next to him<br />

is shot dead, he takes his rifle <strong>and</strong> creates an appearance<br />

of fighting by shooting at a dead tree . He does hit<br />

some of the White soldiers by accident, however, <strong>and</strong><br />

when they retreat, he examines the telephonist’s body<br />

<strong>and</strong> finds an amulet with a paper containing Psalm 91 .<br />

Later Yurii finds a similar paper bearing the purportedly<br />

miraculous Psalm on the body of a White soldier he<br />

thinks he’s killed . The boy is alive, though, <strong>and</strong> with<br />

Yurii’s help, the boy disguises himself <strong>and</strong> escapes .<br />

42<br />

In autumn 1920, Yurii continues to be pestered by<br />

Mikulitsyn’s constant barrage of talk <strong>and</strong> his abuse<br />

of cocaine . Yurii refines his ideas about life, telling<br />

Mikulitsyn that life has not improved since the<br />

October Revolution nor has it been “reshaped”:<br />

Reshaping life! People who can say that have<br />

never understood a thing about life—they have<br />

never felt its breath, its heartbeat—however<br />

much they have seen or done . They look on it<br />

as a lump of raw material that needs to be processed<br />

by them, to be ennobled by their touch .<br />

But life is never a material, a substance to be<br />

molded . If you want to know, life is the principle<br />

of self-renewal, it is constantly renewing <strong>and</strong><br />

remaking <strong>and</strong> changing <strong>and</strong> transfiguring itself,<br />

it is infinitely beyond your or my obtuse theories<br />

about it (338) .<br />

Yurii concludes by asking for a permit to see his family<br />

<strong>and</strong> thinks secretly of how he’d like to kill Mikulitsyn .<br />

Once the Indian summer is over, Yurii talks with the<br />

Hungarian doctor Lajos about some doctors who will<br />

be court-martialed for brewing illegal vodka <strong>and</strong> about<br />

Pamphil Palykh, a member of the partisan army who is<br />

suspected of going mad . One of the officers asks Yurii<br />

to examine Palykh, but on the way, Yurii lies down<br />

exhausted <strong>and</strong> falls asleep . When he awakes, he overhears<br />

some of the partisans plotting to h<strong>and</strong> Liberius<br />

over to the White Army . The plan is discovered later,<br />

<strong>and</strong> Yurii finally examines Palykh who is cutting trees<br />

with his axe . Palykh fears the Whites will capture<br />

<strong>and</strong> torture his family <strong>and</strong> admits to feeling guilty<br />

about killing a young agitator whom Yurii realizes was<br />

Commissar Gints .<br />

Chapter Twelve<br />

Chapter Twelve, “The Rowan Tree,” begins with the<br />

partisan army followed by a convoy carrying the soldiers’<br />

families . Yurii finds a rowan tree <strong>and</strong> granite<br />

boulders that may be an ancient shrine; here the death<br />

sentence against the conspirators who plotted to kill<br />

Mikulitsyn will be carried out . All of the conspirators,<br />

including young Galuzin, are shot . In the meantime,<br />

the camp has been encircled by the White Army, but<br />

the position of the camp has made it easy to defend;<br />

finally the partisans break through the White lines,<br />

<strong>and</strong> some refugees come into the partisan camp . Yurii<br />

hears of the despair of the women refugees as well as<br />

their courage in cutting a road through the swamp .<br />

He also hears about a woman called Kubarikha, who<br />

is considered a witch . Palykh’s wife takes their sick<br />

cow to the witch, who cures it <strong>and</strong> talks about casting<br />

spells .<br />

The partisans find the stump of a man almost dead<br />

who has been tortured by the Whites . Palykh hears the<br />

tortured man’s story, runs off, kills his family in a fit<br />

of madness, <strong>and</strong> later runs away . The scene shifts to<br />

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Film still from the 1965 filmDoctor Zhivago showing<br />

Pasha Antipov (Tom Courtenay) <strong>and</strong> Lara (Julie Christie).<br />

winter when Mikulitsyn tells Yurii that the civil war is<br />

over <strong>and</strong> the Red Army has won . Yurii thinks about his<br />

family <strong>and</strong> determines to escape; he encounters a sentry<br />

who doesn’t suspect anything <strong>and</strong> lets him pass . As<br />

he makes his way to the rowan tree where he’s hidden<br />

skis <strong>and</strong> other items needed for an escape, Yurii thinks<br />

of Lara <strong>and</strong> vows to find her, his “rowan tree” (375) .<br />

Chapter Thirteen<br />

“Opposite the House of Sculptures,” Chapter Thirteen,<br />

opens with Yurii in Yuriatin in the spring of 1921,<br />

across the street from the house with sculptures .<br />

Proclamations are posted everywhere, winter has<br />

passed, the Whites are gone, <strong>and</strong> the Reds have taken<br />

over . Yurii appears grimy with long, shaggy hair, having<br />

followed the railroad track to town . Typhus has raged<br />

over the countryside, <strong>and</strong> it seems as though the only<br />

law in force is a jungle law . Young Galuzin has survived<br />

the firing squad, <strong>and</strong> Yurii has seen him . Before Lara’s<br />

former flat, Yurii looks up at her window, walks up<br />

the stairs, <strong>and</strong> finds her key . He also finds a note from<br />

Lara who knows he has escaped <strong>and</strong> is alive . Yurii feels<br />

compelled to know what new regulations the proclamations<br />

have put in place <strong>and</strong> tries to read them, but he<br />

can’t even be sure of the dates when they were issued .<br />

Back in Lara’s flat, Yurii finds a lot of rats, <strong>and</strong> tries to<br />

secure a small area where they can’t enter . He desperately<br />

wants to clean up, <strong>and</strong> finding no barbershops<br />

open, he finds a tailor shop where he asks for scissors .<br />

One of the women there offers to give him a haircut;<br />

he realizes that this older woman is Mikulitsyn’s aunt<br />

<strong>and</strong>, without identifying himself, asks about Varykino .<br />

She tells him that the elder Mikulitsyn <strong>and</strong> the other<br />

family (his own) have gone to Moscow .<br />

Yurii returns to the flat, fires up the Dutch stove for<br />

heat <strong>and</strong> thinks about Russia “his incomparable mother”<br />

(391) . He reads the rest of Lara’s note <strong>and</strong> finds<br />

out that Tonia has given birth to a daughter . Yurii falls<br />

asleep but wakes up to realize he has a fever—later he<br />

awakes after being delirious for some time to discover<br />

that Lara has been caring for him . Lara advises him to<br />

go to his family, that it is unsafe in Yuriatin, <strong>and</strong> that<br />

Strelnikov has many enemies <strong>and</strong> is in hiding . Yurii<br />

eventually asks Lara to explain Komarovsky’s role in<br />

her life, tells her that he was present after her mother<br />

took poison, <strong>and</strong> reveals Komarovsky’s role in his own<br />

father’s suicide . Lara talks about the change that came<br />

over Strelnikov, <strong>and</strong> Yurii says he won’t st<strong>and</strong> in her<br />

way if she decides to go to Strelnikov .<br />

The scene changes as the summer of 1921 comes <strong>and</strong><br />

goes; Yurii works at temporary jobs, <strong>and</strong> Lara keeps<br />

house as they try to make a life together . Yurii is concerned<br />

that the gift of intuition that is so necessary<br />

to his ability to diagnose illness will be unfavorably<br />

viewed by the regime . There are waves of arrests, <strong>and</strong><br />

Lara <strong>and</strong> Yurii feel increasingly threatened . Lara wants<br />

to disappear in Varykino <strong>and</strong> insists that even though<br />

there are wolves in the woods, they’re less dangerous<br />

than the revolutionaries . As the time of the first snow<br />

draws near, Yurii receives a letter from Tonia telling<br />

him about their second child <strong>and</strong> that she will be<br />

deported to Paris . She writes that she knows he doesn’t<br />

love her as she loves him <strong>and</strong> knows about Lara . As<br />

Yurii looks outside at the snow, he clutches his chest<br />

<strong>and</strong> faints .<br />

Chapter Fourteen<br />

It is snowing hard as Chapter Fourteen, “Return to<br />

Varykino,” opens on Yurii walking back from the hospital<br />

. Komarovsky appears at Lara’s flat to tell both<br />

Yurii <strong>and</strong> Lara that they are in danger . Komarovsky has<br />

taken a position as a minister in a far eastern republic,<br />

<strong>and</strong> he is willing to take Yurii <strong>and</strong> Lara with him<br />

to safety . Komarovsky drinks too much <strong>and</strong> refuses<br />

to leave, so they let him sleep in the room with rats .<br />

Lara has been told by the watchman at Yurii’s hospital<br />

that he will be arrested, <strong>and</strong> she insists that they<br />

must vanish <strong>and</strong> go to Varykino . They leave in a horse<br />

<strong>and</strong> sleigh provided by Samdeviatov, <strong>and</strong> when they<br />

arrive at Varykino, they find that Mikulitsyn’s house is<br />

padlocked . Once they break off the lock, they see that<br />

it is very tidy inside . Yurii remembers how he loves<br />

the study <strong>and</strong> plans to write there . When Lara <strong>and</strong><br />

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her daughter are ready for bed, Yurii goes to the study<br />

<strong>and</strong> writes down two poems, “Christmas Star” <strong>and</strong><br />

“Winter Night .” He writes through the night <strong>and</strong> feels<br />

that “<strong>Language</strong>, the home <strong>and</strong> receptacle of beauty <strong>and</strong><br />

meaning, itself begins to think <strong>and</strong> speak for man <strong>and</strong><br />

turns wholly into music” (437) .<br />

In the early morning, filled with the joy of writing,<br />

Yurii hears a sound <strong>and</strong> looks out the window to see<br />

the wolves in the distance . The wolves become a theme<br />

indicating a hostile force, linked to the Soviet government,<br />

that will relentlessly pursue <strong>and</strong> try to destroy<br />

him <strong>and</strong> his life with Lara . As night comes again, Yurii<br />

writes once more, this time about St . George <strong>and</strong> the<br />

dragon, <strong>and</strong> Lara awakes <strong>and</strong> comes to his side; she’s<br />

heard a noise she believes is the barking of dogs . When<br />

she goes back to sleep, Yurii goes outside <strong>and</strong> realizes<br />

that the wolves are moving closer . Days pass, <strong>and</strong> Lara<br />

is afraid; she begins to pack but realizes that it’s too<br />

late in the day to leave . Komarovsky appears again to<br />

warn them <strong>and</strong> insist that they leave with him . He<br />

begs Yurii to save Lara at least if he won’t save himself .<br />

Yurii agrees to deceive Lara <strong>and</strong> make her believe that<br />

he’ll follow them, <strong>and</strong> Lara leaves with Komarovsky .<br />

Yurii is filled with despair as he catches his last sight<br />

of Lara <strong>and</strong> goes on writing about her <strong>and</strong> about art .<br />

A day or two later, Yurii hears a shot <strong>and</strong> is surprised<br />

as Strelnikov comes into the house . Strelnikov has<br />

been using the house as a hiding place <strong>and</strong> warns Yurii<br />

that forces are closing in on him <strong>and</strong> Yurii <strong>and</strong> that<br />

they must leave . Yurii <strong>and</strong> Strelnikov talk about Lara,<br />

<strong>and</strong> Yurii tells Strelnikov how much Lara loves him—<br />

Strelnikov presses Yurii’s h<strong>and</strong>s to his chest . Strelnikov<br />

seems to know that he’ll be arrested the next day but<br />

stays the night . When Yurii awakes, he finds that<br />

Strelnikov has committed suicide near the well <strong>and</strong><br />

that his blood in the snow looks like rowanberries .<br />

Chapter Fifteen<br />

Chapter Fifteen, “Conclusion,” covers the last eight or<br />

ten years of Yurii’s life, from approximately 1922–29—<br />

the narrative is not precise about the length of time .<br />

Yurii has fallen into a depression <strong>and</strong> gone to Moscow<br />

during the period of the New Economic Policy (NEP),<br />

the “most hypocritical of all Soviet periods” (465),<br />

<strong>and</strong> tries to make himself indistinguishable from the<br />

crowd . As he travels on foot, he sees the devastation<br />

of the countryside <strong>and</strong> burned-out villages . He meets<br />

Vasia, the young man who had been on the train with<br />

him <strong>and</strong> his family during the first journey to Varykino .<br />

Vasia had been a conscript after being betrayed by his<br />

uncle, <strong>and</strong> after the fighting ended, returned to his village<br />

. Vasia follows Yurii to Moscow, along the way he<br />

tells Yurii about all of his troubles since he last saw<br />

him on the train . They arrive in Moscow in the spring<br />

of 1922 when part of the ban on private enterprise has<br />

been lifted <strong>and</strong> some trade is allowed . Once there, Yurii<br />

writes booklets advancing controversial opinions <strong>and</strong><br />

44<br />

prints them with Vasia’s help . Vasia, however, turns<br />

more in favor of the ideas of the revolution, <strong>and</strong> he <strong>and</strong><br />

Yurii part company .<br />

In the winter, Yurii meets Marina, the daughter of<br />

Markel, the former servant in the Gromeko-Zhivago<br />

household, <strong>and</strong> becomes intimate with her . Time<br />

passes swiftly <strong>and</strong> the narrative shifts to the summer<br />

of 1929 with Yurii in Misha Gordon’s rooms . Yurii<br />

listens to the talk of Gordon <strong>and</strong> his other old friend<br />

from childhood, Nika Dudorov, <strong>and</strong> feels disconnected<br />

from their opinions . Gordon <strong>and</strong> Dudorov want Yurii<br />

to reform <strong>and</strong> clarify his position with Marina <strong>and</strong><br />

with Tonia . Yurii feels he can’t take any more of their<br />

talk <strong>and</strong> leaves . Marina comes to Gordon’s the next<br />

day to say that she can’t find Yurii; on the third day,<br />

Yurii sends them letters to say that he has gone away<br />

<strong>and</strong> they should not try to find him . He is actually living<br />

in close proximity, having been helped once again<br />

by his brother Evgraf .<br />

Yurii finds time to write, this time about the city . The<br />

narrator wonders, though, why there’s no poem about<br />

the city in his work <strong>and</strong> then questions whether the<br />

poem “Hamlet” belongs to this category . When Yurii<br />

is on the trolley at the end of August on his way to<br />

work, he notices a gray-haired lady walking parallel<br />

<strong>and</strong> thinks about people whose lives run parallel but<br />

at different speeds . As rain begins to fall, Yurii feels<br />

nauseous <strong>and</strong> tries to open the window . He thinks<br />

something has broken inside his body <strong>and</strong> gets off<br />

the trolley, only to fall dead as his heart stops . As the<br />

crowd gathers around the body, the gray-haired lady in<br />

lilac, now identified as Mlle . Fleury, comes up to look<br />

at the body . She does not realize that she has overtaken<br />

Yurii Zhivago <strong>and</strong> survived him .<br />

The scene now shifts from the site of Yurii’s death to<br />

his room where his body lies in the coffin . Marina is<br />

there, grief-stricken, along with Gordon <strong>and</strong> Dudorov,<br />

<strong>and</strong> both Lara <strong>and</strong> Evgraf have arrived . Lara has found<br />

Yurii by sheer accident; his room was once Antipov’s .<br />

Lara is looking for her child, fathered by Yurii, whom<br />

she briefly gave up after she escaped . Evgraf asks Lara<br />

to help him with Yurii’s papers, <strong>and</strong> she agrees . Evgraf<br />

also tells Lara about Strelnikov’s suicide . As Lara<br />

thinks about the night she stayed talking with Pasha<br />

in this room, she cannot know that Yurii had seen the<br />

c<strong>and</strong>le in the window all those years ago . She bows<br />

over Yurii’s coffin to tell him goodbye . Later, Lara tells<br />

Evgraf something important, which may be the clue<br />

leading to the discovery of her lost child . Lara vanishes<br />

without a trace .<br />

Chapter Sixteen<br />

In the “Epilogue,” Chapter Sixteen, Gordon <strong>and</strong><br />

Dudorov return to Moscow with their army unit—the<br />

time of the narrative has advanced to the summer<br />

of 1943, during World War II . They speak about<br />

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Dudorov’s dead fiancée who sacrificed herself in blowing<br />

up German fortifications, <strong>and</strong> they talk about the<br />

terrors of 1936–38 under Stalin . They also mention<br />

the laundress for their unit, Tania . Tania is a homeless<br />

child who reminds them of Yurii . When they rejoin<br />

their unit, they see Tania, who speaks of meeting<br />

Evgraf, now a general, who has promised to send for<br />

her . She tells Gordon <strong>and</strong> Dudorov what she knows of<br />

her life story; she was given away by her mother, who<br />

didn’t want Komarovsky to know about her existence .<br />

Tania also talks about living for a time with Marfa,<br />

a signal woman for the train <strong>and</strong> her peasant family,<br />

whose crippled son was killed by a stranger dem<strong>and</strong>ing<br />

money . The stranger appears suspiciously like the<br />

young Galuzin, who has been a villain whenever he<br />

appears in the narrative <strong>and</strong> who seems to have led a<br />

charmed life, escaping arrest <strong>and</strong> execution in the past .<br />

This time, though, the Red Guard run the stranger<br />

over with the train after Tania reports the murder he<br />

has committed . Tania tells Gordon <strong>and</strong> Dudorov that<br />

she fled on the train, <strong>and</strong> they believe that she is Yurii<br />

<strong>and</strong> Lara’s daughter <strong>and</strong> that Evgraf will look after her .<br />

In the closing section of the chapter, time has moved<br />

forward five or ten years, <strong>and</strong> Dudorov <strong>and</strong> Gordon<br />

look at a book of Yurii’s put together by Evgraf, <strong>and</strong><br />

NAME OF THE<br />

CHARACTER<br />

Yurii (Yura)<br />

Andreievich<br />

Zhivago<br />

Maria<br />

Nikolaievna<br />

Zhivago<br />

Nikolai<br />

Nikolaievich<br />

Vedeniapin<br />

Nika<br />

(Innokentii)<br />

Dudorov<br />

CHARACTER’S<br />

FUNCTION IN<br />

THE NOVEL OR<br />

RELATIONSHIP<br />

TO OTHER<br />

CHARACTERS<br />

Main character/<br />

male protagonist<br />

they think, as they look out at Moscow stretching into<br />

the distance, that the city, rather than being the stage<br />

of events, has been the protagonist of a long story .<br />

They both believe in freedom of the soul <strong>and</strong> think<br />

that the future “had tangibly moved into the streets<br />

below them, that they themselves had entered it <strong>and</strong><br />

were now part of it” (519) . They feel happiness <strong>and</strong><br />

peace that seems to be encouraged by reading Yurii’s<br />

book . This ends the narrative of Yurii Zhivago’s life<br />

<strong>and</strong> its aftermath; Chapter Seventeen, consisting of<br />

twenty-four poems written by the fictional Yurii, will<br />

be discussed in a later section of this guide .<br />

Characters<br />

Doctor Zhivago introduces a large cast of characters,<br />

many of whom are repeatedly referred to by their<br />

first names <strong>and</strong> their patronymics, a version of their<br />

father’s names that identifies them as a son or daughter<br />

. Using both the first name <strong>and</strong> the patronymic is<br />

the Russian convention of semi-formal address .<br />

The table included here identifies the most important<br />

characters in the narrative in the order of their appearance,<br />

along with a selection of lesser characters, <strong>and</strong><br />

includes the characters’ names, functions, chapters of<br />

appearance, <strong>and</strong> brief descriptions .<br />

WHERE THE<br />

CHARACTER<br />

APPEARS OR IS<br />

MENTIONED DESCRIPTION OF THE CHARACTER<br />

Throughout the<br />

novel<br />

Yurii’s mother Appears only<br />

in death during<br />

her funeral in<br />

Chapter One<br />

Yurii’s uncle,<br />

brother of his<br />

mother<br />

Yurii’s<br />

acquaintance<br />

in childhood,<br />

becomes his<br />

friend in later life<br />

Chapters One,<br />

Two, Three, Six,<br />

mentioned in<br />

Thirteen<br />

Chapters One,<br />

Two, Four, Six,<br />

Fifteen, Sixteen<br />

A deeply sensitive man who feels the beauty of<br />

nature <strong>and</strong> the seasons; mourns the loss of his<br />

mother throughout his life; loves several women;<br />

studies to be a doctor; experiences life in Russia<br />

during the Revolution of 1905, World War I, <strong>and</strong><br />

the ensuing Russian Revolution <strong>and</strong> civil war; <strong>and</strong><br />

writes poetry<br />

Yurii’s mother, who is ab<strong>and</strong>oned by her husb<strong>and</strong>,<br />

endures poverty <strong>and</strong> consumption, <strong>and</strong> leaves<br />

behind her ten-year-old son<br />

Yurii’s guardian <strong>and</strong> mentor who provides<br />

inspiration for Yurii <strong>and</strong> comfort after his mother’s<br />

death; places Yurii with the Gromeko family;<br />

spends time abroad in Lausanne, Switzerl<strong>and</strong>,<br />

writes, <strong>and</strong> publishes<br />

The son of a terrorist <strong>and</strong> a Georgian princess<br />

who becomes a serious scholar; teaches history at<br />

the university; <strong>and</strong> publishes books on Ivan the<br />

Terrible <strong>and</strong> Saint-Just<br />

2012–2013 USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 45<br />

Shawnee Mission NW HS - Shawnee Mission, K


NAME OF THE<br />

CHARACTER<br />

46<br />

CHARACTER’S<br />

FUNCTION IN<br />

THE NOVEL OR<br />

RELATIONSHIP<br />

TO OTHER<br />

CHARACTERS<br />

Misha Gordon Yurii’s friend in<br />

childhood <strong>and</strong><br />

throughout his<br />

life; lives with<br />

the Gromekos<br />

while Yurii is<br />

there<br />

Nadia<br />

Kologrivova<br />

Victor<br />

Ippolitovich<br />

Komarovsky<br />

Andrei<br />

Zhivago<br />

Amalia<br />

Karlovna<br />

Guishar<br />

Larisa (Lara)<br />

Feodorovna<br />

Antipova (nee<br />

Guishar)<br />

Pasha<br />

Pavlovich<br />

Antipov, also<br />

known as<br />

Strelnikov<br />

Daughter of<br />

Kologrivov,<br />

friend of Nika<br />

Dudorov<br />

Lawyer <strong>and</strong><br />

advisor to Andrei<br />

Zhivago before<br />

his death <strong>and</strong><br />

Amalia Guishar,<br />

seducer <strong>and</strong> lover<br />

of Lara Guishar<br />

WHERE THE<br />

CHARACTER<br />

APPEARS OR IS<br />

MENTIONED DESCRIPTION OF THE CHARACTER<br />

Chapters One,<br />

Two, Three,<br />

Four, Six, Nine,<br />

Thirteen,<br />

Fifteen, Sixteen<br />

Chapters One,<br />

Two, Three, Four<br />

Chapters One<br />

(anonymously),<br />

Two, Three,<br />

Four, Thirteen,<br />

Fourteen<br />

Father of Yurii Appears only<br />

briefly as the<br />

anonymous<br />

suicide in<br />

Chapter One<br />

Mother of Lara<br />

<strong>and</strong> Rodion<br />

Guishar<br />

Yurii’s great<br />

love whose life<br />

is interwoven<br />

with his from<br />

their youth until<br />

Yurii’s death<br />

Husb<strong>and</strong> of Lara,<br />

son of Pavel<br />

Ferapontovich<br />

Antipov, a<br />

railway worker<br />

Yurii’s friend from childhood who witnesses Yurii’s<br />

father’s death <strong>and</strong> tells him about Komarovsky’s<br />

role in his father’s suicide; <strong>and</strong> a Jew who provides<br />

insight into the prejudice against Jews in Russia<br />

during the first half of the twentieth century<br />

A minor character who appears as a possible love<br />

interest for Nika Dudorov as a teenager <strong>and</strong> is in<br />

the same class with Lara<br />

A repulsive lecher who compromises Lara’s mother<br />

<strong>and</strong> Lara herself, he is implicated in the suicide<br />

of Yurii’s father <strong>and</strong> is partly responsible for the<br />

attempted suicide of Lara’s mother <strong>and</strong> appears<br />

near the end of the narrative to take Lara <strong>and</strong> Katia<br />

away from Varykino to apparent safety<br />

A millionaire who loses his fortune; leaves Yurii<br />

<strong>and</strong> his mother; fathers a son, Evgraf, with another<br />

woman; <strong>and</strong> jumps from a train to commit suicide<br />

when Yurii is ten<br />

Chapter Two A rather weak woman who opens a seamstress<br />

shop in Moscow; depends upon Komarovsky<br />

<strong>and</strong> has an affair with him; is baffled when her<br />

seamstresses go out on strike during the 1905<br />

Revolution, <strong>and</strong> attempts suicide<br />

Chapters Two,<br />

Three, Four,<br />

Five, Six, Nine,<br />

Eleven, Twelve,<br />

Thirteen,<br />

Fourteen,<br />

Fifteen, Sixteen<br />

Chapters Two,<br />

Three, Four,<br />

Seven, Eight,<br />

Nine, Twelve,<br />

Thirteen,<br />

Fourteen<br />

A beautiful woman who is seduced by Komarovsky<br />

in her youth, marries Pasha Antipov <strong>and</strong> goes to the<br />

Urals with him to teach, becomes a nurse to try to<br />

find Antipov after he disappears with the Red Army,<br />

meets Yurii Zhivago, <strong>and</strong> becomes the great love of<br />

his life<br />

An elusive character whose father is an exile <strong>and</strong><br />

who falls in love with Lara as a young man; cannot<br />

overcome his disgust at Komarovsky’s seduction of<br />

Lara <strong>and</strong> feels that she can never really love him;<br />

disappears <strong>and</strong> becomes a commissar in the Red<br />

Army; meets Yurii in Varykino <strong>and</strong> commits suicide<br />

the next day<br />

Pavel Antipov Father of Pasha Chapter Two District manager of the railway who has dealings<br />

with strikers during the Revolution of 1905 <strong>and</strong><br />

goes into exile<br />

USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 2012–2013<br />

Shawnee Mission NW HS - Shawnee Mission, K


NAME OF THE<br />

CHARACTER<br />

CHARACTER’S<br />

FUNCTION IN<br />

THE NOVEL OR<br />

RELATIONSHIP<br />

TO OTHER<br />

CHARACTERS<br />

Tiverzin Friend of Pavel<br />

Antipov, worker<br />

on railroad<br />

Antonina<br />

(Tonia)<br />

Alex<strong>and</strong>rovna<br />

Zhivago (nee<br />

Gromeko)<br />

Shura<br />

Shlesinger<br />

Anna Ivanovna<br />

Gromeko<br />

Galiullin<br />

(referred to as<br />

Yusupka as a<br />

child)<br />

Mademoiselle<br />

Fleury<br />

Commissar<br />

Gints<br />

Pogorevshikh,<br />

a deaf mute<br />

Wife of Yurii<br />

Zhivago<br />

Friend of Tonia’s<br />

mother<br />

WHERE THE<br />

CHARACTER<br />

APPEARS OR IS<br />

MENTIONED DESCRIPTION OF THE CHARACTER<br />

Chapters Two,<br />

Three, Four, Six,<br />

Seven, Nine, Ten<br />

Chapters Two,<br />

Three, Four,<br />

Five, Six,<br />

Seven, Nine,<br />

Eleven, Twelve,<br />

Thirteen, Fifteen<br />

Chapters Two,<br />

Six<br />

A representative of the working class who protects<br />

Yusupka from being beaten by the manager of the<br />

railway workshop; strikes from the railway in the<br />

1905 Revolution; <strong>and</strong> takes in Pasha Antipov<br />

A daughter of wealthy parents who meets Yurii<br />

when he comes to live with her family; falls in<br />

love <strong>and</strong> marries him, bears him a son <strong>and</strong> later a<br />

daughter; is separated from him when Yurii is taken<br />

captive by the partisans; <strong>and</strong> is finally deported to<br />

Paris where she remains for the rest of the novel<br />

A woman who has been married several times<br />

<strong>and</strong>, as a Theosophist, follows a doctrine founded<br />

by Helena Blavatsky, which embraces mysticism,<br />

human perfectibility, <strong>and</strong> communion with the<br />

spirit world<br />

Mother of Tonia Chapter Three The mother of Tonia who is ill with pneumonia<br />

during the winter of the Sventitsky’s Christmas<br />

party; encourages Yurii <strong>and</strong> Tonia to marry <strong>and</strong> pronounces<br />

them engaged as they leave for the party;<br />

dies while Yurii <strong>and</strong> Tonia are at the party<br />

Acquaintance of<br />

Pasha Antipov,<br />

later a general in<br />

the White Army<br />

Formerly a<br />

governess in<br />

the home of a<br />

countess, which<br />

has been turned<br />

into a hospital<br />

<strong>and</strong> meets Yurii<br />

there<br />

A young official<br />

during the early<br />

stages of the<br />

1917 Revolution<br />

A mysterious<br />

character who<br />

seems to have<br />

the miraculous<br />

power of speech<br />

Chapters Four,<br />

Five, Six, Nine,<br />

Thirteen<br />

Chapters Five,<br />

Fifteen<br />

A counter-revolutionary who serves in same regiment<br />

as Antipov during World War I; thinks he<br />

sees Antipov killed; as a child named Yusupka, he<br />

is beaten by his supervisor Khudoleiev; lives with<br />

Tiverzin when Pasha Antipov lives there, fights in<br />

the White Army during the civil war on the opposite<br />

side from Antipov/Strelnikov; helps Lara <strong>and</strong> Yurii<br />

A former governess in a countess’s household who<br />

is already old in 1917 when she first meets Yurii,<br />

<strong>and</strong> very old in 1929 when she walks alongside the<br />

trolley where Yurii is a passenger, she looks at Yurii’s<br />

body when she passes the trolley, which has stopped<br />

following Yurii’s heart attack, but she does not recognize<br />

him or know that she has outlived him .<br />

Chapter Five A young Soviet official who comes to gather up rebels;<br />

gives an unpopular speech to the villagers who<br />

see him as a “squire”; is encouraged by the Cossack<br />

officers to leave; runs from Cossack soldiers <strong>and</strong><br />

villagers who chase him to a water barrel, where he<br />

tries to make another speech, but is shot to death<br />

when he slips<br />

Chapter Five A mysterious character revered by the villagers of<br />

Meliuzeievo; is on the train to Moscow with Yurii<br />

in 1917; admits to having played a role in setting<br />

up the failed republic of Zybushino; predicts more<br />

upheaval; <strong>and</strong> gives Yurii a duck wrapped up in a<br />

proclamation<br />

2012–2013 USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 47<br />

Shawnee Mission NW HS - Shawnee Mission, K


NAME OF THE<br />

CHARACTER<br />

48<br />

CHARACTER’S<br />

FUNCTION IN<br />

THE NOVEL OR<br />

RELATIONSHIP<br />

TO OTHER<br />

CHARACTERS<br />

Evgraf Zhivago Half brother of<br />

Yurii Zhivago,<br />

son of Andrei<br />

Zhivago <strong>and</strong> the<br />

Siberian Princess<br />

Stolbunova-<br />

Enrici<br />

Samdeviatov A Bolshevik<br />

whom Yurii<br />

meets on the<br />

way to Yuriatin<br />

Averkii<br />

Mikulitsyn<br />

Liberius<br />

Mikulitsyn<br />

Terentii<br />

Galuzin<br />

The estate<br />

manager for<br />

Varykino, the<br />

former property<br />

of Tonia’s<br />

gr<strong>and</strong>father<br />

Krueger<br />

A Bolshevik,<br />

leader of<br />

the Forest<br />

Brotherhood,<br />

son of Averkii<br />

Mikulitsyn<br />

Son of Vlas<br />

Galuzin, a<br />

shopkeeper<br />

Kubarikha A healer <strong>and</strong><br />

witch who<br />

follows the<br />

movements of<br />

the partisan<br />

camp<br />

Pamphil<br />

Palykh<br />

Marina<br />

Shchapova<br />

A member<br />

of the Forest<br />

Brotherhood<br />

partisan army<br />

Daughter of<br />

Markel Shchapov<br />

WHERE THE<br />

CHARACTER<br />

APPEARS OR IS<br />

MENTIONED DESCRIPTION OF THE CHARACTER<br />

Chapters Three,<br />

Six, Nine,<br />

Fifteen<br />

Chapters Eight,<br />

Nine, Thirteen,<br />

Fourteen<br />

Chapters Seven,<br />

Eight, Nine,<br />

Ten, Thirteen,<br />

Fourteen<br />

Chapters Nine,<br />

Ten, Eleven<br />

Chapters Ten,<br />

Eleven, Twelve,<br />

Thirteen<br />

Chapters Ten,<br />

Twelve<br />

Chapters Five<br />

(anonymously),<br />

Eleven, Twelve<br />

Yurii’s half-brother who first appears in a building<br />

Yurii enters as the revolution begins; described as a<br />

boy with “narrow Kirghiz eyes” 105 ; mystically reappears<br />

at points in the narrative when Yurii <strong>and</strong> Lara<br />

need help; works with Lara on Yurii’s papers <strong>and</strong><br />

publications after Yurii’s death<br />

A revolutionary who helps Yurii during both times<br />

he retreats to Varykino<br />

The manager of the estate at Varykino; at first very<br />

reluctant to allow Yurii <strong>and</strong> Tonia to live on the<br />

Varykino estate, where they retreat from Moscow,<br />

but later relents <strong>and</strong> allows them to stay<br />

A leader in the partisan army, the Forest<br />

Brotherhood, while Yurii is a captive in the camp;<br />

likes Yurii <strong>and</strong> draws him into an enforced companionship<br />

which Yurii utterly despises<br />

A villainous character who seems to lead a charmed<br />

life; escapes execution in the camp of the Forest<br />

Brotherhood, only to face execution when the Red<br />

Army orders him run over by a train<br />

A witch <strong>and</strong> seer to whom Palykh’s wife comes to<br />

ask for a cure for her cow <strong>and</strong> for a way to manage<br />

her husb<strong>and</strong>’s extreme anxiety about their safety;<br />

she sings a symbolic folk song about the rowan tree<br />

<strong>and</strong> seems to have mystical knowledge .<br />

A soldier described as a monstrous figure who is<br />

almost bestial; suffers from depression in the camp<br />

of the Forest Brotherhood; is terrified that the<br />

White Army will capture <strong>and</strong> torture his family;<br />

kills his family with his axe <strong>and</strong> eventually disappears<br />

from the camp<br />

Chapter Fifteen A young woman <strong>and</strong> daughter of a former servant<br />

in the Gromeko household who cleans for Yurii in<br />

the last years of his life; becomes Yurii’s mistress<br />

<strong>and</strong> bears him two children<br />

USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 2012–2013<br />

Shawnee Mission NW HS - Shawnee Mission, K


Form, Plot, <strong>and</strong> Genre<br />

Association by Contiguity<br />

The formal principle of plotting in the novel operates<br />

as the circumstantial intersection of characters<br />

in space <strong>and</strong> time . Pasternak delights in introducing<br />

characters without names who take on great importance<br />

<strong>and</strong> are fully introduced later in the narrative,<br />

as well as characters who interact in ways that they do<br />

not or cannot know at the time but whose signification<br />

the narrator does know <strong>and</strong> shares with the reader . As<br />

Larissa Rudova observes, “[t]he fragmented surface of<br />

Pasternak’s fiction is the result of his extensive use of<br />

metonymy .” 106 In following the work of critic Roman<br />

Jakobson, who identified two modes of artistic expression<br />

as metaphor <strong>and</strong> metonymy, Rudova illuminates<br />

Pasternak’s practice of plotting through association by<br />

contiguity—or the attribute of one item being next to<br />

another—rather than through similarity, contrast, or<br />

causality . The concept of metonymy, which is often<br />

defined as the representation of a part for the whole, is<br />

exp<strong>and</strong>ed in the work of Jakobson to represent contiguity,<br />

or connection through the sequencing of one item<br />

with another .<br />

Yurii’s half-brother, Evgraf, for example, is introduced<br />

in Chapter Six only as a boy with “narrow Kirghiz eyes”<br />

(193)—in essence, both a part for the whole of his character<br />

<strong>and</strong> a refrain which underscores his contiguous<br />

placement with Yurii by relationship as well as through<br />

sheer coincidence . Yurii notices him but doesn’t have<br />

any idea who he is; Evgraf, though, seems to know<br />

Yurii, but Yurii rejects Evgraf’s effort to speak to him .<br />

Yurii cannot know at this point in the narrative how<br />

important a role Evgraf will play in his life .<br />

Furthermore, Yurii is thrown into contact with Lara<br />

long before they become lovers, for Yurii is present in<br />

the hotel room in the aftermath of Lara’s mother’s<br />

attempt at suicide in early 1906 . These are but two<br />

examples of many more which orchestrate the interactions<br />

of characters across the sweep of the narrative .<br />

In an important interview with Russian critic Roman<br />

Jakobson, Krystyna Pomorska aligns Jakobson’s views<br />

on history with Pasternak’s evolving poetics of plot <strong>and</strong><br />

narrative:<br />

Pasternak raised the question of the immanent<br />

forces in history that are conditioned by the<br />

mutual relations between the ‘particular’ <strong>and</strong><br />

the ‘general’; he rejects the sterile schema of<br />

causal ties into which some would like to force<br />

all the phenomena of life, while life inexorably<br />

overflows this schema as it would a narrow <strong>and</strong><br />

inadequate container . In place of a causal chain<br />

of determined states, the poet advances the rule<br />

of coincidence of circumstances <strong>and</strong> makes the<br />

historical <strong>and</strong> psychological principles overlap<br />

in their function: both equally disarm man in<br />

the face of the imposed <strong>and</strong> arbitrary schema of<br />

causality . 107<br />

Furthermore, as the foregoing detailed summary of the<br />

plot <strong>and</strong> the table outlining the most memorable characters<br />

suggests, Doctor Zhivago was clearly planned as<br />

a broad narrative canvas with a large cast of characters .<br />

Pasternak wrote in 1952:<br />

I must forge ahead <strong>and</strong> step across to a world that<br />

will give me a unifying idea for all these trivial<br />

attempts; I need to do something in life; I need to<br />

write a story about life that brings out something<br />

new about life, a discovery or a conquest; I need<br />

to build a house for which all this poorly written<br />

verse can be the window frames . 108<br />

His expressed intention, both here <strong>and</strong> elsewhere, was<br />

the composition of a novel, especially a novel conceived<br />

in the epic form of Tolstoy’s War <strong>and</strong> Peace (1869) .<br />

The Influence of Tolstoy<br />

While one of his most immediate ancestors for the<br />

construction of novelistic form is clearly Tolstoy,<br />

Pasternak does not choose to reproduce Tolstoy’s<br />

nineteenth-century realism, but rather to produce a<br />

work of epic structure that would include elements<br />

of symbolism, mysticism, religion, <strong>and</strong> coincidental<br />

conjunction . Tolstoy’s magisterial novel, which will<br />

be described in more detail in the section on Tolstoy<br />

later in the resource guide, captures the history of<br />

Russia at a catastrophic moment in its formation—<br />

during the Napoleonic era <strong>and</strong> the events leading up to<br />

Napoleon’s invasion of Russia . The novel introduces a<br />

large number of characters but centers on five Russian<br />

aristocratic families <strong>and</strong> the impact on their lives at<br />

the moment of crisis . Despite the vastness of its epic<br />

canvas, War <strong>and</strong> Peace focuses, as does Pasternak’s<br />

novel, on the role of the individual within history .<br />

Yurii Zhivago as Odysseus<br />

In addition to Tolstoy’s novel, Doctor Zhivago includes<br />

echoes of several major epics in world literature,<br />

including, of course, Homer’s The Odyssey, Virgil’s<br />

The Aeneid, <strong>and</strong> Dante’s The Divine Comedy . Like<br />

the w<strong>and</strong>erings of Homer’s Odysseus in his efforts<br />

to return home, Yurii Zhivago w<strong>and</strong>ers back <strong>and</strong><br />

forth across Russia . Many of Odysseus’ experiences<br />

resemble similar incidents in Yurii’s life; for example,<br />

Odysseus’ enchantment by the witch Circe finds its<br />

analogy in the incident with the witch Kubarikha in<br />

the countryside near Yuriatin as she casts spells over<br />

a cow for Pamphil Palykh’s wife . Odysseus’ struggles<br />

to evade Scylla <strong>and</strong> Charybdis suggest Yurii’s efforts<br />

to escape the growing dangers as the Bolsheviks take<br />

over the country . Furthermore, the interference of<br />

the Greek anthropomorphic gods who help or impede<br />

Odysseus suggest the mysterious, almost magical,<br />

appearances of characters like Yurii’s half-brother<br />

2012–2013 USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 49<br />

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50<br />

Film still of Yurii Zhivago (Omar Sharif)<br />

from the 1965 film of Doctor Zhivago.<br />

Evgraf at moments in the narrative when Yurii could<br />

use his help, or Samdeviatov, another benign character<br />

who provides Yurii <strong>and</strong> his family with assistance <strong>and</strong><br />

food at Varykino .<br />

As a hero cast in the mold of Odysseus, however, Yurii<br />

would surely fail . He does not return home a conquering<br />

hero at the conclusion of his epic adventures but<br />

instead exits a tram, where he feels he’s suffocating,<br />

<strong>and</strong> dies on a Moscow sidewalk . However, the end of<br />

Yurii is not the end of the novel, as is indicated by the<br />

epilogue <strong>and</strong> the chapter containing Yurii’s poems .<br />

Thus, if Yurii is heroic, it is not through his heroic<br />

actions but rather through his poetry, which lives on<br />

after him <strong>and</strong> changes the lives of those friends who<br />

survive him . Yurii’s return home is finally to the coffin<br />

in the room where Pasha Antipov lived many years<br />

before; his body is covered by the weeping body of Lara,<br />

the woman who made him feel at home <strong>and</strong> who, in<br />

mourning him, resurrects him in her memory . If w<strong>and</strong>ering<br />

in search of a way to return home is a major<br />

theme of The Odyssey, that theme is re-invented in the<br />

narrative of Yurii Zhivago’s life .<br />

Influence of The Aeneid <strong>and</strong> Moscow<br />

as the “Third Rome”<br />

In reminding the reader repeatedly of the Roman<br />

Empire, Pasternak also clearly recalls The Aeneid in<br />

the background of his work . Yurii’s uncle Nikolai, for<br />

example, reflects upon Rome as a place where “[t]hey<br />

had blood <strong>and</strong> beastliness <strong>and</strong> cruelty <strong>and</strong> pockmarked<br />

Caligulas who had no idea of how inferior the system<br />

of slavery is . They had the boastful dead eternity of<br />

bronze monuments <strong>and</strong> marble columns” (10) . The<br />

tyrannical rule of Rome is echoed in Russia through the<br />

unmistakable reference to Stalin, whose face was heavily<br />

scarred by pockmarks, as one of the “pockmarked<br />

Caligulas .” 109 And the “holy city” (519) of Moscow<br />

would seem, by the time Pasternak wrote his novel, to<br />

have fulfilled its boast to be the “third Rome…a vast<br />

imperial state founded on absolute centralized authority<br />

<strong>and</strong> internal ideological conformity .” 110<br />

So Rome was much on Pasternak’s mind as he fashioned<br />

his epic; but in tension with the notion of the<br />

foundation of an imperialist state, is the clear allusion<br />

to Virgil’s Aeneas as the single individual through<br />

whom the myth <strong>and</strong> history of a people can be founded<br />

. Virgil’s epic explicitly creates a national myth for<br />

the foundation of the Roman Empire as Aeneas flees<br />

Troy after the Greeks sack the city, bringing the Trojan<br />

War to an end . Aeneas, like Odysseus, is beset by travails<br />

as he dutifully sets out to accomplish the mission<br />

given to him by the gods: to found a new city <strong>and</strong> a<br />

new nation, which will become Rome . When Aeneas<br />

descends into the underworld, he must speak with<br />

the dead to be reconfirmed in his destiny to found a<br />

new state . In Pasternak’s version, Yurii escapes from<br />

the “underworld” of the camp of the partisan Forest<br />

Brotherhood <strong>and</strong> the tyrannical Liberius Mikulitsyn .<br />

This escape, with the rowan tree serving as its central<br />

symbol of inspiration <strong>and</strong> of Lara, frees Yurii to fulfill<br />

his calling as a poet, unleashing his power to write during<br />

the brief interlude with Lara in Varykino .<br />

References to Christianity<br />

Lastly, Doctor Zhivago, with its numerous references<br />

to Christianity, echoes the quest of Renaissance poet<br />

Dante Alighieri, who sought the meaning of life <strong>and</strong><br />

death <strong>and</strong> the right way to salvation in his Divine<br />

Comedy . Similar to Dante’s Beatrice, Yurii’s Lara<br />

serves as his muse <strong>and</strong> poetic inspiration; but unlike<br />

Dante, who travels through his imaginary Inferno,<br />

Purgatorio, <strong>and</strong> Paradiso to complete his quest in<br />

the vision of divine beauty, Yurii seems stuck in his<br />

inferno, the aftermath of Russian civil war . Pasternak<br />

provides a clear paraphrase of Dante’s sense of being<br />

lost in the dark forest of the world at the beginning<br />

of his epic quest through the afterlife . Yurii feels in<br />

the foreboding that ensues on the thirteenth day of<br />

his return to Varykino with Lara, that “[he] felt as if<br />

he were st<strong>and</strong>ing late at night in the dark forest of his<br />

life” (444) . Yurii’s personal vision, as his life comes<br />

to an end, is only partial; for greater underst<strong>and</strong>ing<br />

<strong>and</strong> expansion of that vision, the reader must look for<br />

Yurii’s resurrection in his poems .<br />

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Narrative Point of View,<br />

Setting, <strong>and</strong> Imagery<br />

Narrative Point of View<br />

The controlling voice, or narrative point of view is<br />

that of the omniscient author, a persona for Pasternak<br />

himself, the lover of nature, the city, <strong>and</strong> poetry, whose<br />

lyricism frequently breaks through the narrative . The<br />

omniscient author is able to move about at will, following<br />

various characters as the narrative advances,<br />

<strong>and</strong> entering their thoughts . Yurii, of course, as the<br />

central protagonist is also the center of the omniscient<br />

author’s attention . As an all-knowing creator, the<br />

omniscient author can tell the reader of those events<br />

yet to happen in the future <strong>and</strong> can make known his<br />

presence <strong>and</strong> his power to manipulate time in this<br />

artificial reality:<br />

All these people [Yurii, Lara, Gordon, among others]<br />

were there together, in one place . But some<br />

of them had never known each other, while others<br />

failed to recognize each other now . And there<br />

were things about them which were never to<br />

be known for certain, while others were not to<br />

be revealed until a future time, a later meeting<br />

(118) .<br />

This example of prolepsis, or advancing of the narrative<br />

momentarily into the future, clearly reveals the<br />

power of the omniscient narrator over events occurring<br />

in the present time as well as those that will transpire<br />

in the future .<br />

Setting, Nature, <strong>and</strong> Imagery in the Depiction<br />

of the Russian Pastoral L<strong>and</strong>scape<br />

Pasternak emerged early in his career as a pastoral<br />

poet, <strong>and</strong> he excels in his novel in the moments when<br />

the narrator’s voice or Yurii’s consciousness is filled to<br />

bursting with the beauty of nature . As Lara is meant<br />

to be Yurii’s inspiration, she must respond to nature<br />

as he does:<br />

Lara walked along the tracks following a path<br />

worn by pilgrims <strong>and</strong> then turned into the fields .<br />

Here she stopped <strong>and</strong>, closing her eyes, took a<br />

deep breath of the flower-scented air of the broad<br />

expanse around her . It was dearer to her than her<br />

kin, better than a lover, wiser than a book . For a<br />

moment she rediscovered the purpose of her life .<br />

She was here on earth to grasp the meaning of its<br />

wild enchantment <strong>and</strong> to call each thing by its<br />

right name, or, if this were not within her power,<br />

to give birth out of love for life to successors who<br />

would do it in her place (75) .<br />

Lara does give birth to the poet in Yurii during their<br />

semi-idyllic stay in Varykino .<br />

In the narrator’s, <strong>and</strong> by extension, Yurii’s, vision of<br />

nature, nature can overwhelm the soul even in the<br />

midst of civil war, so in the ignominy of the partisan<br />

camp:<br />

In a moment the broad expanse of the earth was<br />

covered with a white blanket . The next minute,<br />

the white blanket was consumed, melted<br />

completely, <strong>and</strong> the earth emerged as black as<br />

coal under the black sky splashed with slanting<br />

streaks of distant showers . The earth could<br />

not absorb any more water . Then the clouds<br />

would part like windows, as though to air the<br />

sky, which shimmered with a cold, glassy white<br />

brilliance . The stagnant, unabsorbed water on<br />

the ground responded by opening the windows<br />

of its pools <strong>and</strong> puddles, shimmering with the<br />

same brilliance . The vapors skidded like smoke<br />

over the pine woods; their resinous needles were<br />

as waterproof as oilcloth . Raindrops were strung<br />

on the telegraph wires like beads one next to the<br />

other without ever falling (360) .<br />

This passage performs several poetic operations <strong>and</strong><br />

offers brilliant visual imagery . It balances the visual<br />

contrast between coal black earth with white snow <strong>and</strong><br />

clouds <strong>and</strong> offers the image of mirroring through the<br />

description of pools on earth with windows of air in<br />

the sky . It suggests that the rush of water is like the<br />

rush of inspiration, <strong>and</strong> transforms a faint hint of the<br />

mechanization of society in turning the telegraph wire<br />

into a vision of nature’s string of raindrop beads .<br />

During his escape from the partisan camp, Yurii reaches<br />

the rowan tree, which becomes not only a metaphor<br />

for, but also a symbol of, Lara <strong>and</strong> the inspiration to<br />

write that she provides:<br />

The footpath brought the doctor to the foot of the<br />

rowan tree, whose name he had just spoken . It<br />

was half in snow, half in frozen leaves <strong>and</strong> berries,<br />

<strong>and</strong> it held out two white branches toward<br />

him . He remembered Lara’s strong white arms<br />

<strong>and</strong> seized the branches <strong>and</strong> pulled them to him .<br />

As if in answer, the tree shook snow all over him .<br />

He muttered without realizing what he was saying,<br />

<strong>and</strong> completely beside himself: “I’ll find you,<br />

my beauty, my love, my rowan tree, my own<br />

flesh <strong>and</strong> blood (375) .<br />

Flesh <strong>and</strong> blood are echoed <strong>and</strong> imaged in the red of the<br />

rowan berries <strong>and</strong> the whiteness of the tree’s branches,<br />

<strong>and</strong> Lara’s form is embodied, in Yurii’s poetic imagination<br />

in the tree .<br />

At Varykino with the sleeping Lara in the next room,<br />

Yurii feels himself possessed by poetry:<br />

Then, like the current of a mighty river polishing<br />

stones <strong>and</strong> turning wheels by its very movement,<br />

the flow of speech creates in passing, by virtue<br />

of its own laws, meter <strong>and</strong> rhythm <strong>and</strong> countless<br />

other relationships, which are even more<br />

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important, but which are as yet unexplored,<br />

insufficiently recognized, <strong>and</strong> unnamed (437) .<br />

The poetry is formed by the power of nature <strong>and</strong><br />

becomes itself a force of nature as Yurii writes .<br />

52<br />

Film still of Yurii (Omar Sharif) <strong>and</strong> Lara (Julie Christie) from the 1965 film of Doctor Zhivago.<br />

Setting <strong>and</strong> Motion: The Trains<br />

Motion, often depicted through movement on trains<br />

<strong>and</strong> trams throughout the novel, is balanced with stasis<br />

as trains continually break down <strong>and</strong> sit stalled on<br />

the tracks or blocked by snow . The first chapter, “The<br />

Five-O’clock Express,” takes its title from the train<br />

that stops when Yurii’s father, Andrei Zhivago jumps<br />

to his death . Its very title offers the ironic contrast<br />

between the train as an “express” <strong>and</strong> the train which<br />

is stationary, having made an unscheduled stop in the<br />

wake of a passenger’s suicide . And the scene of Yurii’s<br />

own death as he exits a trolley serves as an ending to<br />

frame his father’s death early in the novel .<br />

Trains, trams, railways, rail tracks appear or are mentioned<br />

in ten of the sixteen chapters of narration .<br />

Trains naturally suggest motion <strong>and</strong> increased speed<br />

over more antiquated modes of travel like sleigh or<br />

carriage across the vast expanses of Russia . However,<br />

trains in this novel frequently stop or don’t run at<br />

all—so the speed of progression appears to be slowed .<br />

For example, as Yurii <strong>and</strong> Tonia flee to Varykino from<br />

Moscow, they spend days on a train filled with passengers<br />

<strong>and</strong> conscripts that stops at numerous village<br />

depots where Yurii can observe the impact of a raging<br />

civil war on the countryside, <strong>and</strong> the passengers<br />

remain snowbound for days as they shovel snow to<br />

clear the tracks .<br />

By contrast, Yurii <strong>and</strong> Lara travel to Varykino from<br />

Yuriatin by sleigh, where they’re more at one with the<br />

snowy l<strong>and</strong>scape, laughing <strong>and</strong> overturning the sleigh<br />

on purpose as they go . The trains, so often associated<br />

with the movement of troops to <strong>and</strong> from the front<br />

<strong>and</strong> the movement of citizens fleeing civil war, come<br />

to represent the mechanization of an increasingly<br />

dysfunctional government, forcing its people into a<br />

communist, totalitarian society . The train moves like<br />

the revolution, unevenly; at one point, Yurii even sees<br />

the movement of the train or the tram as the very symbol<br />

of the revolution:<br />

USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 2012–2013<br />

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Film still of Yurii (Omar Sharif) <strong>and</strong> Tonia (Geraldine Chaplin) from the 1965 film Doctor Zhivago.<br />

This new thing, this marvel of history, this revelation,<br />

is exploded into the very thick of daily<br />

life without the slightest consideration for its<br />

course . It doesn’t start at the beginning, it starts<br />

in the middle, without any schedule, on the first<br />

weekday that comes along, while the traffic in<br />

the street is at its height (195) .<br />

But the trains also act to link the country with the city .<br />

Out of the windows of trains, the characters watch<br />

the countryside pass <strong>and</strong> witness both villages where<br />

the peasants are thriving <strong>and</strong> those where the houses<br />

<strong>and</strong> businesses have been burned out by civil war . The<br />

countryside <strong>and</strong> remote villages serve as the place to<br />

hide before the Bolshevik government accomplishes its<br />

sweep into rural areas to chase <strong>and</strong> defeat the White<br />

Army .<br />

Setting <strong>and</strong> the City: Moscow<br />

In the “Epilogue” of the novel, Dudorov <strong>and</strong> Gordon<br />

think of the role that Moscow has played in Yurii’s<br />

story <strong>and</strong> the history of Russia:<br />

And Moscow, right below them <strong>and</strong> stretching<br />

into the distance…Moscow now struck them<br />

not as the stage of the events connected with<br />

him but as the main protagonist of a long story,<br />

the end of which they had reached that evening,<br />

book in h<strong>and</strong>… . To the two old friends, as they<br />

sat by the window, it seemed that this freedom of<br />

the soul was already there, as if that very evening<br />

the future had tangibly moved into the streets<br />

below them, that they themselves had entered<br />

it <strong>and</strong> were now part of it . Thinking of this holy<br />

city <strong>and</strong> of the entire earth…they were filled with<br />

tenderness <strong>and</strong> peace, <strong>and</strong> they were enveloped<br />

by the unheard music of happiness that flowed<br />

all about them <strong>and</strong> into the distance . And the<br />

book they held seemed to confirm <strong>and</strong> encourage<br />

their feeling (519) .<br />

In the most recent translation of the novel, Moscow is<br />

not the sexless “protagonist” but the “heroine of a long<br />

story,” 111 a rendering that does match the gender of the<br />

Russian original more faithfully . Moscow, the holy city<br />

of “mother Russia,” is the center of Yurii Zhivago’s<br />

life from childhood through death . He attends his<br />

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mother’s funeral in a Moscow cemetery <strong>and</strong> dies on<br />

a Moscow sidewalk . He spends all of his adolescence<br />

<strong>and</strong> the early days of his marriage in the city, <strong>and</strong> he<br />

returns to the city when he relinquishes his relationship<br />

with Lara . The city, with its enormous populace,<br />

serves as the natural hub for revolution, but there<br />

is also a tension between what might be seen as the<br />

boorishness of the peasant countryside contrasted with<br />

the richness of an urban culture . In fact, Yurii does<br />

ultimately reject the notion of a complete return to the<br />

l<strong>and</strong>, finally ab<strong>and</strong>oning Varykino to find his way back<br />

to Moscow after Lara leaves with Komarovsky .<br />

Another indication of the overwhelming presence of<br />

an eternal Moscow lies in the fact that virtually all of<br />

the towns <strong>and</strong> places in the country, like Yuriatin <strong>and</strong><br />

Meliuzeievo, are fictitious, while the names of “streets,<br />

cultural institutions, <strong>and</strong> l<strong>and</strong>marks” 112 are true to<br />

the Moscow of the time of the narrative . In fact, the<br />

Moscow of Pasternak’s novel is not the Moscow of<br />

Stalin, for even the street names are those of the earlier,<br />

pre-Soviet era <strong>and</strong> not those which later replaced<br />

the original names in Stalin’s regime . 113 The narrative<br />

itself leaves Stalinist Russia largely out of the text,<br />

ignoring the 1930s <strong>and</strong> the period between 1943 <strong>and</strong><br />

approximately 1953, <strong>and</strong> concludes when Stalin’s dictatorship<br />

ends . In the dual consciousnesses of Dudorov<br />

<strong>and</strong> Gordon at the beginning of the Epilogue, the<br />

narrative insists upon the survival of Yurii Zhivago’s<br />

poetry in the survival of “the timeless spirit of Moscow<br />

itself .” 114<br />

Symbolism <strong>and</strong> Theme<br />

Life, Death, <strong>and</strong> the Nature of Art<br />

The overarching theme that pervades Doctor Zhivago<br />

is the novel’s prolonged meditation on the meaning of<br />

life, death, <strong>and</strong> art . As a young man following Anna<br />

Ivanovna Gromeko’s funeral <strong>and</strong> burial in the same<br />

cemetery where his mother was buried, for example,<br />

Yurii walks off alone <strong>and</strong> begins to think about death:<br />

He was drawn, as irresistibly as water funneling<br />

downward, to dream, to think, to work out new<br />

forms, to create beauty . More vividly than ever<br />

before he realized that art has two constant, two<br />

unending concerns: it always meditates on death<br />

<strong>and</strong> thus always creates life (89–90) .<br />

This provocative quotation, so often cited by the novel’s<br />

critics as an example of theme, sets the scene for<br />

the growth of the artist in the contemplation of death<br />

<strong>and</strong> life <strong>and</strong> underscores the symbolism of naming<br />

Zhivago with a word whose root in Russian, “zhiv,”<br />

means “life .” In the continuation of the quote above,<br />

Yurii thinks that he will write a poem about the funeral<br />

of Anna Ivanovna <strong>and</strong> echo that other funeral “in the<br />

place where, many years ago, the blizzard had raged<br />

<strong>and</strong> he had wept as a child” (90) . The poem he writes<br />

much later grows far beyond his earlier conception;<br />

54<br />

Photograph of Boris Pasternak at work on a manuscript.<br />

“Holy Week” is a poem that evokes the burial of Christ,<br />

<strong>and</strong>, as nature itself watches the funeral procession,<br />

spring arrives with the sounds of sobbing <strong>and</strong> singing:<br />

And when the midnight comes<br />

All creatures <strong>and</strong> all flesh will fall silent<br />

On hearing spring put forth its rumor<br />

That just as soon as there is better weather<br />

Death itself can be overcome<br />

Through the power of the Resurrection (526) .<br />

At the same moment in the narrative following<br />

Anna Ivanovna’s burial, Yurii had reached another,<br />

related, epiphany about the power of the Resurrection:<br />

“All great, genuine art resembles <strong>and</strong> continues the<br />

Revelation of St . John” (90) .<br />

Predestination <strong>and</strong> Coincidence<br />

The deeply religious spirit that pervades Pasternak’s<br />

novel <strong>and</strong> its poetry constantly insists upon <strong>and</strong> reinforces<br />

the belief in resurrection, especially inflected in<br />

this work as the resurrection of the human spirit in<br />

poetry . And life in this world of Pasternak’s construction<br />

is guided by predestination <strong>and</strong> inevitability . Fate<br />

rules the world of Yurii Zhivago . As he nears the end<br />

of his life on the trolley, he thinks about people whose<br />

lives run parallel—about how some may overtake <strong>and</strong><br />

survive others, “Something like a theory of relativity<br />

governing the hippodrome of life occurred to him, but<br />

he became confused <strong>and</strong> gave up his analogies” (490) .<br />

The concept of life as a “hippodrome,” a race concourse,<br />

an arena, a circus, further advances the notion<br />

of its containment within a pre-ordained pattern in<br />

which r<strong>and</strong>omness seems to prevail, but is instead<br />

controlled .<br />

In his diary in the first episode in Varykino, Yurii<br />

wrote:<br />

USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 2012–2013<br />

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Every man is born a Faust, with a longing to<br />

grasp <strong>and</strong> experience <strong>and</strong> express everything in<br />

the world (284) .<br />

In recalling Goethe’s115 endlessly questing human spirit,<br />

Pasternak highlights the driving desire of the human<br />

spirit to know, to penetrate the mysteries of the universe<br />

. However, in Pasternak’s universe, a greater force<br />

is always at work guiding human destiny—the principle<br />

of coincidence operates as the engine driving the<br />

plot . Among key elements that underscore this notion<br />

that what appears coincidental is, in fact, preordained,<br />

two st<strong>and</strong> out: 1) the c<strong>and</strong>le burning in the window as<br />

an important motif which insinuates a fore-ordained<br />

meeting of Yurii <strong>and</strong> Lara; <strong>and</strong> 2) the mysterious <strong>and</strong><br />

fateful appearances of Yurii’s half-brother Evgraf .<br />

The c<strong>and</strong>le burning in the window first appears in<br />

Chapter Three, when, on the way to the Sventitsky’s<br />

Christmas party, Yurii sees a c<strong>and</strong>le burning in a window<br />

but does not know that in that room, Lara <strong>and</strong><br />

Pasha sit talking just before Lara sets out to dem<strong>and</strong><br />

money from Komarovsky or shoot him . Yurii will see<br />

Lara at the Christmas party shortly after her attempt<br />

on Komarovsky’s life . Their paths continuously cross<br />

from the moment after Lara’s mother’s suicide until<br />

Lara arrives to mourn Yurii’s death in the room where<br />

she <strong>and</strong> Pasha spoke all those years ago <strong>and</strong> in which a<br />

c<strong>and</strong>le now burns to commemorate Yurii’s death .<br />

With Yurii’s body in that room, Lara remembers only<br />

“the c<strong>and</strong>le burning on the window sill <strong>and</strong> melting a<br />

round patch in the icy crust on the glass” (500) . Could<br />

she have known, the omniscient narrator asks, that<br />

Yurii had seen that c<strong>and</strong>le as he drove past “<strong>and</strong> that<br />

from the moment of his seeing its light from the street<br />

(‘A c<strong>and</strong>le burned on the table, a c<strong>and</strong>le burned…’) his<br />

life took its fatal course?” (500) . In a direct quotation<br />

from the poem “Winter Night,” which appears in the<br />

last chapter of the novel, the narrator highlights the<br />

intricate relationships between the poetry <strong>and</strong> the narrative<br />

of Yurii’s life .<br />

As the poem opens:<br />

It snowed <strong>and</strong> snowed, the whole world over,<br />

Snow swept the world from end to end .<br />

A c<strong>and</strong>le burned on the table;<br />

A c<strong>and</strong>le burned (542) .<br />

The fourth stanza makes explicit the principle of<br />

crossed destinies that the novel constructs:<br />

Distorted shadows fell<br />

Upon the lighted ceiling:<br />

Shadows of crossed arms, of crossed legs—<br />

Of crossed destiny .<br />

And the seventh stanza hints at the mingling of the<br />

star-crossed lovers in connection with the cross they<br />

will bear as a result:<br />

A corner draft fluttered the flame<br />

And the white fever of temptation<br />

Upswept its angel wings that cast<br />

A cruciform shadow .<br />

In fact, both original pairs of lovers are star-crossed—<br />

Tonia <strong>and</strong> Yurii, Lara <strong>and</strong> Pasha; but once the pairing<br />

changes to Yurii <strong>and</strong> Lara, they are even more so . Yurii<br />

himself refers to Shakespeare’s Romeo <strong>and</strong> Juliet, connecting<br />

himself to Pasha as “‘One writ with me in sour<br />

misfortune’s book’” (401) . In Act V of Shakespeare’s<br />

play, Romeo kills Paris, the man who was to have<br />

married Juliet, at the site of her tomb, <strong>and</strong>, as he lays<br />

Paris’s body in the tomb, he voices this recognition of<br />

their connection over the body of Juliet . 116<br />

As Pasha Antipov is certainly an alter ego or even<br />

negative double for Yurii, his brother Evgraf is, in a<br />

sense, Yurii’s shadow . Evgraf’s appearances are bound<br />

with both life-giving aid <strong>and</strong> premonitions of death . In<br />

a conversation with Anna Ivanovna <strong>and</strong> Tonia, Yurii<br />

mentions his half-brother Evgraf, the ten-year-old son<br />

of an eccentric Siberian princess . Most striking about<br />

this revelation, though, is Yurii’s description of a photograph<br />

of the princess’ house, presumably the house<br />

in which Evgraf lives:<br />

And recently I’ve been having the feeling that the<br />

house was staring at me nastily, out of all its five<br />

windows, right across all the thous<strong>and</strong>s of miles<br />

between Siberia <strong>and</strong> Moscow, <strong>and</strong> that sooner or<br />

later it would give me the evil eye (70) .<br />

<strong>Lit</strong>erally, Yurii uses this feeling of foreboding to validate<br />

his decision to refuse his father’s legacy, but in<br />

describing the house <strong>and</strong> its evil eye as a metaphor for<br />

Evgraf, Yurii unwittingly links his half-brother to his<br />

own destiny .<br />

When Evgraf appears next in the text, Yurii sees him in<br />

the lobby of a building in Moscow:<br />

Before him stood a boy of about eighteen in a<br />

reindeer cap <strong>and</strong> a stiff reindeer coat worn, as in<br />

Siberia, fur side out . He was dark <strong>and</strong> had narrow<br />

Kirghiz eyes (193) .<br />

The connection of Kirghiz eyes to Siberia <strong>and</strong> the<br />

house with the evil eye is clear, <strong>and</strong>, in fact, once Yurii<br />

succumbs to typhus shortly after, he thinks of this boy<br />

in his delirium when, in his efforts to write:<br />

Only now <strong>and</strong> then a boy got in his way, a boy<br />

with narrow Kirghiz eyes in an unbuttoned reindeer<br />

coat worn fur side out, as in the Urals or<br />

Siberia . He knew for certain that this boy was the<br />

spirit of his death, or, to put it quite plainly, that<br />

he was his death . Yet how could he be his death<br />

if he was helping him to write a poem? (207) .<br />

Later, when he recovers, Yurii learns that Evgraf has<br />

been providing his family with food throughout his illness<br />

. During his first stay in Varykino, Evgraf appears<br />

to help once again . Near the end of Yurii’s life, Evgraf<br />

appears again “quite unexpectedly,” (486) or as Pevear<br />

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<strong>and</strong> Volokhonsky’s translation puts it: “As usual, he<br />

dropped from the sky… .” Evgraf helps Yurii drop out of<br />

sight <strong>and</strong> finds the room for him on Kamerger Street<br />

where Pasha Antipov once lived . After Yurii’s death,<br />

Evgraf plays an even more important role in preserving<br />

his legacy—his poetry <strong>and</strong> his daughter with Lara .<br />

The Inevitability of the Russian<br />

Revolution: The Force of<br />

Conformism, Christianity,<br />

<strong>and</strong> the Individual as Artist<br />

Evgraf’s role in the narrative is deliberately left vague,<br />

but there is the distinct impression that he is well<br />

connected with governmental power, as he flourishes<br />

with the establishment of communist rule . Perhaps<br />

the most important instance of predestination at work<br />

in the novel is the inevitable presence of the Russian<br />

Revolution as the broad canvas on which the characters<br />

are positioned <strong>and</strong> painted .<br />

In terms of Pasternak’s own literary allusions, if<br />

Zhivago, like every man, is a “Faust,” then the<br />

Bolsheviks are his “Mephistophelean” antagonists .<br />

Even before the civil war, Yurii senses that dictatorial<br />

power is beginning to take over Russia, “men of<br />

iron will in black leather jackets, armed with means<br />

of intimidation <strong>and</strong> guns” (196) had become commissars<br />

. “They knew the slinking bourgeois breed…<strong>and</strong><br />

they spoke to them without the slightest pity <strong>and</strong> with<br />

Mephistophelean smiles… .” (196) .<br />

The chapter which announces the beginning of the<br />

revolution is entitled “The Hour of the Inevitable .” So<br />

the revolution is conceived of as a moment in history<br />

whose time had now <strong>and</strong> would always come . The<br />

“men of iron will” echo the depiction of Strelnikov,<br />

the man whom Pasha Antipov becomes . Though not a<br />

member of the Communist Party, Strelnikov symbolizes<br />

the faceless abstraction of a revolution insisting<br />

upon lockstep conformity . Lara remarks that when<br />

she found him in Meliuzeievo, “It was as if something<br />

abstract had crept into this face <strong>and</strong> made it colorless .<br />

As if a living human face had become an embodiment<br />

of a principle, the image of an idea” (401) .<br />

Yurii utterly rejects such objectification of the human<br />

spirit . Strelnikov himself is not safe from the forces<br />

he has embraced, <strong>and</strong> he commits suicide in Varykino<br />

after his long talk with Yurii . “It was the disease,” the<br />

narrator suggests about Strelnikov’s need to unburden<br />

himself to Yurii, “the revolutionary madness of the age,<br />

that at heart everyone was different from his outward<br />

appearance <strong>and</strong> his words . No one had a clear conscience”<br />

(457) . Before the night ends, Strelnikov points<br />

out that Yurii could not underst<strong>and</strong> the revolution<br />

because of his very different cultural background, <strong>and</strong><br />

he briefly paints the backdrop against which revolution<br />

was absolutely inevitable: “Dirt, hunger, overcrowding,<br />

the degradation of the worker as a human being, the<br />

56<br />

Boris Pasternak (third from left) at the First<br />

Congress of the Union of Soviet Writers, Moscow,<br />

1934. In his masterwork, Doctor Zhivago,<br />

Pasternak counterposes the individual as the<br />

artist to the mass conformism of Soviet rule.<br />

Pasternak Family Digital Archives.<br />

Hoover Institution Library <strong>and</strong> Archives.<br />

degradation of women” (459) . Yet Strelnikov ultimately<br />

urges Yurii to flee, for the forces of Bolshevism “are<br />

closing in on me, <strong>and</strong> whatever happens to me will<br />

involve you . You are implicated already by the very fact<br />

of talking to me now” (460) . In the very next breath,<br />

Strelnikov mentions the wolves that are also closing<br />

in—symbolic of revolutionary forces; both out of control<br />

<strong>and</strong> destructive, the wolves threaten Lara, Yurii,<br />

<strong>and</strong> Strelnikov in Varykino . They are all running out of<br />

places far enough away to hide .<br />

Another powerful symbol of the inevitability of the<br />

Revolution appears in advertising billboards on the<br />

roads in the countryside <strong>and</strong> finally at an intersection<br />

in the city . A cryptic sign for “Moreau <strong>and</strong> Vetchinkin .<br />

Seeders . Threshers .” appears five times in the novel .<br />

The sign comes first into play when, near the town<br />

of Yuriatin, Yurii talks to Samdeviatov . Samdeviatov<br />

mentions that the firm advertised was very good—<br />

under socialism private enterprise is now largely gone .<br />

But Samdeviatov, who, as a Marxist, should position<br />

himself against private enterprise, is proud that his<br />

father owned stock in the firm . Samdeviatov’s remarks<br />

lead Yurii to reflect upon Marxism, “’I don’t know a<br />

movement more self-centered <strong>and</strong> further removed<br />

from the facts than Marxism’” (259) .<br />

Seeing the sign again later, Yurii tells Lara about his<br />

trip to the Urals <strong>and</strong> his encounter with Strelnikov—<br />

the sign points to what might have been a thriving<br />

economy pitted against the upheaval of civil war . Yurii<br />

sees the sign just before his capture by the partisans—in<br />

fact, the partisans st<strong>and</strong> in front of the sign,<br />

blocking Yurii’s way . When Yurii <strong>and</strong> Lara return to<br />

Varykino, they speed past two of the signs, but don’t<br />

see either as one is out of sight <strong>and</strong> the other is covered<br />

USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 2012–2013<br />

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y “hoarfrost…so that they never saw it” (429) . The<br />

diminishing visibility of the sign advertising private<br />

enterprise is a symbol of the demise of the Russian way<br />

of life before the Revolution .<br />

The last appearance of this symbolic sign occurs in<br />

the last chapter of Yurii’s life, as he hurries to write<br />

<strong>and</strong> to organize his papers . When his imagination lags,<br />

he doodles, drawing pictures of “forest cuttings or of<br />

street intersections marked by the sign: ‘Moreau &<br />

Vetchinkin . Mechanical seeders . Threshing machines .’”<br />

(488); the narrator insists that all of Yurii’s poems <strong>and</strong><br />

articles written during this period are about the city .<br />

As Yurii’s doodles indicate, the sign st<strong>and</strong>s at the<br />

intersection of the past, present, <strong>and</strong> future—a past<br />

when private enterprise could succeed for some, but<br />

Tsarist autocracy <strong>and</strong> oppression suffocated the majority;<br />

a present where life is no better, private enterprise<br />

is snuffed out, <strong>and</strong> people are starving; <strong>and</strong> a future<br />

where balance may be restored .<br />

Pasternak counterposes the individual as the artist,<br />

to the mass conformism of Soviet rule . As the wolves<br />

collect in the woods outside Varykino, threatening its<br />

inhabitants, Yurii thinks of a poem he’ll write about<br />

St . George <strong>and</strong> the dragon . Just as Lara wakes up to<br />

the sound of the wolves howling <strong>and</strong> comes to Yurii<br />

to express her fear of bad omens, Yurii has completed<br />

the poem:<br />

He heard the horse’s hoofs ringing on the surface<br />

of the poem, as you hear the ambling of a horse<br />

in one of Chopin’s ballades . St . George was galloping<br />

over the boundless expanse of the steppe .<br />

He could watch him, as he grew smaller in the<br />

distance . He wrote in a feverish hurry, scarcely<br />

able to keep up with the words as they poured<br />

out, always to the point <strong>and</strong> tumbling into place<br />

of themselves (441) .<br />

In Chapter Seventeen, the poem becomes “Fairy Tale,”<br />

in which a knight, St . George, battles a dragon who<br />

threatens a beautiful maid . Unhorsed, the knight falls<br />

unconscious as the maid is “overcome by sleep <strong>and</strong><br />

oblivion” (539) . Alive, they both sleep,<br />

Yet both their hearts are beating .<br />

By turns he <strong>and</strong> she<br />

Strain to come to,<br />

Only to sleep again .<br />

Tightly closed eyelids .<br />

Towering heights . And clouds .<br />

Waters . Fords . And rivers .<br />

Years . And countless ages (540) .<br />

The motif of sleeping <strong>and</strong> waking invokes numerous<br />

occasions in the novel when Yurii sleeps, or Lara<br />

sleeps, <strong>and</strong> both struggle to awake . Most notable in<br />

this context is the sleep from which Yurii awakes as<br />

he overcomes typhus; in his struggle to awake from<br />

delirium, Yurii has composed another poem about<br />

how “for three days the black hurricane of earth raged,<br />

advancing <strong>and</strong> retreating” (207) . One of the lines that<br />

comes into his head is “‘Time to wake up .’” And Yurii<br />

thinks, “it was time to awake . Time to wake up <strong>and</strong> to<br />

get up . Time to arise, time for the resurrection .”<br />

In countering the suffocating coma of Soviet rule,<br />

Pasternak offers Christianity . Christianity pervades the<br />

novel in the monologues of Uncle Nikolai, who often<br />

acts as a spokesperson for Pasternak’s own religious<br />

philosophy, in the conversation of Sima Tuntseva, who<br />

acts as another voice for the meaning of religion to<br />

the individual, <strong>and</strong> in references to the Gospels, the<br />

Psalms <strong>and</strong> to the Revelation of St . John . When, for<br />

example, Yurii tells Misha Gordon about seeing the<br />

Tsar <strong>and</strong> realizing the Tsar’s utter ineptitude to fulfill<br />

his position, Gordon breaks in with a speech about<br />

nationhood, working toward the idea that the Jews<br />

have been crippled by sticking together as a nation . As<br />

“the first <strong>and</strong> best Christians in the world” (123), he<br />

insists, they must turn against a communal identity .<br />

His observation that “‘Christianity [is] the mystery of<br />

the individual’” (122) is summed up compellingly in<br />

this view about the meaning of the Gospel: “‘In that<br />

new way of living <strong>and</strong> new form of society, which is<br />

born of the heart, <strong>and</strong> which is called the Kingdom<br />

of Heaven, there are no nations, there are only individuals”<br />

(122) . Such a pronouncement contradicts <strong>and</strong><br />

rejects a Marxist philosophy . Marxism, with its clearcut<br />

picture of history, abstractness, <strong>and</strong> objectivity, is<br />

the antithesis of life <strong>and</strong> art as Pasternak presents it<br />

in the novel . Pasternak’s response to Soviet oppression<br />

is the construction of the artist as an individual,<br />

especially figured in his poetic embodiment of Hamlet<br />

<strong>and</strong> Christ .<br />

The Poems of Yurii Zhivago:<br />

“Hamlet”<br />

Rather than separate expressions of Yurii Zhivago’s<br />

prowess as a poet, the poems that constitute Chapter<br />

Seventeen of the novel are integral to the narrative of<br />

Yurii’s life . In numerous locations in the novel, the<br />

reader is invited to witness Yurii in the passion of<br />

poetic creation—some of these poems appear in the<br />

chapter of poems <strong>and</strong> some do not . “Turmoil,” for<br />

example, the poem he conceives <strong>and</strong> names during<br />

his bout with typhus is about the three days between<br />

“entombment” <strong>and</strong> “resurrection” (207) . But this poem<br />

is a virtual composition, produced in a fever-induced<br />

dream <strong>and</strong> never written . What is described about the<br />

poem, however, suggests the overriding concerns of all<br />

of Yurii’s poems—death <strong>and</strong> resurrection .<br />

The poems are infused by Christian imagery <strong>and</strong><br />

symbolism as well as intensely personal <strong>and</strong> passionate<br />

expressions of love between a man <strong>and</strong> a woman .<br />

Seeing himself as St . George, freeing the maiden <strong>and</strong><br />

slaying the dragon, is but one way in which Yurii<br />

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mingles Christian imagery with his love for Lara . And<br />

following the seasons through their course, as many<br />

do, the poems reproduce the ongoing cycle of life <strong>and</strong><br />

love . The protagonist, however, in the voice of the<br />

speaker, cannot surrender fully to love but serves, rather,<br />

as a sacrificial figure, an artist who must play his<br />

part on the stage of history, like Hamlet, like Christ .<br />

The opening poem of Chapter Seventeen is entitled<br />

“Hamlet”; its very title suggests Shakespeare’s reluctant<br />

hero as a model for Yurii Zhivago . In fact, the<br />

narrator names this poem as the only one which might<br />

embody the theme of the city, which Yurii wrote was<br />

the central concern of his art:<br />

58<br />

The incessant rumbling by day <strong>and</strong> night in the<br />

street outside our walls is as inseparable from the<br />

modern soul as the opening bars of an overture<br />

are inseparable from the curtain, as yet secret<br />

<strong>and</strong> dark, but already beginning to crimson in the<br />

glow of the footlights . The city, incessantly moving<br />

<strong>and</strong> roaring outside our doors <strong>and</strong> windows,<br />

is an immense introduction to the life of each of<br />

us . It is in these terms that I should like to write<br />

about the city (489) .<br />

But, the omniscient narrator concludes, “There are no<br />

such poems in what has been preserved of Zhivago’s<br />

work . Or does the one entitled ‘Hamlet’ belong to this<br />

category?” (489) . While the narrator may leave the<br />

question open-ended, he invites the reader to speculate<br />

<strong>and</strong> interpret the poem along these lines .<br />

“Hamlet” translated by<br />

Bernard Guilbert Guerney 117<br />

The stir is over . I step forth on the boards .<br />

Leaning against an upright at the entrance,<br />

I strain to make the far-off echo yield<br />

A cue to the events that may come in my day .<br />

Night <strong>and</strong> its murk transfix <strong>and</strong> pin me,<br />

Staring through thous<strong>and</strong>s of binoculars .<br />

If Thou be willing, Abba, Father,<br />

Remove this cup from me .<br />

I cherish this, Thy rigorous conception,<br />

And I consent to play this part therein;<br />

But another play is running at this moment,<br />

So, for the present, release me from the cast .<br />

And yet, the order of the acts has been<br />

schemed<br />

<strong>and</strong> plotted,<br />

And nothing can aver the final curtain’s fall .<br />

I st<strong>and</strong> alone . All else is swamped by<br />

Pharisaism . 118<br />

To live life to the end is not a childish task .<br />

As an entry point into the study of the poem “Hamlet,”<br />

three translations are offered below . Without a reading<br />

knowledge of Russian, the reader benefits from a<br />

comparison of the English translations to establish<br />

common ground in terms of major images <strong>and</strong> theme .<br />

Two controlling images echo throughout all three<br />

translations: the stage as a metaphor for life <strong>and</strong><br />

the Garden of Gethsemane, where Christ asks to<br />

be released from his impending doom . The term<br />

“boards,” in the first two translations, refers to the<br />

“Hamlet” translated by<br />

Christopher Barnes 119<br />

A hush descends . I step out on the boards,<br />

And leaning on the door-frame, I endeavour<br />

To perceive what the future holds in store,<br />

Divining it amidst the distant echoes .<br />

Darkness, thous<strong>and</strong>fold, is focussed on me<br />

Down the axis of each opera-glass,<br />

If it may be, I pray Thee, Abba, Father,<br />

Grant it: let this chalice from me pass .<br />

I love <strong>and</strong> cherish it, Thy stubborn purpose,<br />

And am content to play the allotted role .<br />

But now another drama is in progress .<br />

I beg Thee, leave me this time uninvolved .<br />

But alas, there is no turning from the road .<br />

The order of the action has been settled .<br />

The Pharisee claims all, <strong>and</strong> I’m alone .<br />

This life is not a stroll across the meadow .<br />

“Hamlet” translated by<br />

Pevear <strong>and</strong> Volokhonsky 120<br />

The hum dies down . I step out on the stage .<br />

Leaning against a doorpost,<br />

I try to catch the echoes from far off<br />

Of what my age is bringing .<br />

The night’s darkness focuses on me<br />

Thous<strong>and</strong>s of opera glasses .<br />

Abba Father, if only it can be,<br />

Let this cup pass me by .<br />

I love the stubbornness of your intent<br />

And agree to play this role .<br />

But now a different drama’s going on—<br />

Spare me, then, this once .<br />

But the order of the acts has been thought out,<br />

And leads to just one end .<br />

I’m alone, all drowns in pharisaism .<br />

Life is no stroll through a field .<br />

USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 2012–2013<br />

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Photograph of Boris Pasternak from<br />

1956 in Peredelkino village.<br />

Photographer Aleks<strong>and</strong>r Less. Pasternak family digital<br />

archives, Hoover Institution Library <strong>and</strong> Archives.<br />

idiomatic expression “treading the boards” of a stage;<br />

Pevear <strong>and</strong> Volokhonsky underscore that by choosing<br />

the more literal translation “stage .”<br />

Hamlet, as the speaker in the poem, acknowledges his<br />

part as an actor on the stage of life while at the same<br />

time merging his identity with that of Christ in the<br />

Gospels pleading with his heavenly father to let him<br />

escape his date with destiny . Both Hamlet <strong>and</strong> Christ,<br />

however, must meet their destinies <strong>and</strong> dutifully fulfill<br />

them . In stanza one Hamlet, the presumed speaker of<br />

the poem, steps out on the stage <strong>and</strong> leans against a<br />

door frame or entrance as he listens for echoes which<br />

may help him discern his role in future events . Sight<br />

<strong>and</strong> sound mingle as the audience hushes, <strong>and</strong> the play<br />

begins to unfold . Hamlet is Zhivago’s “modern soul”<br />

(489) as the opening bars of an overture initiate the<br />

protagonist’s role on the vast stage of city life .<br />

The night has brought the city, in the second stanza,<br />

to the play house where thous<strong>and</strong>s of opera glasses<br />

focus on Hamlet as their center . But Hamlet is a<br />

reluctant hero, hesitating to accept the role life has<br />

assigned to him <strong>and</strong> begging, in the words of Christ<br />

in Gethsemane, to let the cup/chalice pass him by .<br />

Stanza three continues Hamlet/Christ’s dialogue with<br />

his Father as he accepts the inevitability <strong>and</strong> necessity<br />

of his playing his role but knows that another play is<br />

taking shape from which he begs to be released . The<br />

final stanza continues to underscore the inevitability<br />

of destiny—the play has been written, “the order of the<br />

acts…thought out,” <strong>and</strong>, “drowned” by Pharisaism,<br />

Hamlet, alone, faces the final curtain fall as he recognizes<br />

the tragedy of his life <strong>and</strong> death . Hamlet serves as<br />

the icon for the modern artist struggling to give expression<br />

to his art <strong>and</strong> his individuality against a sweeping<br />

tide of conformism—conformity to Pharisaism, for<br />

example, serves as a fitting image in the poem for the<br />

oppression of life in Soviet society .<br />

Section II Conclusion<br />

Perhaps the best known of Pasternak’s lyrics, “The<br />

Nobel Prize” aligns Pasternak himself with the alternative<br />

personas he has chosen as the figures of<br />

the hero—Hamlet <strong>and</strong> Christ . Written while he felt<br />

under attack during the Nobel Prize renunciation,<br />

Pasternak struggles poetically with a dilemma that<br />

seems insoluble:<br />

“The Nobel Prize”<br />

I’m chased <strong>and</strong> driven, run to earth .<br />

Out there is liberty <strong>and</strong> life,<br />

Behind—the noise of the pursuit,<br />

No escaping from my plight .<br />

Bank of pond <strong>and</strong> darkened wood,<br />

Athwart the road felled trunks of spruce,<br />

The way is blocked on every side .<br />

Come what may, I have no choice .<br />

Did I commit a heinous crime?<br />

A murder, or some evil deed?<br />

At the beauty of my l<strong>and</strong><br />

I merely made the whole world weep .<br />

Yet on the threshold of the tomb<br />

I still believe: there’ll come a time<br />

When power of good will overrule<br />

The force of evil <strong>and</strong> spite . 121 (1959)<br />

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S E C T I O N I I I :<br />

SHORTER SELECTIONS<br />

IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE<br />

Introduction: The Connections<br />

between Pasternak’s Doctor<br />

Zhivago <strong>and</strong> Its <strong>Lit</strong>erary<br />

Contemporaries <strong>and</strong> Forebears<br />

As the great novel of the Russian Revolution,<br />

Doctor Zhivago encapsulates its own historical<br />

moment in time; but the novel reflects more<br />

than its history—it also participates in its literary<br />

culture . Pasternak, through the extensiveness of his<br />

reading <strong>and</strong> his translations of classics in European<br />

literature, was unquestionably influenced by the West<br />

<strong>and</strong> acknowledges this debt by numerous allusions in<br />

the novel to Shakespeare <strong>and</strong> Goethe, among others .<br />

However, Pasternak does not forget the writers of his<br />

own culture, so his novel, like those of several of his<br />

contemporaries <strong>and</strong> forebears, may be viewed as the<br />

intersection of influences from the East as well as from<br />

the West . The novel acts as a model of how a literary<br />

work may st<strong>and</strong> in two worlds at once—Europe <strong>and</strong><br />

Asia .<br />

In describing Doctor Zhivago’s debt to its Russian<br />

literary ancestors, this section of the resource guide<br />

focuses on four key writers who are alluded to in some<br />

detail <strong>and</strong> whose influence is apparent in the novel:<br />

Alex<strong>and</strong>er Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov,<br />

<strong>and</strong> Alex<strong>and</strong>er Blok . The work of these four writers<br />

establishes a continuum in the tradition of Russian<br />

literature which culminates in the prose <strong>and</strong> poetry of<br />

Pasternak’s novel . The lives of the four writers span<br />

more than a century of Russian history <strong>and</strong> literature,<br />

beginning with the rise of Romanticism in the<br />

work of Pushkin <strong>and</strong> extending to the embodiment of<br />

Symbolism <strong>and</strong> Futurism in the poetry of Blok .<br />

Russian literature flowered in the nineteenth century<br />

with the work of Alex<strong>and</strong>er Pushkin, who is not as<br />

well known or appreciated in the West, but is certainly<br />

considered the equal of Shakespeare in Russia .<br />

Pushkin, heavily influenced both by Shakespeare <strong>and</strong><br />

Byron, initiated a shift in the national literature away<br />

from the classical forms of the eighteenth century <strong>and</strong><br />

toward a Romanticism much like Byron’s, which was<br />

based upon the extraordinary individual or superfluous<br />

man, 122 the adversary of the existing order . 123<br />

60<br />

By the early 1840s, Russian Romanticism was being<br />

replaced by Realism, a movement which would find its<br />

culmination in the novels of Ivan Turgenev (1818–83),<br />

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), <strong>and</strong> Fyodor Dostoevsky<br />

(1821–81), <strong>and</strong> reach its zenith between 1855 <strong>and</strong><br />

1880 . Initiated by an idea promoted by literary critic<br />

Nicolay Chernyshevsky that “the beautiful is life,”<br />

Realism in fiction moved away from an emphasis on<br />

individual emotion <strong>and</strong> toward a representation of<br />

occurrences as they appear in real life, or, even more<br />

accurately in the case of Tolstoy: “‘getting at what<br />

should be as well as what is .’” 124 Chekhov, coming<br />

nearer the end of the period of Russian Realism, produced<br />

a renewal of the realist tradition in his work .<br />

Deeply reverent toward <strong>and</strong> influenced by Tolstoy,<br />

Chekhov, however, added the dimension of the scientist<br />

to the work of the writer, observing his characters<br />

almost clinically <strong>and</strong> arguing, “‘The writer must be<br />

objective like the chemist .’” 125 As both a physician <strong>and</strong><br />

a writer, Chekhov served as one of Pasternak’s models<br />

for how such a combination of two apparently opposite<br />

worldviews—the scientist’s <strong>and</strong> the humanist’s— can<br />

come together in the character of Yurii Zhivago .<br />

With the work of Alex<strong>and</strong>er Blok, Symbolism reached<br />

a pinnacle of poetic achievement as it ushered Russian<br />

literature into the age of Modernism just before the<br />

onset of the Russian Revolution . In the early years of<br />

the twentieth century, Realism in fiction began to yield<br />

to Symbolism, especially in poetic form . Symbolism<br />

actually appeared in the 1890s, but by 1917, the short<br />

span of Symbolist art had come to an end as many<br />

Symbolist poets immigrated to Europe, fearing the<br />

loss of their artistic freedoms under the revolutionary<br />

government . Blok demonstrates the influence of<br />

European Symbolists like Charles Baudelaire, Friedrich<br />

Nietzsche, <strong>and</strong> Richard Wagner in his emphasis on the<br />

symbol as a system of correspondences which promises<br />

“ultimate wholeness in the transparent realm of<br />

the spirit .” 126<br />

But Blok’s Symbolist work takes on a special feature<br />

based on the influence of Vladimir Soloviov, an earlier<br />

Symbolist poet, who critiqued rationalism, embraced<br />

the notion of an eternal feminine, <strong>and</strong> also added in<br />

an element of “pan-Mongolianism” as the vision of a<br />

wave of barbarians invading Russia from the East to<br />

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destroy as well as renew a country imaged as an aging<br />

Rome . 127 Blok, both chronologically <strong>and</strong> thematically,<br />

most closely influences Pasternak’s own conception<br />

of revolution <strong>and</strong> its impact on literature . At first<br />

enthusiastic about the power of revolutions to bring<br />

about renewal, Blok turned ambivalent in his attitude<br />

toward upheaval in Russia as the poetry of his final<br />

years shows, <strong>and</strong> his work reflects that turn as it<br />

becomes less ethereal <strong>and</strong> idealized <strong>and</strong> more Futurist<br />

in its avant-gardism <strong>and</strong> its sense of “‘the old world<br />

crashing .’” 128<br />

The Life of Alex<strong>and</strong>er Pushkin<br />

(1799–1837)<br />

Alex<strong>and</strong>er Pushkin’s (1799–1837) all too brief life<br />

began on May 26, 1799 (Old Style Calendar), when<br />

he was born the son of aristocratic parents, Sergei<br />

Lvovich Pushkin <strong>and</strong> Nadezhda Osipovna Gannibal,<br />

whose lineage included famous names in Russian history<br />

. Though connected to power until the beginning of<br />

the seventeenth century, the Pushkins lost those connections<br />

along with their influence <strong>and</strong> fortune when<br />

the Romanov dynasty came into power . On Pushkin’s<br />

maternal side, his ancestry included a great-gr<strong>and</strong>father,<br />

Abram Gannibal, who was a black African slave<br />

in the court of Tsar Peter the Great . Gannibal proved a<br />

loyal servant to the Tsar <strong>and</strong> was awarded estates <strong>and</strong><br />

nobility . Pushkin was always sensitive about what he<br />

called his “‘Negro ugliness’” 129 while at the same time<br />

proud of the rise to power of his remarkable ancestor .<br />

Pushkin failed to find affection from either parent, but<br />

he was nurtured by his maternal gr<strong>and</strong>mother, Maria<br />

Alekseevna, <strong>and</strong> his peasant nanny, Arina Rodionovna .<br />

Pushkin’s first language, as it was for all aristocratic<br />

families in the Russia of the time, was French, but<br />

from his gr<strong>and</strong>mother <strong>and</strong> nanny he learned Russian130 <strong>and</strong> spent happy summers on his gr<strong>and</strong>mother’s estate<br />

near Moscow, where an old-fashioned Russian way of<br />

life prevailed . Pushkin provides a rare glimpse into this<br />

early stage of his life when he writes:<br />

My time under my father’s roof leaves little in<br />

the way of pleasant memories . Of course he<br />

loved me—but he showed no interest in me . I<br />

was entrusted to a series of French tutors, who<br />

were constantly being hired <strong>and</strong> fired . My first<br />

gouverneur131 was a desperate drunkard, the<br />

second, while not stupid or uneducated, could fly<br />

into such rages that he once tried to murder me<br />

for spilling a few drops of ink onto his waistcoat .<br />

The third, who was kept in our house for a whole<br />

year, was totally <strong>and</strong> obviously insane . 132<br />

Pushkin’s ironic tone emerges here as he portrays a<br />

period in his life that could only have been painful .<br />

Happier times followed, though, as Pushkin was sent<br />

to the Lycée, an exclusive boarding school for boys,<br />

from 1811 until 1817 . When he arrived, he was<br />

Painting of Alex<strong>and</strong>er Pushkin by Alex<strong>and</strong>er Vereinov.<br />

already extraordinarily well-read, for he had the run of<br />

his father’s extensive library, <strong>and</strong> he demonstrated an<br />

impressive comm<strong>and</strong> of French language <strong>and</strong> literature<br />

. The school, recently founded by Tsar Alex<strong>and</strong>er<br />

I, was located in Tsarskoe Selo <strong>and</strong> attached to the<br />

Tsar’s summer residence where students had access to<br />

the Tsar’s extensive library . The school was considered<br />

the most progressive educational establishment with<br />

the most liberal faculty in Russia at the time . While<br />

Pushkin’s reputation as a poet grew among his schoolmates<br />

<strong>and</strong> teachers, he was only a mediocre student,<br />

managing to graduate near the bottom of his class . He<br />

wrote poetry constantly while there <strong>and</strong>, as he was<br />

exposed to English, was introduced to the philosophies<br />

of Locke <strong>and</strong> Hume <strong>and</strong> the poetry of Lord Byron .<br />

Upon graduation, Pushkin was assigned to the Ministry<br />

of Foreign Affairs in St . Petersburg, where, with little<br />

to occupy his time in the way of real work, he led an<br />

indolent <strong>and</strong> dissipated life, gambling, attending the<br />

theater, <strong>and</strong> chasing pretty actresses <strong>and</strong> dancers . In<br />

1819, Pushkin reportedly visited a famed fortuneteller,<br />

Madame Kirchof, who had advised the Tsar during the<br />

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62<br />

The <strong>Dec</strong>embrist uprising was an insurrection against the Russian tsar led mostly by former military<br />

officers <strong>and</strong> members of the nobility. The revolt, which took place in St. Petersburg, failed, but it served<br />

as an inspiration to future dissidents. Pushkin knew many of the insurgents, <strong>and</strong> they knew his poetry;<br />

five rebel leaders were executed, <strong>and</strong> Pushkin feared he was at risk through his association.<br />

War of 1812 . 133 She prophesied that Pushkin would<br />

enjoy great fame, would endure two exiles, <strong>and</strong>, at the<br />

age of thirty-seven, should avoid conflict related to a<br />

white horse, a white head, or a white (blond) man .<br />

Pushkin believed in her predictions, <strong>and</strong>, if, in fact, she<br />

did utter these predictions, they all came true .<br />

Pushkin was also beginning to reveal a more serious<br />

side, advancing a politically liberal perspective <strong>and</strong><br />

circulating radical poems in private . These poems<br />

came to the attention of the Tsar, who threatened to<br />

exile him . In the end, though, the Tsar was persuaded<br />

to commute his sentence of exile to an administrative<br />

transfer to the south, where he could serve the general<br />

in charge of colonies recently acquired from Turkey .<br />

Before leaving St . Petersburg, Pushkin completed his<br />

first major work of verse, Ruslan <strong>and</strong> Lyudmila (1820),<br />

an ironic poem patterned on a Russian folktale which<br />

became an immediate sensation .<br />

In his travel to the south, Pushkin met General<br />

Raevskii, a hero of the campaign against Napoleon,<br />

<strong>and</strong> was allowed to join him <strong>and</strong> his family on a tour<br />

of the Caucasus <strong>and</strong> the Crimea . Here, Pushkin found<br />

inspiration for The Prisoner of the Caucasus (1822)<br />

Image: The Granger Collection, New York.<br />

<strong>and</strong> a setting for his Byronic poem The Fountain of<br />

Bakhchisarai (1824), his most popular work during his<br />

lifetime .<br />

I visited Bakhchisarai,<br />

Its palace now forgot, ab<strong>and</strong>oned<br />

Amidst its quiet halls medieval<br />

I w<strong>and</strong>ered where that scourge of peoples,<br />

The Tatar fierce once held his feasts,<br />

And after raids of dread <strong>and</strong> horror<br />

Did laze in splendid languor sweet .<br />

That bliss still breathes <strong>and</strong> is remembered<br />

In restful garden groves, it seems:<br />

The waters’ playing, roses’ blushing,<br />

The vineyard grapes so thick <strong>and</strong> luscious,<br />

And on the walls the gold still gleams .<br />

I saw old wrought-iron tracery:<br />

Cages, behind which, in their spring<br />

Clasping an amber rosary,<br />

The silent wives would sigh, not sing .<br />

I saw the great Khans’ burial place .<br />

Great rulers’ final residence .<br />

I saw the columns o’er the graves<br />

With marble turbans crowned, but fraying,<br />

It seemed to me the will of Fate<br />

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Was speaking loud <strong>and</strong> clear, <strong>and</strong> praying .<br />

Where are the Khans <strong>and</strong> harem now? 134<br />

Back at his duty post in Kishinev under the benign<br />

supervision of General Inzov, Pushkin had the<br />

opportunity to view <strong>and</strong> sketch an ethnically diverse<br />

population; teased himself for being “African,” Pushkin<br />

showed great tolerance toward those who were ethnically<br />

<strong>and</strong> racially different . Also while there, Pushkin<br />

also fought numerous duels—all ending without injury—<strong>and</strong><br />

engaged in a string of affairs, most notably<br />

with a Greek woman, Calypso Polichroni, who may<br />

also have been one of Byron’s lovers . More importantly,<br />

though, by 1823, Pushkin had begun work on his great<br />

novel in verse Evgenii Onegin, loosely modeled on<br />

Byron’s Don Juan .<br />

In 1823, Pushkin was transferred to Odessa to serve<br />

under Count Vorontsov, the Governor-General of<br />

Southern Russia . Vorontsov was both a hero of the<br />

Napoleonic Wars <strong>and</strong> a liberal who had freed his own<br />

serfs . Pushkin’s lifestyle, though, despite the help <strong>and</strong><br />

support of his supervisors, was flamboyant, <strong>and</strong> neither<br />

his meager salary nor his earnings from publications<br />

provided him with enough . Pushkin earned three thous<strong>and</strong><br />

rubles for The Fountain of Bakhchisarai, a great<br />

deal of money for the time, <strong>and</strong> managed to spend<br />

it all . He also continued pursuing beautiful women,<br />

indulging in love affairs while in Odessa, <strong>and</strong> flaunting<br />

his disrespect for the authorities . For example,<br />

he made the mistake of writing to a friend that he<br />

espoused atheism—these were treasonous sentiments,<br />

for in offending the state religion, he had also offended<br />

the state . When the letter came to the attention of<br />

the government, the Tsar removed Pushkin from<br />

Odessa <strong>and</strong> sent him into exile to his mother’s estate<br />

at Mikhaylovskoye in the north, about three hundred<br />

miles southwest of St . Petersburg . When he left for the<br />

family estate in August of 1824, Pushkin carried with<br />

him the beginning of his poem The Gypsies <strong>and</strong> most<br />

of the third chapter of Evgenii Onegin .<br />

While at his mother’s estate, Pushkin was kept under<br />

police surveillance with his own father acting as his<br />

jailer . It is possible that during this time he learned<br />

that he had fathered a daughter with Elise Vorontsova,<br />

the wife of Count Vorontsov, with whom he had<br />

begun an affair in Odessa . 135 Pushkin was bored in<br />

the country, but much happier when his family left<br />

in the winter . His nanny provided companionship<br />

<strong>and</strong> folktales, which inspired Pushkin’s work, <strong>and</strong> he<br />

entertained himself by visiting neighbors . From 1824<br />

to 1825, Pushkin completed The Gypsies, a number of<br />

shorter lyrics, his Shakespearean historical drama Boris<br />

Godunov, <strong>and</strong> additional chapters of Evgenii Onegin .<br />

In 1825, Tsar Alex<strong>and</strong>er I died, <strong>and</strong> instead of being<br />

succeeded by his brother Constantine, who had secretly<br />

renounced the throne, another brother, Nicholas,<br />

was poised to take power . During the vacuum of<br />

Portrait of Pushkin’s wife Natalia Goncharova,<br />

painted by Ivan Makarov (1849).<br />

power, on <strong>Dec</strong>ember 14, 1825, secret radical societies<br />

mounted a rebellion in St . Petersburg known as<br />

the <strong>Dec</strong>embrist Uprising, <strong>and</strong> forces loyal to Nicholas<br />

opened fire . Pushkin knew many of the insurgents, <strong>and</strong><br />

they knew his poetry; five rebel leaders were executed,<br />

<strong>and</strong> Pushkin feared he was at risk through his association<br />

. As he tried to escape to St . Petersburg, a hare<br />

crossed Pushkin’s path, <strong>and</strong> in the presence of such<br />

an evil omen, Pushkin turned back . 136 Pushkin longed<br />

to escape Russia <strong>and</strong> go abroad; in May, he wrote to a<br />

friend:<br />

I, of course, despise my Fatherl<strong>and</strong> from head to<br />

toe . How can you, not being tied down like me,<br />

stay here in Russia? If the Tsar ever gives me freedom,<br />

I won’t stay a month . It’s a sad age we live<br />

in . When I imagine London, <strong>and</strong> railroads, <strong>and</strong><br />

steamships, <strong>and</strong> free English journals, or Parisian<br />

theatres…then my desolate Mikhaylovskoye just<br />

aggrieves <strong>and</strong> enrages me . In Chapter Four of<br />

Onegin I’ve described my life; one day you’ll read<br />

it <strong>and</strong> ask with a sweet smile: where is my poet?<br />

He seemed talented . And you’ll hear, my dear,<br />

the answer: “he ran off to Paris <strong>and</strong> will never—<br />

ever!—return to that accursed Russia! Hooray!<br />

Clever fellow! 137<br />

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In September of 1826, Pushkin was summoned to<br />

Moscow by the new Tsar . On the way there, Pushkin<br />

composed “The Prophet,” a lyric meditation on the<br />

role of the poet in the nation, in history, <strong>and</strong> in carrying<br />

out his divinely ordained mission:<br />

Upon the wastes, a lifeless clod,<br />

I lay, <strong>and</strong> heard the voice of God:<br />

“Arise, oh, prophet, watch <strong>and</strong> hearken,<br />

And with my Will thy soul engird,<br />

Roam the gray seas, the roads that darken,<br />

And burn men’s hearts with this, my Word .” 138<br />

When he arrived in the Kremlin, Pushkin agreed not to<br />

contradict the regime, <strong>and</strong> the Tsar removed him from<br />

exile, but at the same time, the Tsar took on the role<br />

of acting as Pushkin’s personal censor . Thus Pushkin,<br />

though apparently free, was in truth the Tsar’s hostage<br />

<strong>and</strong> had to report his every movement . During the<br />

years between 1828 <strong>and</strong> 1830, Pushkin found himself<br />

constantly under the microscope <strong>and</strong> questioned about<br />

the politics of poems he had written much earlier . He<br />

was relatively free to move around, though, <strong>and</strong> in his<br />

travels between Moscow <strong>and</strong> St . Petersburg, he had<br />

begun to think of settling down .<br />

In 1828, he met Natalia Goncharova, the woman he<br />

would marry . By Easter 1830, he had finally struck an<br />

agreement with Natalia’s greedy mother, <strong>and</strong> his offer<br />

of marriage was accepted . He finished Evgenii Onegin<br />

<strong>and</strong> began to write long narrative poems, drama, <strong>and</strong><br />

prose in the interim before his wedding, during the<br />

first of his “Boldino autumns”—periods of enormous<br />

creative vitality <strong>and</strong> output . 139 Finally, after the proper<br />

period of mourning for the death of his uncle <strong>and</strong><br />

after the threat of cholera had lifted from the area of<br />

Boldino, Pushkin was able to leave for Moscow, where,<br />

in February 1831, he <strong>and</strong> Natalia were married .<br />

Pushkin became increasingly interested in Russian<br />

history, <strong>and</strong> in 1833, he traveled to the Urals to<br />

collect evidence from eyewitnesses of the Pugachev<br />

Rebellion140 against Catherine the Great (1774), <strong>and</strong><br />

he also began work on a history of Peter the Great . As<br />

his poetic life advanced, his social life declined—his<br />

wife was beautiful <strong>and</strong> in dem<strong>and</strong> at court . To bring<br />

her close to him, the Tsar awarded Pushkin the status<br />

of page—a junior position that was insulting to the<br />

poet . And because of the excessive spending habits of<br />

his wife, Pushkin was deeply in debt; Natalia, despite<br />

four pregnancies, managed to maintain her figure <strong>and</strong><br />

beauty <strong>and</strong> remain at the center of court life .<br />

In 1833, Evgenii Onegin was published, <strong>and</strong> Pushkin<br />

began to integrate his research on the Pugachev<br />

Rebellion into his novel The Captain’s Daughter<br />

(1835) <strong>and</strong> his nonfictional History of the Pugachev<br />

Rebellion (1834) . The novel owes much to the plot<br />

line of Sir Walter Scott’s Rob Roy <strong>and</strong> is representative<br />

of Pushkin’s finest prose work . He received permission<br />

to travel to the provinces where the rebellion took<br />

64<br />

Portrait of Georges d’Anthès. Angry <strong>and</strong> humiliated<br />

over d’Anthès’ attentions toward his wife Natalia,<br />

Pushkin challenged D’Anthès to a duel, <strong>and</strong> D’Anthès<br />

accepted the challenge. D’Anthès fired the first shot,<br />

hitting Pushkin in the abdomen, a fatal blow.<br />

place, hoping that publication of this new work would<br />

bring him badly needed funds . On his way back, he<br />

stopped at his property in Boldino <strong>and</strong> stayed through<br />

the autumn, experiencing a second, powerful burst of<br />

creativity . It was during this period that he produced<br />

“Autumn” <strong>and</strong> a number of other lyric <strong>and</strong> long narrative<br />

poems, including The Bronze Horseman <strong>and</strong><br />

the prose tale The Queen of Spades . On his return to<br />

St . Petersburg, where he <strong>and</strong> Natalia set up house to<br />

escape his grasping mother-in-law, Pushkin found his<br />

wife out at yet another ball . Despite his editorship of<br />

a journal <strong>and</strong> the ongoing appearance of his work in<br />

print, Pushkin could not keep ahead of Natalia’s ability<br />

to overspend <strong>and</strong> was harassed by creditors for the<br />

next several years .<br />

By 1836, in addition to the favor of the Tsar, Natalia had<br />

begun to enjoy the serious attentions of a Frenchman,<br />

Georges d’Anthès . Pushkin found himself publicly<br />

ridiculed as his wife continued to receive d’Anthès’s<br />

attentions even while pregnant . Pushkin resolved to<br />

defend his honor <strong>and</strong> that of his wife by challenging<br />

d’Anthès to a duel, but the duel was put off as d’Anthès<br />

proclaimed his love for Natalia’s sister, Ekaterina .<br />

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D’Anthès married Ekaterina in 1837, but Pushkin<br />

refused to attend the ceremony or to entertain the<br />

newlyweds at his home . As d’Anthès continued his<br />

pursuit of Natalia even after his marriage, Pushkin<br />

wrote an insulting letter to d’Anthès’s mentor Baron<br />

van Heeckeren, knowing that the inevitable outcome<br />

would be a duel with d’Anthès . D’Anthès accepted the<br />

challenge, <strong>and</strong> the duel took place on January 27, 1837 .<br />

D’Anthès fired the first shot, hitting Pushkin in the<br />

abdomen, a fatal blow . Pushkin managed to fire back,<br />

only slightly wounding d’Anthès . Pushkin lived for two<br />

days, dying on January 29, 1837 . Thous<strong>and</strong>s mourned<br />

his death, <strong>and</strong> the government tried to maintain crowd<br />

control by moving the site of the funeral <strong>and</strong> sending<br />

the coffin with the poet’s body secretly, in the middle<br />

of the night, to the family estate at Mikhaylovskoye .<br />

Pushkin was buried next to his mother at the Sviatye<br />

Gory Monastery . Dead before his thirty-eighth birthday,<br />

Pushkin, the contemporary of other literary greats<br />

such as Byron, Goethe, <strong>and</strong> Dickens, survives in his<br />

work as Russia’s answer to Shakespeare <strong>and</strong> the father<br />

of modern literature in his l<strong>and</strong>:<br />

“Unto Myself I Reared a Monument”<br />

Exegi monumentum<br />

Unto myself I reared a monument not builded<br />

By h<strong>and</strong>s; a track thereto the people’s feet will<br />

tread;<br />

Not Alex<strong>and</strong>er’s shaft is lofty as my pillar<br />

That proudly lifts its splendid head .<br />

Not wholly shall I die—but in the lyre my spirit<br />

Shall, incorruptible <strong>and</strong> bodiless, survive—<br />

And I shall know renown as long as under heaven<br />

One poet remains alive .<br />

The rumor of my fame will sweep through vasty<br />

Russia,<br />

And all its peoples speak this name, whose light<br />

shall reign<br />

Alike for haughty Slav, <strong>and</strong> Finn, <strong>and</strong> savage<br />

Tungus,<br />

And Kalmuck riders of the plain .<br />

I shall be loved, <strong>and</strong> long the people will<br />

remember<br />

The kindly thoughts I stirred—my music’s<br />

brightest crown,<br />

How in this cruel age I celebrated freedom,<br />

And begged for truth toward those cast down .<br />

Oh, Muse, as ever, now obey your God’s<br />

comm<strong>and</strong>ments,<br />

Of insult unafraid, to praise <strong>and</strong> sl<strong>and</strong>er cool,<br />

Dem<strong>and</strong>ing no reward, sing on, but in your<br />

wisdom<br />

Be silent when you meet a fool . (1836) 141<br />

S e l e c t e d W o r k<br />

“Autumn,” by Alex<strong>and</strong>er Pushkin,<br />

1833<br />

TRANSLATED BY AVRAHM YARMOLINSKY<br />

From The Poems, Prose <strong>and</strong> Plays of Alex<strong>and</strong>er Pushkin, translated<br />

by Avrahm Yarmolinsky . (New York: Modern Library, 1936)<br />

78–81 .<br />

“What does not enter then my drowsy mind…?”<br />

—Derzhavin<br />

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I<br />

October comes at last . The grove is shaking<br />

The last reluctant leaves from naked boughs .<br />

The autumn cold has breathed, the road is freezing—<br />

The brook still sounds behind the miller’s house,<br />

But the pond’s hushed; now with his pack my neighbor<br />

Makes for the distant field—his hounds will rouse<br />

The woods with barking, <strong>and</strong> his horse’s feet<br />

Will trample cruelly the winter wheat<br />

II<br />

This is my time! What is the Spring to me?<br />

Thaw is a bore: mud running thick <strong>and</strong> stinking—<br />

Spring makes me ill: my mind is never free<br />

From dizzy dreams, my blood’s in constant ferment .<br />

Give me instead Winter’s austerity,<br />

The snows under the moon—<strong>and</strong> what is gayer<br />

Than to glide lightly in a sleigh with her<br />

Whose fingers are like fire beneath the fur?<br />

III<br />

And oh, the fun, steel-shod to trace a pattern<br />

In crystal on the river’s glassy face!<br />

The shining stir of festivals in winter!<br />

But there’s a limit—nobody could face<br />

Six months of snow—even that cave-dweller,<br />

The bear, would growl “enough” in such a case .<br />

Sleigh rides with young Armidas pall, by Jove,<br />

And you turn sour with loafing by the stove .<br />

IV<br />

Oh, darling Summer, I could cherish you,<br />

If heat <strong>and</strong> dust <strong>and</strong> gnats <strong>and</strong> flies were banished .<br />

These dull the mind, the heart grows weary, too .<br />

We, like the meadows, suffer drought: thought withers<br />

Drink is our only hope, <strong>and</strong> how we rue<br />

Old woman Winter, at whose funeral banquet<br />

Pancakes <strong>and</strong> wine were served, but now we hold<br />

Memorial feasts of ices, sweet <strong>and</strong> cold .<br />

V<br />

They say ill things of the last days of Autumn:<br />

But I, friend reader, not a one will hear;<br />

Her quiet beauty touches me as surely<br />

As does a wistful child, to no one dear .<br />

She can rejoice me more, I tell you frankly,<br />

Than all the other seasons of the year .<br />

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I am a humble lover, <strong>and</strong> I could<br />

Find, singularly, much in her that’s good .<br />

VI<br />

How shall I make it clear? I find her pleasing<br />

As you perhaps may like a sickly girl,<br />

Condemned to die, <strong>and</strong> shortly, who is drooping<br />

Without a murmur of reproach to hurl<br />

At life, forsaking her—upon her paling<br />

Young lips a little smile is seen to curl .<br />

She does not hear the grave’s horrific yawn .<br />

Today she lives—tomorrow she is gone .<br />

VII<br />

Oh, mournful season that delights the eyes,<br />

Your farewell beauty captivates my spirit .<br />

I love the pomp of Nature’s fading dyes,<br />

The forests, garmented in gold <strong>and</strong> purple,<br />

The rush of noisy wind, <strong>and</strong> the pale skies<br />

Half-hidden by the clouds in darkling billows,<br />

And the rare sun-ray <strong>and</strong> the early frost,<br />

And threats of grizzled Winter, heard <strong>and</strong> lost .<br />

VIII<br />

Each time that Autumn comes I bloom afresh;<br />

For me, I find, the Russian cold is good;<br />

Again I go through life’s routine with relish:<br />

Sleep comes in season, <strong>and</strong> the need for food;<br />

Desire seethes—<strong>and</strong> I am young <strong>and</strong> merry,<br />

My heart beats fast with lightly leaping blood .<br />

I’m full of life—such is my organism .<br />

(if you will please excuse the prosaism .)<br />

IX<br />

My horse is brought; far out onto the plain<br />

He carries his glad rider, <strong>and</strong> the frozen<br />

Dale echoes to his shining hooves, his mane<br />

Streams in the keen wind like a banner blowing,<br />

And the bright ice creaks under him again .<br />

But day soon flickers out . At the forgotten<br />

Hearth, where the fire purrs low or leaps like wind,<br />

I read, or nourish long thoughts in my mind .<br />

X<br />

And I forget the world in the sweet silence,<br />

While I am lulled by fancy, <strong>and</strong> once more<br />

The soul oppressed with the old lyric fever<br />

Trembles, reverberates, <strong>and</strong> seeks to pour<br />

Its burden freely forth, <strong>and</strong> as though dreaming<br />

I watch the children that my visions bore,<br />

And I am host to the invisible throngs<br />

Who fill my reveries <strong>and</strong> build my songs .<br />

XI<br />

And thoughts stir bravely in my head, <strong>and</strong> rhymes<br />

Run forth to meet them on light feet, <strong>and</strong> fingers<br />

Reach for the pen, <strong>and</strong> the good quill betimes<br />

Asks for the foolscap . Wait: the verses follow .<br />

Thus a still ship sleeps on still seas . Hark: Chimes!<br />

66<br />

And swiftly all h<strong>and</strong>s leap to man the rigging,<br />

The sails are filled, they belly in the wind—<br />

The monster moves—a foaming track behind .<br />

XII<br />

It sails, but whither is it our ship goes?…<br />

Pushkin’s Poem “Autumn” (1833)<br />

[1833]<br />

The poem “Autumn” bears the subtitle “(Fragment),”<br />

suggesting that Pushkin either meant to write more<br />

or deliberately meant the poem to trail off in openendedness<br />

. Written near the end of his life during a<br />

second incredibly productive period in the autumn of<br />

1833 at his estate in Boldino, the poem reproduces<br />

the passion of poetic composition . The poem also<br />

begins with an epigraph from the poet Derzhavin,<br />

“‘What does not enter then my drowsy mind…?’”—a<br />

line which suggests the dreamy, contemplative mood<br />

that opens the mind to create while offering itself as<br />

a fragment of a thought . Derzhavin, considered the<br />

greatest Russian poet of the eighteenth century, holds<br />

an important place in Pushkin’s own development as<br />

a poet for anointing Pushkin’s early verse . In 1815,<br />

Pushkin read his poem “Recollections in Tsarskoe<br />

Selo” before Derzhavin <strong>and</strong> earned instant recognition<br />

from the great man, who seemed to wake up at hearing<br />

Pushkin recite <strong>and</strong> say: “‘Here is the one who will take<br />

Derzhavin’s place .’” 142<br />

“Autumn” contains eleven stanzas with eight lines<br />

each <strong>and</strong> a twelfth stanza consisting of a single line .<br />

Written primarily as alex<strong>and</strong>rine lines of twelve syllables<br />

each, Pushkin makes the line more flexible<br />

with an occasional thirteenth syllable; the lines also<br />

frequently contain caesuras, that is, they divide in half<br />

after the sixth or seventh syllable . Pushkin indicates<br />

this with internal punctuation, such as periods, commas,<br />

or semi-colons . Metrically, the lines are iambic<br />

hexameter in Russian—each line consists of six metrical<br />

feet, in which one unstressed syllable is followed by<br />

one stressed syllable (see line 1: Oc TO / ber COMES<br />

/ at LAST); however, in English the lines translate better<br />

as iambic pentameter, or five meters per line . The<br />

rhyme scheme in Russian is ABABABCC, so alternating<br />

end rhymes with a closing couplet . Additionally,<br />

Pushkin alternated masculine <strong>and</strong> feminine rhyme<br />

endings for enhanced sound effect . 143 This is a rather<br />

complicated rhyming sequence which is difficult to<br />

reproduce in English translation while maintaining, at<br />

the same time, the sense of the stanza .<br />

In Stanza I, the poetic speaker welcomes the arrival of<br />

October, the trees’ loss of their leaves, <strong>and</strong> the cold .<br />

Though not entirely frozen—the brook still sounds,<br />

but the pond is hushed—the road is beginning to<br />

freeze, <strong>and</strong> the speaker’s neighbor goes hunting with<br />

USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 2012–2013<br />

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Photograph from the village of Boldino. Pushkin<br />

wrote his poem “Autumn” near the end of his life<br />

during a second incredibly productive period in<br />

the autumn of 1833 at his estate in Boldino.<br />

his hounds as his horses crush the winter wheat .<br />

Figuratively, the stanza includes personification, giving<br />

October the power to arrive, the grove the power to<br />

shake the leaves from the trees, <strong>and</strong> the cold the power<br />

to breathe . The English translation also reinforces a<br />

sense of present time in this stanza through its use of<br />

present participles <strong>and</strong> present tense gerunds, “shaking,”<br />

“freezing,” “barking .”<br />

The speaker exults in Stanza II, claiming that this is<br />

his time of year, not spring . Spring brings thawing,<br />

“stinking” mud <strong>and</strong> makes him sick—he’d rather have<br />

the “austerity” of winter, its snows beneath the moon,<br />

<strong>and</strong> sleigh rides with one whose “fingers are like fire<br />

beneath the fur .” The images of the moon illuminating<br />

the snow <strong>and</strong> the fingers like fire under the fur juxtapose<br />

cold <strong>and</strong> warmth <strong>and</strong> reinforce the cozy bundling<br />

under fur in the sleigh .<br />

Stanza III extends the sleigh image by celebrating the<br />

fun of being “steel-shod”—above the steel rails of the<br />

sleigh or even the steel shoes of the horse—<strong>and</strong> tracing<br />

a pattern on the frozen river, yet there is a catch—no<br />

one can bear more than six months of snow—not even<br />

the “cave-dweller” bear . Even sleigh rides with the<br />

“young Armidas pall” after a while . 144 Figured in the<br />

stanza are metaphoric crystal patterns traced on the<br />

frozen river, the personified “face” of the river, <strong>and</strong> the<br />

allusion to Tasso’s legendary character, the sorceress<br />

Armida .<br />

The next stanza, Stanza IV, opens with an apostrophe145 to Summer . Pushkin deploys irony in this stanza, contrasting<br />

“darling” summer with its “heat <strong>and</strong> dust <strong>and</strong><br />

gnats <strong>and</strong> flies .” Summer withers inspiration, Pushkin<br />

writes, as “We, like the meadows, suffer drought,” <strong>and</strong><br />

the speaker longs for “Old woman Winter” when in<br />

summer he can only enjoy “Memorial feasts of ices,<br />

sweet <strong>and</strong> cold .”<br />

In Stanza V, the speaker addresses the reader to say<br />

that he refuses to hear “ill things” about “the last days<br />

of Autumn”; this season, he insists “rejoice[s]” him<br />

more than any other; Autumn is figuratively portrayed<br />

as a “wistful child” whose “quiet beauty touches” him .<br />

An extraordinary extended image controls Stanza VI:<br />

the image of a “sickly,” dying girl . Other translations<br />

offer the word “consumptive” for sickly, which makes<br />

the illness more specific . A strange connection arises<br />

when the speaker argues that Autumn is as pleasing to<br />

him as a sickly girl might be to the reader . Reluctant to<br />

let go of life, the sickly girl “Condemned to die” utters<br />

no reproach at the fate that takes her life but smiles, if<br />

ever so briefly . For, “Today she lives—tomorrow she is<br />

gone .” The image underscores the brevity of Autumn<br />

as a season .<br />

Stanza VII opens with yet another apostrophe to<br />

Autumn, the “mournful season,” <strong>and</strong> celebrates its<br />

“farewell beauty .” The stanza is dominated by color—<br />

“fading dyes,” “gold <strong>and</strong> purple”—yield to the winds<br />

<strong>and</strong> the darkened clouds of the “threats of grizzled<br />

Winter .” At the beginning of the next stanza, the<br />

speaker counterpoints his own “bloom[ing] anew” with<br />

the onset of winter <strong>and</strong> suggests that even though the<br />

onset of the cold is a part of the cycle of the seasons,<br />

he remains “full of life—such is my organism .” The<br />

speaker ends Stanza VIII with another parenthetical<br />

<strong>and</strong> ironic comment—“If you will please excuse the<br />

prosaism .” 146 Pushkin is accomplishing several objectives<br />

in the last two lines of this stanza—the words in<br />

English translate very closely to the words in Russian,<br />

so the English reproduces the feminine rhyme of the<br />

closing couplet which underscores the irony of calling<br />

attention to his verse as “prosaic .”<br />

Stanza IX shifts the scene to the speaker on his horse<br />

<strong>and</strong> the joy of the horse as his “mane/Streams in the<br />

keen wind like a banner blowing,” but the stanza turns<br />

again to bring the rider back to his fireside where the<br />

“fire purrs low” as “day soon flickers out,” <strong>and</strong> he reads<br />

or “nourish[es] long thoughts in my mind .” The ending<br />

of this stanza provides the turning point in the poem,<br />

as the speaker moves from proclaiming his paean147 2012–2013 USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 67<br />

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to Autumn to the rush to creation that Autumn has<br />

begun to engender in his mind .<br />

Stanza X depicts the fever of creation, when a now<br />

silent world is forgotten <strong>and</strong> the “soul oppressed (alternatively<br />

translated as “conquered”) with the old lyric<br />

fever/Trembles, reverberates, <strong>and</strong> seeks to pour/Its burden<br />

freely forth…” The speaker is host to “throngs,” to<br />

“children,” who “fill my reveries <strong>and</strong> build my songs .”<br />

In Stanza XI, this creative impulse continues, “rhymes/<br />

Run forth to meet” his thoughts, <strong>and</strong> the speaker<br />

reaches for his pen <strong>and</strong> his “foolscap” (paper) to capture<br />

the words . “Wait:” the speaker declares, “the verses<br />

follow,” <strong>and</strong> then begins the poem about a “still ship”<br />

which “sleeps on still seas .” The speaker hears chimes<br />

<strong>and</strong> sees the sailors leap to the rigging as the sails fill<br />

with the wind—the ship, “[t]he monster” moves—a<br />

foaming track behind .” Then, in Stanza XII, the vision<br />

ends: “It sails, but whither is it our ship goes?… .” The<br />

reader is left to complete Pushkin’s vision .<br />

In Varykino in 1918, Yurii Zhivago <strong>and</strong> his family<br />

read Pushkin’s Evgenii Onegin endlessly (281) . Yurii<br />

examines Pushkin’s poetics, writing in his diary “‘Air,<br />

light, the noise of life, reality burst into his poetry<br />

from the street as through an open window . The outside<br />

world, everyday things, nouns, crowded in <strong>and</strong><br />

took possession of his lines, driving out the vaguer<br />

parts of speech…As if…Pushkin’s tetrameter…were a<br />

measuring unit of Russian life…’” (284) . When Yurii<br />

returns to Varykino with Lara, he’s learned the lessons<br />

of Pushkin, <strong>and</strong> the fever of creation as he writes his<br />

poem on St . George <strong>and</strong> the dragon reproduces the<br />

power of Pushkin’s “Autumn”:<br />

He gave up the pompous meter <strong>and</strong> the caesura<br />

<strong>and</strong> cut down the lines to four beats…He<br />

forced himself to even shorter lines…<strong>and</strong> Yurii<br />

Andreievich felt wide awake, roused, excited; the<br />

right words to fill the short lines came, prompted<br />

by the measure…He heard the horse’s hoofs<br />

ringing on the surface of the poem…St . George<br />

was galloping over the boundless expanse of the<br />

steppe . He could watch him, as he grew smaller<br />

in the distance . He wrote in a feverish hurry,<br />

scarcely able to keep up with the words as they<br />

poured out, always to the point <strong>and</strong> tumbling<br />

into place of themselves (441) .<br />

Inspired to read voluminously <strong>and</strong> write in powerful<br />

creative bursts during two periods in Varykino, Yurii<br />

Zhivago finds himself moved to write poetry as he<br />

reads Pushkin <strong>and</strong> to think about Russia <strong>and</strong> her history<br />

by reading Tolstoy .<br />

The Life of Leo (Lev) Nikolayevich,<br />

Count Tolstoy (1828–1910)<br />

“If the world could write by itself, it would write like<br />

Tolstoy .”<br />

— Isaac Babel148 68<br />

Leo (Count) Tolstoy was born on August 28, 1828 (Old<br />

Style Calendar), the fourth child of Count Nikolai Ilyich<br />

Tolstoy <strong>and</strong> Countess Marya Nikolayevna Volkonsky<br />

at the family estate Yasnaya Polyana south of Moscow<br />

in the Tula Province of Russia . Tolstoy entered a<br />

noble family with a lengthy history; his ancestor Peter<br />

Tolstoy was given the title of Count by Tsar Peter the<br />

Great (1672–1725) . Tolstoy’s ancestor was a part of<br />

Tsar Peter’s modernization of Russia <strong>and</strong> may have<br />

been involved in the death of his son <strong>and</strong> heir, Alexei,<br />

who had been imprisoned for plotting against his<br />

father . After Peter the Great died, Peter Tolstoy lost his<br />

title <strong>and</strong> his liberty, <strong>and</strong> was banished to the Russian<br />

Arctic; however, his gr<strong>and</strong>son was later able to recover<br />

the title <strong>and</strong> some of the l<strong>and</strong>s . Tolstoy’s gr<strong>and</strong>father<br />

nearly lost his own family fortune <strong>and</strong> then married<br />

into Russian aristocracy <strong>and</strong> squ<strong>and</strong>ered much of his<br />

wife’s inheritance . To restore what he could of the<br />

family fortune <strong>and</strong> esteem, Tolstoy’s father Nikolai<br />

married an older but wealthy bride, Marya Volkonsky .<br />

The Volkonskys traced their lineage back for centuries<br />

<strong>and</strong> served at Court when the Romanov dynasty came<br />

to power .<br />

Tolstoy was born just two years before his mother’s<br />

death; she died giving birth to his youngest sibling,<br />

Marya, in 1830 . His father’s distant cousin, Tatiana<br />

Yergolskaya, moved in to help with running the household<br />

<strong>and</strong> raising the children . She was the closest<br />

approximation of a mother Leo Tolstoy would know as<br />

he <strong>and</strong> his siblings spent their childhood on the huge,<br />

wooded estate of Yasnaya Polyana, where the children<br />

were surrounded by nature outside <strong>and</strong> culture<br />

in the 20,000 book library inside . Tolstoy’s paternal<br />

gr<strong>and</strong>mother <strong>and</strong> his aunt Alex<strong>and</strong>ra Tolstoy assisted<br />

in raising the young family . Perhaps the strongest<br />

influence on Tolstoy, though, was his oldest brother<br />

Nikolai who buried a “magical” green stick on the<br />

estate, telling Leo that it was inscribed with the secret<br />

to happiness—Tolstoy would use the green stick as<br />

a metaphor in his writing as he strove to envision a<br />

world free of pain .<br />

In 1836, the Tolstoys relocated to Moscow so that the<br />

boys could attend school, but the next year, Tolstoy’s<br />

father died suddenly, followed by his gr<strong>and</strong>mother<br />

in 1838; Tolstoy’s aunt, Alex<strong>and</strong>ra, was appointed<br />

guardian of the children . For several years the children<br />

moved between Moscow <strong>and</strong> Yasnaya Polyana until<br />

their aunt died in 1841 <strong>and</strong> they were settled with<br />

another aunt, Pelageya Yushkov, in Kazan . By 1842,<br />

Tolstoy had begun reading the work of the French<br />

philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau, <strong>and</strong> in 1844, he<br />

entered Kazan University where he read widely in<br />

languages <strong>and</strong> literature . At the same time, though,<br />

Tolstoy was indulging in the life of a young nobleman—he<br />

was addicted to gambling, chasing women,<br />

<strong>and</strong> drinking heavily . When he was sober, he was con-<br />

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Leo Tolstoy at age twenty in 1848. Tolstoy was<br />

born into a noble family with a lengthy history, <strong>and</strong><br />

as a young man he indulged in the life of a young<br />

nobleman—in other words, he was addicted to<br />

gambling, chasing women, <strong>and</strong> heavy drinking.<br />

stantly remorseful, but he lasted at the university only<br />

two years <strong>and</strong> left without a degree .<br />

In 1847, Tolstoy received his share of the Tolstoy inheritance,<br />

including Yasnaya Polyana, <strong>and</strong> he returned to<br />

take up his duties as master . Tolstoy soon tired of this<br />

responsibility, though, <strong>and</strong> traveled to Moscow <strong>and</strong> St .<br />

Petersburg, continuing to indulge in gambling <strong>and</strong> begging<br />

his brother for money to pay off his debts . 149 For<br />

several years, Tolstoy struggled to find himself, moving<br />

back <strong>and</strong> forth between remorse <strong>and</strong> debauchery, but<br />

he did manage to pass his law exams <strong>and</strong> followed his<br />

oldest brother into the military .<br />

In the Caucasus in 1851 with his brother Nikolai,<br />

Tolstoy began to write, publishing his first novel<br />

Childhood in serialized form in 1852, followed by<br />

Boyhood in 1854, <strong>and</strong> Youth in 1856 . He joined an<br />

artillery regiment of the army in 1852 <strong>and</strong> published<br />

his earliest story, “The Raid,” based on the military<br />

maneuvers of his brother’s unit in the Crimean War<br />

(1853–56) against the Chechen mountain tribesmen .<br />

Tolstoy himself took part in the siege of Sevastopol150 (also spelled Sebastopol) in 1854–5; battle scenes<br />

from his later masterpiece War <strong>and</strong> Peace draw upon<br />

Tolstoy’s real-life experiences in the gruesomeness<br />

of war . 151 When the censors slashed his references<br />

to the injustices done to the common soldier in his<br />

“Sevastopol in May 1855,” Tolstoy wrote, “‘The hero of<br />

my tale—whom I love with all the power of my soul…<br />

is…Truth .’” 152<br />

The decade of the 1850s ushered in a change in rulership;<br />

Tsar Nicholas I died in March 1855 during the<br />

Crimean War <strong>and</strong> was succeeded by his son, Alex<strong>and</strong>er<br />

II, whose most important accomplishments included<br />

the emancipation of the serfs in Russia in 1861 . Known<br />

as “The Liberator,” Alex<strong>and</strong>er II instituted widespread<br />

reforms including reorganizing the army <strong>and</strong> navy . But,<br />

beginning in 1866, Alex<strong>and</strong>er was subject to several<br />

assassination attempts, <strong>and</strong> finally in 1881, members<br />

of one of numerous revolutionary movements succeeded<br />

in throwing a bomb which killed the Tsar .<br />

Tolstoy suffered personal loss during this decade<br />

when his brother Dmitry died of tuberculosis in<br />

1856 . However, Tolstoy continued to write, publishing<br />

numerous pieces including Sevastopol Sketches,<br />

“Recollections of a Billiard Maker,” “The Snowstorm,”<br />

<strong>and</strong> “The Woodfelling,” in addition to the Childhood<br />

trilogy . Tolstoy was becoming known in the writers’<br />

community, he was photographed with other writers<br />

who’d published in the periodical The Contemporary,<br />

<strong>and</strong> he met a fellow writer who would later rival his<br />

own fame, Ivan Turgenev .<br />

After extensive travels in Europe following his service<br />

in the army, Tolstoy returned to Russia full of new<br />

ideas about education <strong>and</strong> set about introducing educational<br />

reform on his estate, founding a school for his<br />

peasants in the autumn of 1859—up to this time, free<br />

education for peasant children had not existed . Tolstoy<br />

instituted a system of innovative pedagogical methods,<br />

designed his own courses of instruction, published his<br />

ideas on educational reform, <strong>and</strong> taught some of the<br />

classes himself .<br />

In 1861, Tolstoy suffered a devastating loss when his<br />

brother Nikolai died, but Tolstoy found a means to<br />

soften the loss when he married Sofia Andreyevna<br />

Behrs (or Bers) in September 1862 . It is widely<br />

acknowledged that, before their marriage, Tolstoy gave<br />

his young bride-to-be his diaries, filled with information<br />

about his exploits <strong>and</strong> his debauchery, so that<br />

she would suffer no illusions about his past . Tolstoy’s<br />

family life, despite growing estrangement from his wife<br />

during their four decades of marriage, was the center of<br />

his world . The marriage resulted in the births of thirteen<br />

children, five of whom did not survive childhood .<br />

After his first son, Sergei, was born, Tolstoy began work<br />

on his masterpiece, War <strong>and</strong> Peace . The work would<br />

dominate the next four years of his life, as he wrote<br />

in manuscript, giving the pages to his wife who made<br />

fair copies <strong>and</strong> acted as his secretary . In the Epilogue<br />

to the novel, which appeared in print in serialized form<br />

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70<br />

Tolstoy with his wife <strong>and</strong> family, 1887. Tolstoy’s<br />

family life, despite a growing estrangement<br />

from his wife during their four decades of<br />

marriage, was the center of his world.<br />

from 1865 to 1869, Tolstoy wrote that his purpose had<br />

been “To love life in all its innumerable, inexhaustible<br />

manifestations .” 153 The novel is a sprawling epic,<br />

consisting of fifteen books <strong>and</strong> an epilogue which cover<br />

fifteen years of Russian history, centering on the events<br />

of Napoleon’s campaign to conquer Russia . Tolstoy<br />

blended fact with fiction, mingling fictional characters<br />

with historical ones <strong>and</strong> incorporating his own voice in<br />

the text as narrator <strong>and</strong> author .<br />

After initially agreeing to peace, Napoleon returned<br />

to Russia with his Gr<strong>and</strong>e Armée to march against<br />

Alex<strong>and</strong>er I <strong>and</strong> a resistant nation . Russia ultimately<br />

prevailed as an extreme <strong>and</strong> early winter caught a<br />

French army ill-equipped for the cold . Tolstoy mirrored<br />

the struggle between two nations with the struggles<br />

between families, exposing the reality <strong>and</strong> hypocrisy of<br />

the aristocratic class of the time . In the novel, Tolstoy<br />

counterposes a number of binaries, beginning with war<br />

<strong>and</strong> peace: the battlefield <strong>and</strong> the ball, Moscow <strong>and</strong> St .<br />

Petersburg, the Russian aristocrats <strong>and</strong> the peasants,<br />

sweeping exterior l<strong>and</strong>scapes with interior, architectural<br />

spaces . The novel reproduces what Tolstoy believed<br />

about Russia in the aftermath of Napoleon—that the<br />

nation rose to a historical moment of unparalleled<br />

national sentiment revealing the strength of its people<br />

<strong>and</strong> its soul . 154<br />

Despite exhaustion from the rigors of writing War <strong>and</strong><br />

Peace, Tolstoy quickly began writing Anna Karenina<br />

in 1873, publishing it in serialized form between<br />

1873 <strong>and</strong> 1877 . Tolstoy begins the novel with an<br />

intriguing statement: “‘All happy families are like<br />

one another; each unhappy family is unhappy in its<br />

own way .’” 155 This novel is a classic study in adultery,<br />

rivaling Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary in its<br />

scope . Moral responsibility is the theme which guides<br />

the plot of the novel, <strong>and</strong> Anna will be held bitterly<br />

responsible for her moral lapse . The happy marriage of<br />

Kitty Scherbatskaya <strong>and</strong> Levin is pitted against Anna’s<br />

restlessness in her marriage to Karenin <strong>and</strong> her fatal<br />

passion for Vronsky . Anna leaves her husb<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong><br />

child for Vronsky but is utterly consumed by guilt<br />

<strong>and</strong> remorse <strong>and</strong> nearly dies in childbirth delivering a<br />

daughter while Karenin <strong>and</strong> Vronsky reconcile at her<br />

sickbed . When she recovers, Anna leaves with Vronsky<br />

to go abroad, but their relationship deteriorates, <strong>and</strong><br />

upon her return to St . Petersburg, Anna finds that<br />

she is shunned by high society . As Anna sinks lower<br />

in despair, she begins to think of suicide, <strong>and</strong>, as a<br />

parallel to a railway worker’s death she’s witnessed at<br />

the beginning of the novel, Anna throws herself in the<br />

path of an oncoming train . Of Anna’s last moments of<br />

consciousness, the narrator writes:<br />

And the c<strong>and</strong>le by the light of which she had<br />

been reading that book filled with anxieties,<br />

deceptions, grief <strong>and</strong> evil, flared up brighter than<br />

ever, lit up for her all that had once been in<br />

darkness, sputtered, grew dim, <strong>and</strong> went out for<br />

ever . 156<br />

With Anna Karenina out, Tolstoy experienced a period<br />

of religious upheaval which led to his publishing A<br />

Confession (1882), where he examined his own life <strong>and</strong><br />

faith . Later, he embraced Orthodox Christianity <strong>and</strong><br />

wrote nonfiction extensively, including the titles What<br />

I Believe, What People Live By, <strong>and</strong> The Kingdom of<br />

God Is Within You, exposing what he believed to be the<br />

evils of church <strong>and</strong> state . Ultimately, though, Tolstoy<br />

offended the Orthodox Church <strong>and</strong> was excommunicated<br />

in 1901 after he published his last novel,<br />

Resurrection (1900), which exposes the hypocrisy<br />

of institutionalized religion . Though the last decade<br />

of his life was largely a period of nonfiction publication,<br />

Tolstoy did continue writing fiction, including<br />

The Kreutzer Sonata (1890), the late story “After the<br />

Dance (alternatively translated as ‘Ball’)” (1903), <strong>and</strong><br />

Resurrection .<br />

Near the end of his life, Tolstoy remained vigorous,<br />

farming his l<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> riding his horses <strong>and</strong> bicycle;<br />

however, his family life was increasingly unhappy . He<br />

wanted to shed his wealth <strong>and</strong> willed the estate to his<br />

family, <strong>and</strong> he seemed to wish to retreat to an ascetic<br />

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Photograph of Tolstoy with his wife in 1910,<br />

about six weeks before his death.<br />

existence which would exclude his wife who persisted<br />

in tying him to her side . Finally, after a marriage of<br />

forty-eight years, Tolstoy left his wife; in the middle of<br />

the night on October 28, 1910, he embarked on a rail<br />

journey which would end with his death on November<br />

7 in a caretaker’s cottage at the railway station at<br />

Astapovo . His disappearance sparked a media event in<br />

Russia, with daily updates in the newspapers tracking<br />

his whereabouts, <strong>and</strong> his death resulted in national<br />

mourning for a legendary <strong>and</strong> heroic figure .<br />

When Leonid Pasternak, who had sketched <strong>and</strong> painted<br />

Tolstoy <strong>and</strong> illustrated scenes from War <strong>and</strong> Peace<br />

<strong>and</strong> Resurrection, was summoned to the scene by telegram,<br />

Boris accompanied him <strong>and</strong> witnessed Tolstoy<br />

laid out on his deathbed as his father sketched his<br />

final pictures . In sharp contrast to the wrinkled figure<br />

lying on the bed, Boris Pasternak felt his “living spiritual<br />

presence which could still be sensed in the room,<br />

towering like Mount Elbrus .” 157 Leonid Pasternak<br />

would remember the great man in his unpublished<br />

memoirs, repeating the advice Tolstoy had given him<br />

as he struggled with the poor quality of the publisher’s<br />

reproductions of his illustrations for Resurrection:<br />

Do not take it to heart—you certainly will later<br />

show the originals of your illustrations in a<br />

public exhibition <strong>and</strong> all will see them <strong>and</strong> give<br />

them their full due . You must remember, Leonid<br />

Osipovich, that everything in the world will pass:<br />

states <strong>and</strong> thrones <strong>and</strong> wealth will perish, our<br />

own <strong>and</strong> our descendants’ mortal frames will be<br />

forgotten . But, if in our work there is even a grain<br />

of true art, it will live forever . 158<br />

S e l e c t e d W o r k<br />

“After the Dance,” by Leo Tolstoy,<br />

1903<br />

“—AND you say that a man cannot, of himself,<br />

underst<strong>and</strong> what is good <strong>and</strong> evil; that it is all<br />

environment, that the environment swamps the man .<br />

But I believe it is all chance . Take my own case…”<br />

Thus spoke our excellent friend, Ivan Vasilievich, after<br />

a conversation between us on the impossibility of<br />

improving individual character without a change of the<br />

conditions under which men live . Nobody had actually<br />

said that one could not of oneself underst<strong>and</strong> good <strong>and</strong><br />

evil; but it was a habit of Ivan Vasilievich to answer<br />

in this way the thoughts aroused in his own mind<br />

by conversation, <strong>and</strong> to illustrate those thoughts by<br />

relating incidents in his own life . He often quite forgot<br />

the reason for his story in telling it; but he always told<br />

it with great sincerity <strong>and</strong> feeling .<br />

He did so now .<br />

“Take my own case . My whole life was moulded, not by<br />

environment, but by something quite different .”<br />

“By what, then?” we asked .<br />

“Oh, that is a long story . I should have to tell you about<br />

a great many things to make you underst<strong>and</strong> .”<br />

“Well, tell us then .”<br />

Ivan Vasilievich thought a little, <strong>and</strong> shook his head .<br />

“My whole life,” he said, “was changed in one night,<br />

or, rather, morning .”<br />

“Why, what happened?” one of us asked .<br />

“What happened was that I was very much in love .<br />

I have been in love many times, but this was the<br />

most serious of all . It is a thing of the past; she has<br />

married daughters now . It was Varinka B—— .” Ivan<br />

Vasilievich mentioned her surname . “Even at fifty she<br />

is remarkably h<strong>and</strong>some; but in her youth, at eighteen,<br />

she was exquisite—tall, slender, graceful, <strong>and</strong> stately .<br />

Yes, stately is the word; she held herself very erect, by<br />

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instinct as it were; <strong>and</strong> carried her head high, <strong>and</strong> that<br />

together with her beauty <strong>and</strong> height gave her a queenly<br />

air in spite of being thin, even bony one might say . It<br />

might indeed have been deterring had it not been for<br />

her smile, which was always gay <strong>and</strong> cordial, <strong>and</strong> for<br />

the charming light in her eyes <strong>and</strong> for her youthful<br />

sweetness .”<br />

“What an entrancing description you give, Ivan<br />

Vasilievich!”<br />

“Description, indeed! I could not possibly describe her<br />

so that you could appreciate her . But that does not<br />

matter; what I am going to tell you happened in the<br />

forties . I was at that time a student in a provincial<br />

university . I don’t know whether it was a good thing<br />

or no, but we had no political clubs, no theories in our<br />

universities then . We were simply young <strong>and</strong> spent<br />

our time as young men do, studying <strong>and</strong> amusing<br />

ourselves . I was a very gay, lively, careless fellow, <strong>and</strong><br />

had plenty of money too . I had a fine horse, <strong>and</strong> used<br />

to go tobogganing with the young ladies . Skating had<br />

not yet come into fashion . I went to drinking parties<br />

with my comrades—in those days we drank nothing<br />

but champagne—if we had no champagne we drank<br />

nothing at all . We never drank vodka, as they do<br />

now . Evening parties <strong>and</strong> balls were my favourite<br />

amusements . I danced well, <strong>and</strong> was not an ugly<br />

fellow .”<br />

“Come, there is no need to be modest,” interrupted a<br />

lady near him . “We have seen your photograph . Not<br />

ugly, indeed! You were a h<strong>and</strong>some fellow .”<br />

“H<strong>and</strong>some, if you like . That does not matter . When<br />

my love for her was at its strongest, on the last day of<br />

the carnival, I was at a ball at the provincial marshal’s,<br />

a good-natured old man, rich <strong>and</strong> hospitable, <strong>and</strong> a<br />

court chamberlain . The guests were welcomed by his<br />

wife, who was as good-natured as himself . She was<br />

dressed in puce-coloured velvet, <strong>and</strong> had a diamond<br />

diadem on her forehead, <strong>and</strong> her plump, old white<br />

shoulders <strong>and</strong> bosom were bare like the portraits of<br />

Empress Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great .<br />

“It was a delightful ball . It was a splendid room, with<br />

a gallery for the orchestra, which was famous at the<br />

time, <strong>and</strong> consisted of serfs belonging to a musical<br />

l<strong>and</strong>owner . The refreshments were magnificent, <strong>and</strong><br />

the champagne flowed in rivers . Though I was fond<br />

of champagne I did not drink that night, because<br />

without it I was drunk with love . But I made up for<br />

it by dancing waltzes <strong>and</strong> polkas till I was ready to<br />

drop—of course, whenever possible, with Varinka .<br />

She wore a white dress with a pink sash, white shoes,<br />

<strong>and</strong> white kid gloves, which did not quite reach to her<br />

thin pointed elbows . A disgusting engineer named<br />

Anisimov robbed me of the mazurka with her—to this<br />

day I cannot forgive him . He asked her for the dance<br />

the minute she arrived, while I had driven to the hairdresser’s<br />

to get a pair of gloves, <strong>and</strong> was late . So I did<br />

72<br />

not dance the mazurka with her, but with a German<br />

girl to whom I had previously paid a little attention;<br />

but I am afraid I did not behave very politely to her<br />

that evening . I hardly spoke or looked at her, <strong>and</strong> saw<br />

nothing but the tall, slender figure in a white dress,<br />

with a pink sash, a flushed, beaming, dimpled face,<br />

<strong>and</strong> sweet, kind eyes . I was not alone; they were all<br />

looking at her with admiration, the men <strong>and</strong> women<br />

alike, although she outshone all of them . They could<br />

not help admiring her .<br />

“Although I was not nominally her partner for the<br />

mazurka, I did as a matter of fact dance nearly the<br />

whole time with her . She always came forward boldly<br />

the whole length of the room to pick me out . I flew<br />

to meet her without waiting to be chosen, <strong>and</strong> she<br />

thanked me with a smile for my intuition . When I was<br />

brought up to her with somebody else, <strong>and</strong> she guessed<br />

wrongly, she took the other man’s h<strong>and</strong> with a shrug of<br />

her slim shoulders, <strong>and</strong> smiled at me regretfully .<br />

“Whenever there was a waltz figure in the mazurka,<br />

I waltzed with her for a long time, <strong>and</strong> breathing fast<br />

<strong>and</strong> smiling, she would say, ‘Encore’; <strong>and</strong> I went on<br />

waltzing <strong>and</strong> waltzing, as though unconscious of any<br />

bodily existence .”<br />

“Come now, how could you be unconscious of it<br />

with your arm round her waist? You must have been<br />

conscious, not only of your own existence, but of hers,”<br />

said one of the party .<br />

Ivan Vasilievich cried out, almost shouting in anger:<br />

“There you are, moderns all over! Nowadays you think<br />

of nothing but the body . It was different in our day . The<br />

more I was in love the less corporeal was she in my<br />

eyes . Nowadays you set legs, ankles, <strong>and</strong> I don’t know<br />

what . You undress the women you are in love with . In<br />

my eyes, as Alphonse Karr said—<strong>and</strong> he was a good<br />

writer—’ the one I loved was always draped in robes of<br />

bronze .’ We never thought of doing so; we tried to veil<br />

her nakedness, like Noah’s good-natured son . Oh, well,<br />

you can’t underst<strong>and</strong> .”<br />

“Don’t pay any attention to him . Go on,” said one of<br />

them .<br />

“Well, I danced for the most part with her, <strong>and</strong> did<br />

not notice how time was passing . The musicians kept<br />

playing the same mazurka tunes over <strong>and</strong> over again<br />

in desperate exhaustion—you know what it is towards<br />

the end of a ball . Papas <strong>and</strong> mammas were already<br />

getting up from the card-tables in the drawing-room in<br />

expectation of supper, the men-servants were running<br />

to <strong>and</strong> fro bringing in things . It was nearly three<br />

o’clock . I had to make the most of the last minutes . I<br />

chose her again for the mazurka, <strong>and</strong> for the hundredth<br />

time we danced across the room .<br />

“’The quadrille after supper is mine,’ I said, taking her<br />

to her place .<br />

USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 2012–2013<br />

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“’Of course, if I am not carried off home,’ she said,<br />

with a smile .<br />

“’I won’t give you up,’ I said .<br />

“’Give me my fan, anyhow,’ she answered .<br />

“’I am so sorry to part with it,’ I said, h<strong>and</strong>ing her a<br />

cheap white fan .<br />

“’Well, here’s something to console you,’ she said,<br />

plucking a feather out of the fan, <strong>and</strong> giving it to me .<br />

“I took the feather, <strong>and</strong> could only express my rapture<br />

<strong>and</strong> gratitude with my eyes . I was not only pleased<br />

<strong>and</strong> gay, I was happy, delighted; I was good, I was<br />

not myself but some being not of this earth, knowing<br />

nothing of evil . I hid the feather in my glove, <strong>and</strong> stood<br />

there unable to tear myself away from her .<br />

“’Look, they are urging father to dance,’ she said to<br />

me, pointing to the tall, stately figure of her father, a<br />

colonel with silver epaulettes, who was st<strong>and</strong>ing in the<br />

doorway with some ladies .<br />

“’Varinka, come here!’ exclaimed our hostess, the lady<br />

with the diamond ferronniere <strong>and</strong> with shoulders like<br />

Elizabeth, in a loud voice .<br />

“’Varinka went to the door, <strong>and</strong> I followed her .<br />

“’Persuade your father to dance the mazurka with you,<br />

ma chere .—Do, please, Peter Valdislavovich,’ she said,<br />

turning to the colonel .<br />

“Varinka’s father was a very h<strong>and</strong>some, well-preserved<br />

old man . He had a good colour, moustaches curled<br />

in the style of Nicolas I ., <strong>and</strong> white whiskers which<br />

met the moustaches . His hair was combed on to his<br />

forehead, <strong>and</strong> a bright smile, like his daughter’s, was<br />

on his lips <strong>and</strong> in his eyes . He was splendidly set up,<br />

with a broad military chest, on which he wore some<br />

decorations, <strong>and</strong> he had powerful shoulders <strong>and</strong> long<br />

slim legs . He was that ultra-military type produced by<br />

the discipline of Emperor Nicolas I .<br />

“When we approached the door the colonel was just<br />

refusing to dance, saying that he had quite forgotten<br />

how; but at that instant he smiled, swung his arm<br />

gracefully around to the left, drew his sword from its<br />

sheath, h<strong>and</strong>ed it to an obliging young man who stood<br />

near, <strong>and</strong> smoothed his suede glove on his right h<strong>and</strong> .<br />

“’Everything must be done according to rule,’ he said<br />

with a smile . He took the h<strong>and</strong> of his daughter, <strong>and</strong><br />

stood one-quarter turned, waiting for the music .<br />

“At the first sound of the mazurka, he stamped one<br />

foot smartly, threw the other forward, <strong>and</strong>, at first<br />

slowly <strong>and</strong> smoothly, then buoyantly <strong>and</strong> impetuously,<br />

with stamping of feet <strong>and</strong> clicking of boots, his tall,<br />

imposing figure moved the length of the room . Varinka<br />

swayed gracefully beside him, rhythmically <strong>and</strong> easily,<br />

making her steps short or long, with her little feet in<br />

their white satin slippers .<br />

“All the people in the room followed every movement<br />

of the couple . As for me I not only admired, I regarded<br />

them with enraptured sympathy . I was particularly<br />

impressed with the old gentleman’s boots . They were<br />

not the modern pointed affairs, but were made of<br />

cheap leather, squared-toed, <strong>and</strong> evidently built by the<br />

regimental cobbler . In order that his daughter might<br />

dress <strong>and</strong> go out in society, he did not buy fashionable<br />

boots, but wore home-made ones, I thought, <strong>and</strong><br />

his square toes seemed to me most touching . It was<br />

obvious that in his time he had been a good dancer;<br />

but now he was too heavy, <strong>and</strong> his legs had not spring<br />

enough for all the beautiful steps he tried to take . Still,<br />

he contrived to go twice round the room . When at the<br />

end, st<strong>and</strong>ing with legs apart, he suddenly clicked his<br />

feet together <strong>and</strong> fell on one knee, a bit heavily, <strong>and</strong> she<br />

danced gracefully around him, smiling <strong>and</strong> adjusting<br />

her skirt, the whole room applauded .<br />

“Rising with an effort, he tenderly took his daughter’s<br />

face between his h<strong>and</strong>s . He kissed her on the forehead,<br />

<strong>and</strong> brought her to me, under the impression that<br />

I was her partner for the mazurka . I said I was not .<br />

‘Well, never mind . Just go around the room once with<br />

her,’ he said, smiling kindly, as he replaced his sword<br />

in the sheath .<br />

“As the contents of a bottle flow readily when the<br />

first drop has been poured, so my love for Varinka<br />

seemed to set free the whole force of loving within<br />

me . In surrounding her it embraced the world . I loved<br />

the hostess with her diadem <strong>and</strong> her shoulders like<br />

Elizabeth, <strong>and</strong> her husb<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> her guests <strong>and</strong> her<br />

footmen, <strong>and</strong> even the engineer Anisimov who felt<br />

peevish towards me . As for Varinka’s father, with his<br />

home-made boots <strong>and</strong> his kind smile, so like her own,<br />

I felt a sort of tenderness for him that was almost<br />

rapture .<br />

“After supper I danced the promised quadrille with her,<br />

<strong>and</strong> though I had been infinitely happy before, I grew<br />

still happier every moment .<br />

“We did not speak of love . I neither asked myself nor<br />

her whether she loved me . It was quite enough to<br />

know that I loved her . And I had only one fear—that<br />

something might come to interfere with my great joy .<br />

“When I went home, <strong>and</strong> began to undress for the<br />

night, I found it quite out of the question . Held the<br />

little feather out of her fan in my h<strong>and</strong>, <strong>and</strong> one of her<br />

gloves which she gave me when I helped her into the<br />

carriage after her mother . Looking at these things, <strong>and</strong><br />

without closing my eyes I could see her before me as<br />

she was for an instant when she had to choose between<br />

two partners . She tried to guess what kind of person<br />

was represented in me, <strong>and</strong> I could hear her sweet<br />

voice as she said, ‘Pride—am I right?’ <strong>and</strong> merrily gave<br />

me her h<strong>and</strong> . At supper she took the first sip from my<br />

glass of champagne, looking at me over the rim with<br />

her caressing glance . But, plainest of all, I could see<br />

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her as she danced with her father, gliding along beside<br />

him, <strong>and</strong> looking at the admiring observers with pride<br />

<strong>and</strong> happiness .<br />

“He <strong>and</strong> she were united in my mind in one rush of<br />

pathetic tenderness .<br />

“I was living then with my brother, who has since died .<br />

He disliked going out, <strong>and</strong> never went to dances; <strong>and</strong><br />

besides, he was busy preparing for his last university<br />

examinations, <strong>and</strong> was leading a very regular life .<br />

He was asleep . I looked at him, his head buried in<br />

the pillow <strong>and</strong> half covered with the quilt; <strong>and</strong> I<br />

affectionately pitied him, pitied him for his ignorance<br />

of the bliss I was experiencing . Our serf Petrusha had<br />

met me with a c<strong>and</strong>le, ready to undress me, but I sent<br />

him away . His sleepy face <strong>and</strong> tousled hair seemed to<br />

me so touching . Trying not to make a noise, I went to<br />

my room on tiptoe <strong>and</strong> sat down on my bed . No, I was<br />

too happy; I could not sleep . Besides, it was too hot<br />

in the rooms . Without taking off my uniform, I went<br />

quietly into the hall, put on my overcoat, opened the<br />

front door <strong>and</strong> stepped out into the street .<br />

“It was after four when I had left the ball; going home<br />

<strong>and</strong> stopping there a while had occupied two hours,<br />

so by the time I went out it was dawn . It was regular<br />

carnival weather—foggy, <strong>and</strong> the road full of watersoaked<br />

snow just melting, <strong>and</strong> water dripping from the<br />

eaves . Varinka’s family lived on the edge of town near<br />

a large field, one end of which was a parade ground: at<br />

the other end was a boarding-school for young ladies .<br />

I passed through our empty little street <strong>and</strong> came to<br />

the main thoroughfare, where I met pedestrians <strong>and</strong><br />

sledges laden with wood, the runners grating the road .<br />

The horses swung with regular paces beneath their<br />

shining yokes, their backs covered with straw mats<br />

<strong>and</strong> their heads wet with rain; while the drivers, in<br />

enormous boots, splashed through the mud beside the<br />

sledges . All this, the very horses themselves, seemed<br />

to me stimulating <strong>and</strong> fascinating, full of suggestion .<br />

“When I approached the field near their house, I saw<br />

at one end of it, in the direction of the parade ground,<br />

something very huge <strong>and</strong> black, <strong>and</strong> I heard sounds of<br />

fife <strong>and</strong> drum proceeding from it . My heart had been<br />

full of song, <strong>and</strong> I had heard in imagination the tune<br />

of the mazurka, but this was very harsh music . It was<br />

not pleasant .<br />

“’What can that be?’ I thought, <strong>and</strong> went towards the<br />

sound by a slippery path through the centre of the field .<br />

Walking about a hundred paces, I began to distinguish<br />

many black objects through the mist . They were<br />

evidently soldiers . ‘It is probably a drill,’ I thought .<br />

“So I went along in that direction in company with a<br />

blacksmith, who wore a dirty coat <strong>and</strong> an apron, <strong>and</strong><br />

was carrying something . He walked ahead of me as we<br />

approached the place . The soldiers in black uniforms<br />

stood in two rows, facing each other motionless, their<br />

74<br />

guns at rest . Behind them stood the fifes <strong>and</strong> drums,<br />

incessantly repeating the same unpleasant tune .<br />

“’What are they doing?’ I asked the blacksmith, who<br />

halted at my side .<br />

“’A Tartar is being beaten through the ranks for his<br />

attempt to desert,’ said the blacksmith in an angry<br />

tone, as he looked intently at the far end of the line .<br />

“I looked in the same direction, <strong>and</strong> saw between the<br />

files something horrid approaching me . The thing that<br />

approached was a man, stripped to the waist, fastened<br />

with cords to the guns of two soldiers who were leading<br />

him . At his side an officer in overcoat <strong>and</strong> cap was<br />

walking, whose figure had a familiar look . The victim<br />

advanced under the blows that rained upon him from<br />

both sides, his whole body plunging, his feet dragging<br />

through the snow . Now he threw himself backward,<br />

<strong>and</strong> the subalterns who led him thrust him forward .<br />

Now he fell forward, <strong>and</strong> they pulled him up short;<br />

while ever at his side marched the tall officer, with firm<br />

<strong>and</strong> nervous pace . It was Varinka’s father, with his rosy<br />

face <strong>and</strong> white moustache .<br />

“At each stroke the man, as if amazed, turned his face,<br />

grimacing with pain, towards the side whence the blow<br />

came, <strong>and</strong> showing his white teeth repeated the same<br />

words over <strong>and</strong> over . But I could only hear what the<br />

words were when he came quite near . He did not speak<br />

them, he sobbed them out,—”’Brothers, have mercy<br />

on me! Brothers, have mercy on me!’ But the brothers<br />

had, no mercy, <strong>and</strong> when the procession came close<br />

to me, I saw how a soldier who stood opposite me<br />

took a firm step forward <strong>and</strong> lifting his stick with a<br />

whirr, brought it down upon the man’s back . The man<br />

plunged forward, but the subalterns pulled him back,<br />

<strong>and</strong> another blow came down from the other side, then<br />

from this side <strong>and</strong> then from the other . The colonel<br />

marched beside him, <strong>and</strong> looking now at his feet <strong>and</strong><br />

now at the man, inhaled the air, puffed out his cheeks,<br />

<strong>and</strong> breathed it out between his protruded lips . When<br />

they passed the place where I stood, I caught a glimpse<br />

between the two files of the back of the man that was<br />

being punished . It was something so many-coloured,<br />

wet, red, unnatural, that I could hardly believe it was<br />

a human body .<br />

“’My God!”’ muttered the blacksmith .<br />

The procession moved farther away . The blows<br />

continued to rain upon the writhing, falling creature;<br />

the fifes shrilled <strong>and</strong> the drums beat, <strong>and</strong> the tall<br />

imposing figure of the colonel moved along-side the<br />

man, just as before . Then, suddenly, the colonel<br />

stopped, <strong>and</strong> rapidly approached a man in the ranks .<br />

“’I’ll teach you to hit him gently,’ I heard his furious<br />

voice say . ‘Will you pat him like that? Will you?’ <strong>and</strong><br />

I saw how his strong h<strong>and</strong> in the suede glove struck<br />

the weak, bloodless, terrified soldier for not bringing<br />

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down his stick with sufficient strength on the red neck<br />

of the Tartar .<br />

“’Bring new sticks!’ he cried, <strong>and</strong> looking round, he<br />

saw me . Assuming an air of not knowing me, <strong>and</strong> with<br />

a ferocious, angry frown, he hastily turned away . I felt<br />

so utterly ashamed that I didn’t know where to look .<br />

It was as if I had been detected in a disgraceful act . I<br />

dropped my eyes, <strong>and</strong> quickly hurried home . All the<br />

way I had the drums beating <strong>and</strong> the fifes whistling in<br />

my ears . And I heard the words, ‘Brothers, have mercy<br />

on me!’ or ‘Will you pat him? Will you?’ My heart was<br />

full of physical disgust that was almost sickness . So<br />

much so that I halted several times on my way, for I<br />

had the feeling that I was going to be really sick from<br />

all the horrors that possessed me at that sight . I do<br />

not remember how I got home <strong>and</strong> got to bed . But the<br />

moment I was about to fall asleep I heard <strong>and</strong> saw<br />

again all that had happened, <strong>and</strong> I sprang up .<br />

“’Evidently he knows something I do not know,’ I<br />

thought about the colonel . ‘If I knew what he knows I<br />

should certainly grasp—underst<strong>and</strong>—what I have just<br />

seen, <strong>and</strong> it would not cause me such suffering .’<br />

“But however much I thought about it, I could not<br />

underst<strong>and</strong> the thing that the colonel knew . It was<br />

evening before I could get to sleep, <strong>and</strong> then only after<br />

calling on a friend <strong>and</strong> drinking till I was quite drunk .<br />

“Do you think I had come to the conclusion that the<br />

deed I had witnessed was wicked? Oh, no . Since it<br />

was done with such assurance, <strong>and</strong> was recognised<br />

by everyone as indispensable, they doubtless knew<br />

something which I did not know . So I thought, <strong>and</strong><br />

tried to underst<strong>and</strong> . But no matter, I could never<br />

underst<strong>and</strong> it, then or afterwards . And not being<br />

able to grasp it, I could not enter the service as I had<br />

intended . I don’t mean only the military service: I did<br />

not enter the Civil Service either . And so I have been<br />

of no use whatever, as you can see .”<br />

“Yes, we know how useless you’ve been,” said one of<br />

us . “Tell us, rather, how many people would be of any<br />

use at all if it hadn’t been for you .”<br />

“Oh, that’s utter nonsense,” said Ivan Vasilievich, with<br />

genuine annoyance .<br />

“Well; <strong>and</strong> what about the love affair?<br />

“My love? It decreased from that day . When, as<br />

often happened, she looked dreamy <strong>and</strong> meditative, I<br />

instantly recollected the colonel on the parade ground,<br />

<strong>and</strong> I felt so awkward <strong>and</strong> uncomfortable that I began<br />

to see her less frequently . So my love came to naught .<br />

Yes; such chances arise, <strong>and</strong> they alter <strong>and</strong> direct a<br />

man’s whole life,” he said in summing up . “And you<br />

say…”<br />

Tolstoy’s Story “After the Dance”<br />

(1903)<br />

Written late in Tolstoy’s life <strong>and</strong> not published until<br />

1912, two years after his death, “After the Dance”<br />

offers a disturbing view of Tsarist Russia . While the<br />

story’s title suggests that the action takes place “after”<br />

the ball, there are actually four discrete time periods<br />

to consider in a discussion of the story: the time of<br />

writing, a single day in 1903; the time of narration,<br />

thirty-two years later than the events narrated; the<br />

time of the ball in the 1840s as the party-goers dance<br />

through the night; <strong>and</strong> the next morning at daybreak,<br />

after the ball .<br />

As Tolstoy wrote the story, Russia was on the eve of the<br />

Revolution of 1905; events leading up to that upheaval<br />

had accumulated for decades . Liberals began calling<br />

for a constitution in 1903, <strong>and</strong> by 1904, citizens of<br />

Moscow were dem<strong>and</strong>ing freedom of the press <strong>and</strong><br />

freedom of religion . Tsar Nicholas II was continuing<br />

to prove his inadequacy to the task of ruling what<br />

was becoming an increasingly ungovernable l<strong>and</strong> . The<br />

results of these colliding forces included the “Bloody<br />

Sunday” massacre, general strikes by the workers, <strong>and</strong><br />

military mutinies .<br />

In the time of narration, the 1870s, Tsar Alex<strong>and</strong>er<br />

II, who had succeeded Nicholas I, was proving to be<br />

a relatively liberal ruler . In 1861, he had emancipated<br />

the serfs, essentially abolishing “slavery” in Russia but<br />

also creating dissension among l<strong>and</strong>owners . Alex<strong>and</strong>er<br />

II initiated judicial, military, <strong>and</strong> educational reform,<br />

but his determination to bring Russia into the modern<br />

world was met with resistance in the form of numerous<br />

assassination attempts beginning in 1866 <strong>and</strong> ending<br />

with his death by assassination in 1881 .<br />

In the time of the story, though, the Tsar is Nicholas I,<br />

whose ideological doctrine was “Orthodoxy, Autocracy,<br />

<strong>and</strong> Nationality .” 159 In part a reaction to the aftermath<br />

of the Napoleonic Wars <strong>and</strong> in the wake of the<br />

<strong>Dec</strong>embrist revolt, where a small group of nobles <strong>and</strong><br />

army officers threatened the new Tsar’s authority, this<br />

doctrine adopted an anti-European, paternalist attitude<br />

toward the Russian people . With the Tsar as their<br />

father, Russians were encouraged to see themselves as<br />

a family whose father had full authority while providing<br />

his children with the illusion of freedom .<br />

Positioning the story within multiple time periods<br />

enhances its interrogation of Russian history, which is<br />

at the very heart of the story . The time-present of narration<br />

also forms a frame for the events narrated; for<br />

example, the central character, Ivan Vasilievich, dominates<br />

the first <strong>and</strong> last words of the story, leaving his<br />

opening <strong>and</strong> closing statements open-ended through<br />

the use of ellipses: “‘—And you say that a man cannot,<br />

of himself, underst<strong>and</strong> what is good <strong>and</strong> evil; that<br />

it is all environment, that the environment swamps<br />

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the man . But I believe it is all chance . Take my own<br />

case…’” <strong>and</strong> “‘So my love came to naught . Yes; such<br />

chances arise, <strong>and</strong> they alter <strong>and</strong> direct a man’s whole<br />

life,’” he said in summing up . “‘And you say… .’” Ivan<br />

offers these views in a conversation repeated by an<br />

anonymous narrator who acknowledges the “sincerity<br />

<strong>and</strong> feeling” with which Ivan always offers his views<br />

in a conversation by “relating incidents in his own<br />

life .” Ivan’s story will, in fact, illustrate his view of the<br />

oscillation between chance <strong>and</strong> environment in determining<br />

human nature .<br />

In fact, the very nature of the story is a dialogue—not<br />

only between Ivan <strong>and</strong> his friends, but also between<br />

prevailing historical forces <strong>and</strong> the life of the individual,<br />

between the life of the aristocracy <strong>and</strong> the brutality<br />

it encourages, between the naiveté of youth <strong>and</strong> the<br />

advancing wisdom of age, between corporeality <strong>and</strong><br />

spirit, between wealth <strong>and</strong> poverty, <strong>and</strong> between love<br />

<strong>and</strong> death . Ivan first determines to convince his listeners<br />

that life is guided entirely by chance rather than<br />

environment . The outcome of his tale will, of course,<br />

contradict this claim in interesting ways when Ivan’s<br />

chance encounter with the soldiers’ gauntlet reinforces<br />

the power of environment . Under the delusion that he<br />

can exercise free will, which allows him to w<strong>and</strong>er as<br />

he chooses, Ivan comes into coincidental contact with<br />

the Colonel, the father of the woman he loves, in a<br />

scene of unmatched brutality . The encounter suggests<br />

that, instead of free will, Ivan has been led to a predetermined<br />

moment which inspires him to reject both<br />

the woman he loves <strong>and</strong> military/civil service in the<br />

government of the l<strong>and</strong> in which he lives .<br />

Aligned with environment in the story is the depiction<br />

of an aristocratic, useless society at the ball, which<br />

bears close examination . Regal descriptions start with<br />

Ivan’s depiction of Varinka—she is “graceful,” “stately,”<br />

<strong>and</strong> has a “queenly air .” Ivan throws in a rather strange<br />

qualification, however, when he calls her “thin, even<br />

bony .” Of course the hint of bones foreshadows the<br />

later brutal beating of the Tartar deserter, but it also<br />

gestures toward the image of this aristocratic society<br />

as a whited sepulcher—a charnel house . This is the<br />

only discordant note struck about Varinka, however,<br />

but it is an important one . Additionally striking is that<br />

as incorporeal as Ivan claims she is to him, <strong>and</strong> as<br />

much as he rejects thinking of her in sensual terms, he<br />

constantly refers to her body—her thinness, her “thin<br />

pointed elbows,” “dimpled face,” “sweet, kind eyes,”<br />

<strong>and</strong> “slim shoulders .”<br />

The party is tied even more closely to imperial Russia,<br />

though, when Ivan describes the hostess as a match to<br />

Empress Elizabeth (1709–62) . The provincial marshal’s<br />

wife has “plump, old white shoulders <strong>and</strong> bosom…bare<br />

like the portraits of Empress Elizabeth, the daughter of<br />

Peter the Great .” Readers remembering the many images<br />

of Elizabeth would also know that she seized power<br />

with the help of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, 160 <strong>and</strong><br />

76<br />

that she had arrived in their headquarters with a metal<br />

breastplate over her dress—Elizabeth accomplished a<br />

bloodless coup <strong>and</strong> removed her infant cousin from the<br />

throne . Thus Elizabeth’s image is evoked not only by<br />

direct reference to her portraits, but also through Ivan’s<br />

reference to draping the woman he loves in “robes of<br />

bronze,” rendering her impenetrable .<br />

The appearance of Elizabeth’s father, the Colonel, at<br />

the ball invokes the image of Nicholas I, for his moustaches<br />

are “curled” in the style of the Tsar, <strong>and</strong> he<br />

presents the figure of “that ultra-military type produced<br />

by the discipline of Emperor Nicolas I .” Discipline is<br />

the keynote here as the Colonel will, in fact, mete out<br />

the severest discipline later in the story . “‘Everything,’”<br />

the Colonel says as he prepares to dance with his<br />

daughter, “‘must be done according to rule .’” However,<br />

while Ivan describes the father’s appearance as “splendidly<br />

set up,” his boots are common . Ivan is drawn to<br />

look at them as the father stamps his feet to begin the<br />

mazurka with his daughter; Ivan sees that the boots<br />

are square-toed <strong>and</strong> made of cheap leather, probably<br />

by the regimental cobbler, <strong>and</strong> guesses that this bit<br />

of economy provides his daughter with her dress to<br />

appear in fancy society . Symbolically, though, the boots<br />

suggest much more—as the reader will shortly see, the<br />

father’s reality is far different from his appearance, <strong>and</strong><br />

his “cheap” boots hint at his “feet of clay .”<br />

Gloves also take on heightened significance when the<br />

Colonel appears . Ivan was late for the ball because<br />

he had forgotten his gloves, Varinka wears white kid<br />

gloves which don’t “quite reach to her thin pointed<br />

elbows,” <strong>and</strong> the Colonel removes his sword <strong>and</strong>,<br />

smoothing on his “suede glove,” he prepares to dance<br />

with his daughter . He will have on that same glove<br />

when “his strong h<strong>and</strong> in the suede glove [strikes] the<br />

weak, bloodless, terrified soldier for not bringing down<br />

his stick with sufficient strength on the red neck of<br />

the Tartar .” As the father’s smile is like the daughter’s<br />

<strong>and</strong> “‘He <strong>and</strong> she were united’” in Ivan’s mind, Varinka<br />

becomes inextricably linked to paternalism, power, <strong>and</strong><br />

brutality .<br />

Ivan’s naiveté is crushed on the morning after the ball<br />

when he witnesses the flogging of the Tartar deserter .<br />

The description of the scene accumulates a series of<br />

negative associations as Ivan reaches the field near<br />

Varinka’s house <strong>and</strong> sees in the foggy weather something<br />

“huge <strong>and</strong> black” accompanied by unpleasant<br />

sounds of fife <strong>and</strong> drum . Unaware of the meaning of<br />

what he sees from afar, Ivan follows a blacksmith who<br />

tells him “‘A Tartar is being beaten through the ranks<br />

for his attempt to desert .’” The blacksmith is angry,<br />

<strong>and</strong> while, for the moment, it may be unclear where<br />

his anger is directed, once he sees the mutilated body<br />

of the Tartar, he mutters “‘My God!,’” making clear his<br />

own disgust at the scene . The blacksmith introduces<br />

the common man, the working poor, into the narrative<br />

to serve as a corrective to a Tsarist militaristic regime .<br />

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Photograph of Leo Tolstoy at work at his desk in 1908 by Sergei Mikhailovich.<br />

Varinka’s father, the Colonel, links, by his presence in<br />

both scenes, the ball with after the ball . The scene after<br />

the ball exposes the dark underside of an aristocratic<br />

society partying on Carnival night . In fact, the scene<br />

suggests even more in its resemblance to the beatings<br />

of Christ as he stumbled to Golgotha to be crucified .<br />

The beaten, suffering man begs for mercy, <strong>and</strong> his fate<br />

is certainly sealed .<br />

Ultimately, Ivan’s repulsion nauseates him, <strong>and</strong> he<br />

withdraws both from Varinka <strong>and</strong> from a life in government<br />

service . “‘And so,’” he tells his listeners, “‘I have<br />

been of no use whatever, as you can see .’” But they disagree,<br />

telling him, “‘Tell us, rather, how many people<br />

would be of any use at all if it hadn’t been for you .’”<br />

The comment is cryptic, suggesting that Ivan has been<br />

of service in a way he never would have envisioned as<br />

a young man . Furthermore, Ivan continuously refuses<br />

to believe that the beating he saw was consummately<br />

evil, insisting instead that “‘they doubtless knew<br />

something which I did not know .’” In his comments<br />

<strong>and</strong> his actions, Ivan embodies Tolstoy’s own belief in<br />

nonresistance, or nonviolent resistance to oppressive<br />

authority . As the story ends in a statement about the<br />

action of chance <strong>and</strong> an ellipsis, Tolstoy seems to hold<br />

out hope that there may yet be the possibility for peace<br />

in Russia .<br />

One of Pasternak’s numerous references to Tolstoy<br />

<strong>and</strong> Tolstoyanism in Doctor Zhivago suggests a similar<br />

view of the intersection of chance, fate, history, <strong>and</strong><br />

environment when Yurii, in the passion of composi-<br />

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tion he experiences during his return to Varykino,<br />

thinks:<br />

Tolstoy thought of it in just this way, but he did<br />

not spell it out so clearly . He denied that history<br />

was set in motion by Napoleon161 or any other<br />

ruler or general, but he did not develop his idea<br />

to its logical conclusion . No single man makes<br />

history . History cannot be seen, just as one cannot<br />

see grass growing . Wars <strong>and</strong> revolutions,<br />

kings <strong>and</strong> Robespierres162 , are history’s organic<br />

agents, its yeast . But revolutions are made by<br />

fanatical men of action with one-track minds… .<br />

(454) .<br />

As linked as Pushkin <strong>and</strong> Tolstoy in Yurii Zhivago’s creative<br />

impulses <strong>and</strong> philosophical musings at Varykino<br />

is the work of Anton Chekhov, whose brilliant narrative<br />

miniature portraits ripened in Yurii’s imagination .<br />

The Life of Anton Pavlovich<br />

Chekhov (1860–1904)<br />

“‘<strong>Lit</strong>erature is called artistic when it depicts life as<br />

it actually is… . A writer should be as objective as a<br />

chemist .’” 163<br />

Unlike Pushkin <strong>and</strong> Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov was not<br />

the descendant of a long line of nobles . He was the son<br />

of a shopkeeper <strong>and</strong> the gr<strong>and</strong>son of an enterprising<br />

serf who acquired enough money to purchase his own<br />

freedom <strong>and</strong> that of his three sons in the 1840s . Born<br />

in January 17, 1860, in Taganrog, a seaport on the Sea<br />

of Azov near the edge of the Black Sea, Chekhov was<br />

the third son of Pavel Chekhov <strong>and</strong> his wife Yevgenia .<br />

As the descendants of peasants, Chekhov’s family<br />

would have had special interest in Tsar Alex<strong>and</strong>er II’s<br />

emancipation of the serfs just one year after Anton’s<br />

birth .<br />

Chekhov worked in his father’s store during the long<br />

hours it was open <strong>and</strong> attended school, first at a Greek<br />

school <strong>and</strong> then at the town’s gymnasium, or high<br />

school . Chekhov never forgot his father’s bullying,<br />

writing later to his brothers that their childhood was<br />

destroyed by “‘Despotism <strong>and</strong> lies…so much so that<br />

we become sick <strong>and</strong> fearful when we remember it .’” 164<br />

Despite his abusive nature, though, Chekhov’s father<br />

did provide for his sons’ education, moving them closer<br />

to respectability <strong>and</strong> middle-class life . At the same<br />

time, he proved to be an incompetent businessman,<br />

suffered bankruptcy in 1876, <strong>and</strong> fled to Moscow to<br />

escape impending legal action . Chekhov was left alone<br />

in the Taganrog house after his father lost ownership<br />

<strong>and</strong> the rest of his family left for Moscow; so to pay for<br />

his own room <strong>and</strong> board in the former family home, he<br />

tutored a tenant’s nephew . By selling what was left of<br />

the family’s property, Chekhov was able to send money<br />

to Moscow <strong>and</strong> continue his studies in Taganrog .<br />

78<br />

Portrait of a young Chekhov from 1882.<br />

In 1879, Chekhov left Taganrog to join his family<br />

in Moscow <strong>and</strong> take up the study of medicine at the<br />

university . Because his financial support was so desperately<br />

needed by his family, he began writing, publishing<br />

short stories in popular periodicals in 1880 . He was<br />

publishing regularly in one of the most popular journals,<br />

Fragments, by 1883, <strong>and</strong> despite his enjoyment<br />

of Moscow nightlife, he never sank to the levels of<br />

dissolution <strong>and</strong> debauchery of his two older brothers .<br />

Chekhov began practicing medicine in 1884, often<br />

treating peasants for free; but as seriously as he took<br />

his role of healer to others, he did not take the best care<br />

of himself . In 1884, he suffered—<strong>and</strong> ignored—the<br />

symptoms of tuberculosis, the disease that would kill<br />

him far too young . Chekhov also felt that his training<br />

added to his powers of observation as a writer . By 1886,<br />

Chekhov had begun contributing to one of the largest<br />

daily newspapers, the New Times, <strong>and</strong> formed a longterm<br />

friendship with its publisher, Aleksey Suvorin .<br />

The relationship with the paper <strong>and</strong> Suvorin offered<br />

Chekhov the opportunity to grow in his craft <strong>and</strong><br />

to become known as a serious author . Furthermore,<br />

USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 2012–2013<br />

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ecognition from one of the best-known writers of the<br />

time, Dmitri Grigorovich, gave Chekhov the initiative<br />

to begin publishing under his own name rather than<br />

a pseudonym <strong>and</strong> to spend more time on his work .<br />

At the end of the 1880s, Chekhov began to publish<br />

his work in collections <strong>and</strong> tried his h<strong>and</strong> at writing<br />

drama . His first play, Ivanov, appeared in a Moscow<br />

theater to mixed success, but his later one-act comedy<br />

The Bear, along with other short farces, began to establish<br />

his place in the theater .<br />

Chekhov published one of his longest stories,<br />

“The Steppe,” in 1888; told by a child protagonist,<br />

Yegorushka, the story follows the boy, his uncle, <strong>and</strong><br />

a family friend carrying wool across the steppe to<br />

the Kiev market where the boy will remain to attend<br />

school . During the course of the narrative, Chekhov<br />

displays great virtuosity in the depiction of the characters<br />

the boy meets as well as the evocation of the<br />

vastness <strong>and</strong> beauty of the Russian grassl<strong>and</strong>s . By the<br />

following year, 1888, Chekhov had earned the Pushkin<br />

Prize for <strong>Lit</strong>erature for a collection of short stories<br />

entitled In the Twilight . With this collection, Chekhov<br />

began to register his ability to reveal the inner life <strong>and</strong><br />

psychology of his characters, leaving his position as<br />

narrator nonjudgmental . Chekhov’s fiction, from this<br />

point on, increased in quality as he wrote longer but<br />

fewer works .<br />

Chekhov reached a crucial moment in his life when<br />

he decided to leave everything behind temporarily<br />

<strong>and</strong> travel across Siberia to the penal colony on the<br />

isl<strong>and</strong> of Sakhalin . A number of reasons may have<br />

inspired him to make the journey, including his older<br />

brother Nikolai’s death from tuberculosis in 1889 .<br />

Before construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway,<br />

Chekhov’s choices for modes of travel across the vast<br />

territory of Siberia in 1890 were limited to sledge or<br />

cart . Chekhov was shocked by what he found when<br />

he arrived—appalling conditions, rampant prostitution,<br />

disease, <strong>and</strong> alcoholism . Chekhov conducted a<br />

census <strong>and</strong> scores of personal interviews with the<br />

inhabitants which resulted in the later publication of<br />

his documentary The Isl<strong>and</strong>: A Journey to Sakhalin<br />

(1893–95), a work that would take him almost five<br />

years to complete .<br />

On the way back to Moscow, Chekhov traveled via<br />

Hong Kong, Singapore, <strong>and</strong> Ceylon, sailed through<br />

the Suez Canal <strong>and</strong> the Red Sea, <strong>and</strong> finally l<strong>and</strong>ed<br />

in Odessa . After the hell of Sakharin, Chekhov chose<br />

a journey to Europe in the spring of 1891, writing of<br />

Venice: “‘You drift along in a gondola seeing the palaces<br />

of the Doges, Desdemona’s house, the homes of<br />

famous painters, churches…And inside these churches<br />

sculpture <strong>and</strong> paintings such as one sees only in<br />

dreams .’” 165 Finishing his travels in Nice, Monte Carlo,<br />

<strong>and</strong> Paris in April 1891, Chekhov finally returned to<br />

Russia to complete his work on the story “The Duel”<br />

Anton Chekhov (left) with his brother Nikolai<br />

Chekhov, an artist (right), in 1882.<br />

<strong>and</strong> to compile his research <strong>and</strong> begin composing The<br />

Isl<strong>and</strong> .<br />

“The Duel,” Chekhov’s longest story <strong>and</strong> his last major<br />

contribution to his friend Suvorin’s New Times, traces<br />

the fate of lovers Laevsky <strong>and</strong> Nadyezhda, who have<br />

fled to the Caucasus to escape Nadyezhda’s husb<strong>and</strong> .<br />

The relationship is ill fated, however, as the lovers<br />

grow to hate each other—Laevsky becomes increasingly<br />

anxious to leave Nadyezhda while she entertains<br />

other lovers . Von Koren, a zoologist in their circle,<br />

despises Laevsky for his illict relationship <strong>and</strong> for his<br />

uselessness, <strong>and</strong> their antagonism escalates to the<br />

point of dueling . Both survive the duel, <strong>and</strong> the story<br />

ends as Laevsky returns to Nadyezhda determined to<br />

try to live with responsibility <strong>and</strong> honor his commitment<br />

to Nadyezhda . How long that commitment will<br />

last, Chekhov leaves to the reader to decide .<br />

In March 1892, Chekhov purchased a small country<br />

estate in Melikhovo near Moscow <strong>and</strong> moved his family<br />

in . Chekhov was generous in providing medical care<br />

free of charge to the peasants in his district <strong>and</strong> was<br />

also vital in the efforts to control cholera outbreaks in<br />

1892–3 . He was happy there <strong>and</strong> produced his finest<br />

short fiction <strong>and</strong> two of his best-known plays: The<br />

Seagull (1896) <strong>and</strong> Uncle Vanya (1897) . During this<br />

time, Chekhov also met Lika Mizinova, a friend of his<br />

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sister’s, whose colorful career <strong>and</strong> illicit affair with a<br />

married man provided him with material for several<br />

stories <strong>and</strong> his play The Seagull .<br />

Considered one of Chekhov’s four most important<br />

plays, The Seagull was a disaster on its opening night<br />

in St . Petersburg, but three years later would open at<br />

the Moscow Art Theater <strong>and</strong> become a huge success .<br />

The play questions the very nature of art formally represented<br />

in fiction <strong>and</strong> drama; the characters include<br />

actresses, playwrights, <strong>and</strong> novelists, while the action<br />

incorporates a play within a play designed to highlight<br />

new <strong>and</strong> innovative theatrical form . The play ends<br />

with the death of the playwright, Konstantin, who<br />

fears that his work is a failure <strong>and</strong>, finding his love for<br />

the actress Nina unrequited, attempts suicide between<br />

Acts Two <strong>and</strong> Three <strong>and</strong> succeeds in killing himself<br />

offstage at the end of the play .<br />

The seagull, both literal <strong>and</strong> symbolic, is most closely<br />

associated with Nina throughout the play <strong>and</strong> suggests<br />

<strong>and</strong> perhaps even parodies the symbolism of the duck<br />

in Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild<br />

Duck . Nina, figured as a seagull early in the play, is<br />

80<br />

Anton Chekhov (left) with Leo Tolstoy (right)<br />

in Yalta in 1900.<br />

appalled when Konstantin offers her a seagull he has<br />

shot <strong>and</strong> killed in Act Two, <strong>and</strong> in the end, when she<br />

reappears at Konstantin’s home much changed <strong>and</strong><br />

disoriented, calls herself a seagull who deserves to be<br />

killed . The death of the seagull is the death of the illusion<br />

of freedom . After she runs away from Konstantin’s<br />

declaration of love for her, Konstantin shoots himself .<br />

While living at Melikhovo, Chekhov made frequent<br />

trips to Moscow <strong>and</strong> St . Petersburg, visited Tolstoy<br />

at his estate at Yasnaya Polyana in 1895, <strong>and</strong> traveled<br />

back to Europe with Suvorin . By 1897, the signs<br />

of Chekhov’s tuberculosis had worsened, <strong>and</strong> he was<br />

finally forced to acknowledge his illness . In the winter<br />

of 1897, Chekhov sought a milder climate <strong>and</strong> traveled<br />

to Nice at a time when France was a stir with the<br />

Dreyfus case . Chekhov took a serious interest in the<br />

fate of Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army<br />

who had been convicted of treason <strong>and</strong> given a life<br />

sentence . Chekhov was especially interested in French<br />

novelist Emile Zola’s defense of Dreyfus <strong>and</strong> was convinced<br />

that Dreyfus had been wrongly accused . When<br />

his friend Suvorin wrote a scathingly anti-Semitic<br />

attack on the defenders of Dreyfus in New Times,<br />

Chekhov felt compelled to end their close association<br />

<strong>and</strong> friendship .<br />

By 1898, Chekhov was wintering in Yalta but visiting<br />

Moscow to observe rehearsals of The Seagull at the<br />

Moscow Art Theater; there he was introduced to Olga<br />

Knipper, the actress who played the part of Masha . The<br />

meeting was fateful, for within a few years, Olga would<br />

become his wife . In the wake of his father’s death in<br />

1898, Chekhov decided to leave Melikhovo, selling it<br />

in August 1899, <strong>and</strong> move permanently to Yalta . In<br />

the spring of 1899, Chekhov divided his time between<br />

Melikhovo <strong>and</strong> Moscow, as his affair with Olga<br />

Knipper blossomed, <strong>and</strong> he began friendships with the<br />

younger writers Maxim Gorky <strong>and</strong> Ivan Bunin . But<br />

Chekhov made a poor business decision when he sold<br />

his copyrights to the publisher A . F . Marx for 75,000<br />

rubles; for when Marx issued a comprehensive edition<br />

of Chekhov’s works in ten volumes from 1899–1901,<br />

he earned far more than he had paid Chekhov for the<br />

rights .<br />

In the fall of 1899, Chekhov wrote “The Lady with<br />

the Dog,” one of the last of his stories, <strong>and</strong> enjoyed<br />

the success of his play Uncle Vanya at the Moscow<br />

Art Theater in October . Chekhov’s home in Yalta was<br />

completed in 1900, <strong>and</strong> he brought his mother <strong>and</strong><br />

sister there to live . He managed to travel with Gorky<br />

to the Caucasus <strong>and</strong> to join Olga during a Moscow<br />

Art Theater tour as he continued to write, completing<br />

the play Three Sisters in October 1900—an effort<br />

which exhausted him as he worked on the play for<br />

ten months . Chekhov traveled again to Nice in 1901<br />

to try to restore his health, but, after his wedding to<br />

Olga in May, he was forced to honeymoon with her in<br />

a sanatorium for tubercular patients . By the summer,<br />

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Photograph of Anton Chekhov <strong>and</strong> his wife Olga on their honeymoon in 1901.<br />

he was coughing up blood again but rallied sufficiently<br />

to attend rehearsals of Three Sisters in Moscow in<br />

September . While Olga remained in Moscow for the<br />

winter theater season, Chekhov, unable to withst<strong>and</strong><br />

the harsh cold, returned to Yalta . By the winter of<br />

1902, Chekhov’s health was continuing to worsen,<br />

<strong>and</strong> Olga suffered a miscarriage . Chekhov <strong>and</strong> Olga<br />

were able to holiday at the director Stanislavsky’s family<br />

estate for six weeks in the summer of 1902, but<br />

by autumn, Olga was back in Moscow <strong>and</strong> Chekhov<br />

returned to Yalta for another winter .<br />

Chekhov worked on his last play, The Cherry Orchard,<br />

for most of 1903 . The play <strong>and</strong> its performance demonstrate<br />

the sharp divide between Chekhov’s intention<br />

<strong>and</strong> Stanislavsky’s production—Chekhov meant the<br />

play to be a comedy while Stanislavsky insisted on<br />

portraying it as a tragedy . The play displays the complex<br />

nature of socioeconomic forces at work in Russia<br />

on the eve of the Revolution of 1905—the rise of the<br />

middle class in the wake of the abolition of serfdom<br />

<strong>and</strong> the inability of the aristocracy to maintain its position<br />

of power . The play opens on an ancestral estate at<br />

the turn of the century which, along with its famous<br />

cherry orchard, is about to be auctioned to pay its aristocratic<br />

owners’ debts . On the same day the estate is<br />

to be auctioned, the leading character <strong>and</strong> owner of the<br />

estate, Lyubov Ranevskaya, throws a party as she <strong>and</strong><br />

her family wait to hear their fate . They learn that the<br />

local merchant Lopakhin has bought the estate <strong>and</strong> the<br />

cherry orchard <strong>and</strong> intends to cut the orchard down .<br />

As the family leaves the estate forever, axes are heard<br />

offstage signaling the destruction of the cherry orchard<br />

<strong>and</strong> the end of a way of life .<br />

The Cherry Orchard opened to an enthusiastic audience<br />

on January 17, 1904, Chekhov’s name day . But<br />

his health continued to fail; in February he returned to<br />

Yalta from Moscow . In June, he traveled with Olga to a<br />

clinic in Badenweiler, Germany, to seek treatment but<br />

died there on July 2 . He is buried in Moscow .<br />

S e l e c t e d W o r k<br />

“The Lady with a Dog,” by Anton<br />

Chekhov, 1899<br />

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I<br />

It was said that a new person had appeared on the seafront:<br />

a lady with a little dog . Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov,<br />

who had by then been a fortnight at Yalta, <strong>and</strong> so was<br />

fairly at home there, had begun to take an interest<br />

in new arrivals . Sitting in Verney’s pavilion, he saw,<br />

walking on the sea-front, a fair-haired young lady of<br />

medium height, wearing a béret; a white Pomeranian<br />

dog was running behind her .<br />

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And afterwards he met her in the public gardens <strong>and</strong> in<br />

the square several times a day . She was walking alone,<br />

always wearing the same béret, <strong>and</strong> always with the<br />

same white dog; no one knew who she was, <strong>and</strong> every<br />

one called her simply “the lady with the dog .”<br />

“If she is here alone without a husb<strong>and</strong> or friends, it<br />

wouldn’t be amiss to make her acquaintance,” Gurov<br />

reflected .<br />

He was under forty, but he had a daughter already<br />

twelve years old, <strong>and</strong> two sons at school . He had been<br />

married young, when he was a student in his second<br />

year, <strong>and</strong> by now his wife seemed half as old again as he .<br />

She was a tall, erect woman with dark eyebrows, staid<br />

<strong>and</strong> dignified, <strong>and</strong>, as she said of herself, intellectual .<br />

She read a great deal, used phonetic spelling, called<br />

her husb<strong>and</strong>, not Dmitri, but Dimitri, <strong>and</strong> he secretly<br />

considered her unintelligent, narrow, inelegant, was<br />

afraid of her, <strong>and</strong> did not like to be at home . He had<br />

begun being unfaithful to her long ago—had been<br />

unfaithful to her often, <strong>and</strong>, probably on that account,<br />

almost always spoke ill of women, <strong>and</strong> when they were<br />

talked about in his presence, used to call them “the<br />

lower race .”<br />

It seemed to him that he had been so schooled by<br />

bitter experience that he might call them what he<br />

liked, <strong>and</strong> yet he could not get on for two days together<br />

without “the lower race .” In the society of men he was<br />

bored <strong>and</strong> not himself, with them he was cold <strong>and</strong><br />

uncommunicative; but when he was in the company<br />

of women he felt free, <strong>and</strong> knew what to say to them<br />

<strong>and</strong> how to behave; <strong>and</strong> he was at ease with them even<br />

when he was silent . In his appearance, in his character,<br />

in his whole nature, there was something attractive<br />

<strong>and</strong> elusive which allured women <strong>and</strong> disposed them<br />

in his favour; he knew that, <strong>and</strong> some force seemed to<br />

draw him, too, to them .<br />

Experience often repeated, truly bitter experience, had<br />

taught him long ago that with decent people, especially<br />

Moscow people—always slow to move <strong>and</strong> irresolute—<br />

every intimacy, which at first so agreeably diversifies life<br />

<strong>and</strong> appears a light <strong>and</strong> charming adventure, inevitably<br />

grows into a regular problem of extreme intricacy, <strong>and</strong><br />

in the long run the situation becomes unbearable . But<br />

at every fresh meeting with an interesting woman this<br />

experience seemed to slip out of his memory, <strong>and</strong> he<br />

was eager for life, <strong>and</strong> everything seemed simple <strong>and</strong><br />

amusing .<br />

One evening he was dining in the gardens, <strong>and</strong> the lady<br />

in the beret came up slowly to take the next table . Her<br />

expression, her gait, her dress, <strong>and</strong> the way she did her<br />

hair told him that she was a lady, that she was married,<br />

that she was in Yalta for the first time <strong>and</strong> alone,<br />

<strong>and</strong> that she was dull there… . The stories told of the<br />

immorality in such places as Yalta are to a great extent<br />

untrue; he despised them, <strong>and</strong> knew that such stories<br />

were for the most part made up by persons who would<br />

82<br />

themselves have been glad to sin if they had been able;<br />

but when the lady sat down at the next table three<br />

paces from him, he remembered these tales of easy<br />

conquests, of trips to the mountains, <strong>and</strong> the tempting<br />

thought of a swift, fleeting love affair, a romance with<br />

an unknown woman, whose name he did not know,<br />

suddenly took possession of him .<br />

He beckoned coaxingly to the Pomeranian, <strong>and</strong> when<br />

the dog came up to him he shook his finger at it . The<br />

Pomeranian growled: Gurov shook his finger at it<br />

again .<br />

The lady looked at him <strong>and</strong> at once dropped her eyes .<br />

“He doesn’t bite,” she said, <strong>and</strong> blushed .<br />

“May I give him a bone?” he asked; <strong>and</strong> when she<br />

nodded he asked courteously, “Have you been long in<br />

Yalta?”<br />

“Five days .”<br />

“And I have already dragged out a fortnight here .”<br />

There was a brief silence .<br />

“Time goes fast, <strong>and</strong> yet it is so dull here!” she said,<br />

not looking at him .<br />

“That’s only the fashion to say it is dull here . A<br />

provincial will live in Belyov or Zhidra <strong>and</strong> not be dull,<br />

<strong>and</strong> when he comes here it’s ‘Oh, the dulness! Oh, the<br />

dust!’ One would think he came from Grenada .”<br />

She laughed . Then both continued eating in silence,<br />

like strangers, but after dinner they walked side by side;<br />

<strong>and</strong> there sprang up between them the light jesting<br />

conversation of people who are free <strong>and</strong> satisfied, to<br />

whom it does not matter where they go or what they<br />

talk about . They walked <strong>and</strong> talked of the strange light<br />

on the sea: the water was of a soft warm lilac hue, <strong>and</strong><br />

there was a golden streak from the moon upon it . They<br />

talked of how sultry it was after a hot day . Gurov told<br />

her that he came from Moscow, that he had taken his<br />

degree in Arts, but had a post in a bank; that he had<br />

trained as an opera-singer, but had given it up, that<br />

he owned two houses in Moscow… . And from her he<br />

learnt that she had grown up in Petersburg, but had<br />

lived in S—— since her marriage two years before,<br />

that she was staying another month in Yalta, <strong>and</strong> that<br />

her husb<strong>and</strong>, who needed a holiday too, might perhaps<br />

come <strong>and</strong> fetch her . She was not sure whether her<br />

husb<strong>and</strong> had a post in a Crown Department or under<br />

the Provincial Council—<strong>and</strong> was amused by her own<br />

ignorance . And Gurov learnt, too, that she was called<br />

Anna Sergeyevna .<br />

Afterwards he thought about her in his room at the<br />

hotel—thought she would certainly meet him the next<br />

day; it would be sure to happen . As he got into bed<br />

he thought how lately she had been a girl at school,<br />

doing lessons like his own daughter; he recalled the<br />

diffidence, the angularity, that was still manifest in<br />

her laugh <strong>and</strong> her manner of talking with a stranger .<br />

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This must have been the first time in her life she had<br />

been alone in surroundings in which she was followed,<br />

looked at, <strong>and</strong> spoken to merely from a secret motive<br />

which she could hardly fail to guess . He recalled her<br />

slender, delicate neck, her lovely grey eyes .<br />

“There’s something pathetic about her, anyway,” he<br />

thought, <strong>and</strong> fell asleep .<br />

II<br />

A week had passed since they had made acquaintance .<br />

It was a holiday . It was sultry indoors, while in the<br />

street the wind whirled the dust round <strong>and</strong> round,<br />

<strong>and</strong> blew people’s hats off . It was a thirsty day, <strong>and</strong><br />

Gurov often went into the pavilion, <strong>and</strong> pressed Anna<br />

Sergeyevna to have syrup <strong>and</strong> water or an ice . One did<br />

not know what to do with oneself .<br />

In the evening when the wind had dropped a little,<br />

they went out on the groyne to see the steamer come<br />

in . There were a great many people walking about<br />

the harbour; they had gathered to welcome someone,<br />

bringing bouquets . And two peculiarities of a welldressed<br />

Yalta crowd were very conspicuous: the elderly<br />

ladies were dressed like young ones, <strong>and</strong> there were<br />

great numbers of generals .<br />

Owing to the roughness of the sea, the steamer arrived<br />

late, after the sun had set, <strong>and</strong> it was a long time turning<br />

about before it reached the groyne . Anna Sergeyevna<br />

looked through her lorgnette at the steamer <strong>and</strong> the<br />

passengers as though looking for acquaintances, <strong>and</strong><br />

when she turned to Gurov her eyes were shining . She<br />

talked a great deal <strong>and</strong> asked disconnected questions,<br />

forgetting the next moment what she had asked; then<br />

she dropped her lorgnette in the crush .<br />

The festive crowd began to disperse; it was too dark to<br />

see people’s faces . The wind had completely dropped,<br />

but Gurov <strong>and</strong> Anna Sergeyevna still stood as though<br />

waiting to see someone else come from the steamer .<br />

Anna Sergeyevna was silent now, <strong>and</strong> sniffed the<br />

flowers without looking at Gurov .<br />

“The weather is better this evening,” he said . “Where<br />

shall we go now? Shall we drive somewhere?”<br />

She made no answer .<br />

Then he looked at her intently, <strong>and</strong> all at once put his<br />

arm round her <strong>and</strong> kissed her on the lips, <strong>and</strong> breathed<br />

in the moisture <strong>and</strong> the fragrance of the flowers; <strong>and</strong> he<br />

immediately looked round him, anxiously wondering<br />

whether anyone had seen them .<br />

“Let us go to your hotel,” he said softly . And both<br />

walked quickly .<br />

The room was close <strong>and</strong> smelt of the scent she had<br />

bought at the Japanese shop . Gurov looked at her<br />

<strong>and</strong> thought: “What different people one meets in<br />

the world!” From the past he preserved memories of<br />

careless, good-natured women, who loved cheerfully<br />

<strong>and</strong> were grateful to him for the happiness he gave<br />

them, however brief it might be; <strong>and</strong> of women like<br />

his wife who loved without any genuine feeling, with<br />

superfluous phrases, affectedly, hysterically, with an<br />

expression that suggested that it was not love nor<br />

passion, but something more significant; <strong>and</strong> of two<br />

or three others, very beautiful, cold women, on<br />

whose faces he had caught a glimpse of a rapacious<br />

expression—an obstinate desire to snatch from life<br />

more than it could give, <strong>and</strong> these were capricious,<br />

unreflecting, domineering, unintelligent women not in<br />

their first youth, <strong>and</strong> when Gurov grew cold to them<br />

their beauty excited his hatred, <strong>and</strong> the lace on their<br />

linen seemed to him like scales .<br />

But in this case there was still the diffidence, the<br />

angularity of inexperienced youth, an awkward feeling;<br />

<strong>and</strong> there was a sense of consternation as though<br />

someone had suddenly knocked at the door . The<br />

attitude of Anna Sergeyevna—“the lady with the<br />

dog”—to what had happened was somehow peculiar,<br />

very grave, as though it were her fall—so it seemed,<br />

<strong>and</strong> it was strange <strong>and</strong> inappropriate . Her face dropped<br />

<strong>and</strong> faded, <strong>and</strong> on both sides of it her long hair hung<br />

down mournfully; she mused in a dejected attitude like<br />

“the woman who was a sinner” in an old-fashioned<br />

picture .<br />

“It’s wrong,” she said . “You will be the first to despise<br />

me now .”<br />

There was a water-melon on the table . Gurov cut<br />

himself a slice <strong>and</strong> began eating it without haste .<br />

There followed at least half an hour of silence .<br />

Anna Sergeyevna was touching; there was about her<br />

the purity of a good, simple woman who had seen little<br />

of life . The solitary c<strong>and</strong>le burning on the table threw<br />

a faint light on her face, yet it was clear that she was<br />

very unhappy .<br />

“How could I despise you?” asked Gurov . “You don’t<br />

know what you are saying .”<br />

“God forgive me,” she said, <strong>and</strong> her eyes filled with<br />

tears . “It’s awful .”<br />

“You seem to feel you need to be forgiven .”<br />

“Forgiven? No . I am a bad, low woman; I despise<br />

myself <strong>and</strong> don’t attempt to justify myself . It’s not<br />

my husb<strong>and</strong> but myself I have deceived . And not<br />

only just now; I have been deceiving myself for a long<br />

time . My husb<strong>and</strong> may be a good, honest man, but he<br />

is a flunkey! I don’t know what he does there, what<br />

his work is, but I know he is a flunkey! I was twenty<br />

when I was married to him . I have been tormented<br />

by curiosity; I wanted something better . ‘There must<br />

be a different sort of life,’ I said to myself . I wanted<br />

to live! To live, to live!…I was fired by curiosity…you<br />

don’t underst<strong>and</strong> it, but, I swear to God, I could not<br />

control myself; something happened to me: I could not<br />

be restrained . I told my husb<strong>and</strong> I was ill, <strong>and</strong> came<br />

here… . And here I have been walking about as though<br />

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I were dazed, like a mad creature;…<strong>and</strong> now I have<br />

become a vulgar, contemptible woman whom any one<br />

may despise .”<br />

Gurov felt bored already, listening to her . He was<br />

irritated by the naïve tone, by this remorse, so<br />

unexpected <strong>and</strong> inopportune; but for the tears in her<br />

eyes, he might have thought she was jesting or playing<br />

a part .<br />

“I don’t underst<strong>and</strong>,” he said softly . “What is it you<br />

want?”<br />

She hid her face on his breast <strong>and</strong> pressed close to him .<br />

“Believe me, believe me, I beseech you…” she said . “I<br />

love a pure, honest life, <strong>and</strong> sin is loathsome to me . I<br />

don’t know what I am doing . Simple people say: ‘The<br />

Evil One has beguiled me .’ And I may say of myself<br />

now that the Evil One has beguiled me .”<br />

“Hush, hush!…” he muttered .<br />

He looked at her fixed, scared eyes, kissed her, talked<br />

softly <strong>and</strong> affectionately, <strong>and</strong> by degrees she was<br />

comforted, <strong>and</strong> her gaiety returned; they both began<br />

laughing .<br />

Afterwards when they went out there was not a soul<br />

on the sea-front . The town with its cypresses had quite<br />

a deathlike air, but the sea still broke noisily on the<br />

shore; a single barge was rocking on the waves, <strong>and</strong> a<br />

lantern was blinking sleepily on it .<br />

They found a cab <strong>and</strong> drove to Ore<strong>and</strong>a .<br />

“I found out your surname in the hall just now: it was<br />

written on the board—Von Diderits,” said Gurov . “Is<br />

your husb<strong>and</strong> a German?”<br />

“No; I believe his gr<strong>and</strong>father was a German, but he is<br />

an Orthodox Russian himself .”<br />

At Ore<strong>and</strong>a they sat on a seat not far from the church,<br />

looked down at the sea, <strong>and</strong> were silent . Yalta was<br />

hardly visible through the morning mist; white clouds<br />

stood motionless on the mountain-tops . The leaves<br />

did not stir on the trees, grasshoppers chirruped, <strong>and</strong><br />

the monotonous hollow sound of the sea rising up<br />

from below, spoke of the peace, of the eternal sleep<br />

awaiting us . So it must have sounded when there was<br />

no Yalta, no Ore<strong>and</strong>a here; so it sounds now, <strong>and</strong> it will<br />

sound as indifferently <strong>and</strong> monotonously when we are<br />

all no more . And in this constancy, in this complete<br />

indifference to the life <strong>and</strong> death of each of us, there lies<br />

hid, perhaps, a pledge of our eternal salvation, of the<br />

unceasing movement of life upon earth, of unceasing<br />

progress towards perfection . Sitting beside a young<br />

woman who in the dawn seemed so lovely, soothed <strong>and</strong><br />

spellbound in these magical surroundings—the sea,<br />

mountains, clouds, the open sky—Gurov thought how<br />

in reality everything is beautiful in this world when<br />

one reflects: everything except what we think or do<br />

ourselves when we forget our human dignity <strong>and</strong> the<br />

higher aims of our existence .<br />

84<br />

A man walked up to them—probably a keeper—looked<br />

at them <strong>and</strong> walked away . And this detail seemed<br />

mysterious <strong>and</strong> beautiful, too . They saw a steamer<br />

come from Theodosia, with its lights out in the glow<br />

of dawn .<br />

“There is dew on the grass,” said Anna Sergeyevna,<br />

after a silence .<br />

“Yes . It’s time to go home .”<br />

They went back to the town .<br />

Then they met every day at twelve o’clock on the<br />

sea-front, lunched <strong>and</strong> dined together, went for walks,<br />

admired the sea . She complained that she slept badly,<br />

that her heart throbbed violently; asked the same<br />

questions, troubled now by jealousy <strong>and</strong> now by the<br />

fear that he did not respect her sufficiently . And often<br />

in the square or gardens, when there was no one<br />

near them, he suddenly drew her to him <strong>and</strong> kissed<br />

her passionately . Complete idleness, these kisses in<br />

broad daylight while he looked round in dread of some<br />

one’s seeing them, the heat, the smell of the sea, <strong>and</strong><br />

the continual passing to <strong>and</strong> fro before him of idle,<br />

well-dressed, well-fed people, made a new man of<br />

him; he told Anna Sergeyevna how beautiful she was,<br />

how fascinating . He was impatiently passionate, he<br />

would not move a step away from her, while she was<br />

often pensive <strong>and</strong> continually urged him to confess<br />

that he did not respect her, did not love her in the<br />

least, <strong>and</strong> thought of her as nothing but a common<br />

woman . Rather late almost every evening they drove<br />

somewhere out of town, to Ore<strong>and</strong>a or to the waterfall;<br />

<strong>and</strong> the expedition was always a success, the scenery<br />

invariably impressed them as gr<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> beautiful .<br />

They were expecting her husb<strong>and</strong> to come, but a letter<br />

came from him, saying that there was something<br />

wrong with his eyes, <strong>and</strong> he entreated his wife to come<br />

home as quickly as possible . Anna Sergeyevna made<br />

haste to go .<br />

“It’s a good thing I am going away,” she said to Gurov .<br />

“It’s the finger of destiny!”<br />

She went by coach <strong>and</strong> he went with her . They were<br />

driving the whole day . When she had got into a<br />

compartment of the express, <strong>and</strong> when the second bell<br />

had rung, she said:<br />

“Let me look at you once more…look at you once<br />

again . That’s right .”<br />

She did not shed tears, but was so sad that she seemed<br />

ill, <strong>and</strong> her face was quivering .<br />

“I shall remember you…think of you,” she said . “God<br />

be with you; be happy . Don’t remember evil against<br />

me . We are parting forever—it must be so, for we ought<br />

never to have met . Well, God be with you .”<br />

The train moved off rapidly, its lights soon vanished<br />

from sight, <strong>and</strong> a minute later there was no sound<br />

of it, as though everything had conspired together to<br />

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end as quickly as possible that sweet delirium, that<br />

madness . Left alone on the platform, <strong>and</strong> gazing into<br />

the dark distance, Gurov listened to the chirrup of<br />

the grasshoppers <strong>and</strong> the hum of the telegraph wires,<br />

feeling as though he had only just waked up . And he<br />

thought, musing, that there had been another episode<br />

or adventure in his life, <strong>and</strong> it, too, was at an end,<br />

<strong>and</strong> nothing was left of it but a memory… . He was<br />

moved, sad, <strong>and</strong> conscious of a slight remorse . This<br />

young woman whom he would never meet again had<br />

not been happy with him; he was genuinely warm <strong>and</strong><br />

affectionate with her, but yet in his manner, his tone,<br />

<strong>and</strong> his caresses there had been a shade of light irony,<br />

the coarse condescension of a happy man who was,<br />

besides, almost twice her age . All the time she had<br />

called him kind, exceptional, lofty; obviously he had<br />

seemed to her different from what he really was, so he<br />

had unintentionally deceived her… .<br />

Here at the station was already a scent of autumn; it<br />

was a cold evening .<br />

“It’s time for me to go north,” thought Gurov as he left<br />

the platform . “High time!”<br />

III<br />

At home in Moscow everything was in its winter<br />

routine; the stoves were heated, <strong>and</strong> in the morning it<br />

was still dark when the children were having breakfast<br />

<strong>and</strong> getting ready for school, <strong>and</strong> the nurse would<br />

light the lamp for a short time . The frosts had begun<br />

already . When the first snow has fallen, on the first day<br />

of sledge-driving it is pleasant to see the white earth,<br />

the white roofs, to draw soft, delicious breath, <strong>and</strong> the<br />

season brings back the days of one’s youth . The old<br />

limes <strong>and</strong> birches, white with hoar-frost, have a goodnatured<br />

expression; they are nearer to one’s heart than<br />

cypresses <strong>and</strong> palms, <strong>and</strong> near them one doesn’t want<br />

to be thinking of the sea <strong>and</strong> the mountains .<br />

Gurov was Moscow born; he arrived in Moscow on a<br />

fine frosty day, <strong>and</strong> when he put on his fur coat <strong>and</strong><br />

warm gloves, <strong>and</strong> walked along Petrovka, <strong>and</strong> when<br />

on Saturday evening he heard the ringing of the bells,<br />

his recent trip <strong>and</strong> the places he had seen lost all<br />

charm for him . <strong>Lit</strong>tle by little he became absorbed<br />

in Moscow life, greedily read three newspapers a day,<br />

<strong>and</strong> declared he did not read the Moscow papers on<br />

principle! He already felt a longing to go to restaurants,<br />

clubs, dinner-parties, anniversary celebrations, <strong>and</strong> he<br />

felt flattered at entertaining distinguished lawyers <strong>and</strong><br />

artists, <strong>and</strong> at playing cards with a professor at the<br />

doctors’ club . He could already eat a whole plateful of<br />

salt fish <strong>and</strong> cabbage .<br />

In another month, he fancied, the image of Anna<br />

Sergeyevna would be shrouded in a mist in his<br />

memory, <strong>and</strong> only from time to time would visit<br />

him in his dreams with a touching smile as others<br />

did . But more than a month passed, real winter had<br />

come, <strong>and</strong> everything was still clear in his memory as<br />

though he had parted with Anna Sergeyevna only the<br />

day before . And his memories glowed more <strong>and</strong> more<br />

vividly . When in the evening stillness he heard from<br />

his study the voices of his children, preparing their<br />

lessons, or when he listened to a song or the organ at<br />

the restaurant, or the storm howled in the chimney,<br />

suddenly everything would rise up in his memory:<br />

what had happened on the groyne, <strong>and</strong> the early<br />

morning with the mist on the mountains, <strong>and</strong> the<br />

steamer coming from Theodosia, <strong>and</strong> the kisses . He<br />

would pace a long time about his room, remembering<br />

it all <strong>and</strong> smiling; then his memories passed into<br />

dreams, <strong>and</strong> in his fancy the past was mingled with<br />

what was to come . Anna Sergeyevna did not visit him<br />

in dreams, but followed him about everywhere like a<br />

shadow <strong>and</strong> haunted him . When he shut his eyes he<br />

saw her as though she were living before him, <strong>and</strong> she<br />

seemed to him lovelier, younger, tenderer than she<br />

was; <strong>and</strong> he imagined himself finer than he had been<br />

in Yalta . In the evenings she peeped out at him from<br />

the bookcase, from the fireplace, from the corner—he<br />

heard her breathing, the caressing rustle of her dress .<br />

In the street he watched the women, looking for<br />

someone like her .<br />

He was tormented by an intense desire to confide<br />

his memories to someone . But in his home it was<br />

impossible to talk of his love, <strong>and</strong> he had no one<br />

outside; he could not talk to his tenants nor to any<br />

one at the bank . And what had he to talk of? Had<br />

he been in love, then? Had there been anything<br />

beautiful, poetical, or edifying or simply interesting in<br />

his relations with Anna Sergeyevna? And there was<br />

nothing for him but to talk vaguely of love, of woman,<br />

<strong>and</strong> no one guessed what it meant; only his wife<br />

twitched her black eyebrows, <strong>and</strong> said:<br />

“The part of a lady-killer does not suit you at all,<br />

Dimitri .”<br />

One evening, coming out of the doctors’ club with an<br />

official with whom he had been playing cards, he could<br />

not resist saying:<br />

“If only you knew what a fascinating woman I made<br />

the acquaintance of in Yalta!”<br />

The official got into his sledge <strong>and</strong> was driving away,<br />

but turned suddenly <strong>and</strong> shouted:<br />

“Dmitri Dmitritch!”<br />

“What?”<br />

“You were right this evening: the sturgeon was a bit<br />

too strong!”<br />

These words, so ordinary, for some reason moved<br />

Gurov to indignation, <strong>and</strong> struck him as degrading<br />

<strong>and</strong> unclean . What savage manners, what people!<br />

What senseless nights, what uninteresting, uneventful<br />

days! The rage for card-playing, the gluttony, the<br />

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drunkenness, the continual talk always about the same<br />

thing . Useless pursuits <strong>and</strong> conversations always about<br />

the same things absorb the better part of one’s time,<br />

the better part of one’s strength, <strong>and</strong> in the end there is<br />

left a life grovelling <strong>and</strong> curtailed, worthless <strong>and</strong> trivial,<br />

<strong>and</strong> there is no escaping or getting away from it—just<br />

as though one were in a madhouse or a prison .<br />

Gurov did not sleep all night, <strong>and</strong> was filled with<br />

indignation . And he had a headache all the next day .<br />

And the next night he slept badly; he sat up in bed,<br />

thinking, or paced up <strong>and</strong> down his room . He was sick<br />

of his children, sick of the bank; he had no desire to go<br />

anywhere or to talk of anything .<br />

In the holidays in <strong>Dec</strong>ember he prepared for a journey,<br />

<strong>and</strong> told his wife he was going to Petersburg to do<br />

something in the interests of a young friend—<strong>and</strong> he<br />

set off for S—— . What for? He did not very well know<br />

himself . He wanted to see Anna Sergeyevna <strong>and</strong> to talk<br />

with her—to arrange a meeting, if possible .<br />

He reached S—— in the morning, <strong>and</strong> took the best<br />

room at the hotel, in which the floor was covered with<br />

grey army cloth, <strong>and</strong> on the table was an inkst<strong>and</strong>,<br />

grey with dust <strong>and</strong> adorned with a figure on horseback,<br />

with its hat in its h<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> its head broken off . The<br />

hotel porter gave him the necessary information; Von<br />

Diderits lived in a house of his own in Old Gontcharny<br />

Street—it was not far from the hotel: he was rich <strong>and</strong><br />

lived in good style, <strong>and</strong> had his own horses; everyone<br />

in the town knew him . The porter pronounced the<br />

name “Dridirits .”<br />

Gurov went without haste to Old Gontcharny Street<br />

<strong>and</strong> found the house . Just opposite the house stretched<br />

a long grey fence adorned with nails .<br />

“One would run away from a fence like that,” thought<br />

Gurov, looking from the fence to the windows of the<br />

house <strong>and</strong> back again .<br />

He considered: to-day was a holiday, <strong>and</strong> the husb<strong>and</strong><br />

would probably be at home . And in any case it would<br />

be tactless to go into the house <strong>and</strong> upset her . If he<br />

were to send her a note it might fall into her husb<strong>and</strong>’s<br />

h<strong>and</strong>s, <strong>and</strong> then it might ruin everything . The best<br />

thing was to trust to chance . And he kept walking<br />

up <strong>and</strong> down the street by the fence, waiting for the<br />

chance . He saw a beggar go in at the gate <strong>and</strong> dogs fly<br />

at him; then an hour later he heard a piano, <strong>and</strong> the<br />

sounds were faint <strong>and</strong> indistinct . Probably it was Anna<br />

Sergeyevna playing . The front door suddenly opened,<br />

<strong>and</strong> an old woman came out, followed by the familiar<br />

white Pomeranian . Gurov was on the point of calling<br />

to the dog, but his heart began beating violently, <strong>and</strong> in<br />

his excitement he could not remember the dog’s name .<br />

He walked up <strong>and</strong> down, <strong>and</strong> loathed the grey fence<br />

more <strong>and</strong> more, <strong>and</strong> by now he thought irritably that<br />

Anna Sergeyevna had forgotten him, <strong>and</strong> was perhaps<br />

already amusing herself with someone else, <strong>and</strong> that<br />

86<br />

that was very natural in a young woman who had<br />

nothing to look at from morning till night but that<br />

confounded fence . He went back to his hotel room <strong>and</strong><br />

sat for a long while on the sofa, not knowing what to<br />

do, then he had dinner <strong>and</strong> a long nap .<br />

“How stupid <strong>and</strong> worrying it is!” he thought when he<br />

woke <strong>and</strong> looked at the dark windows: it was already<br />

evening . “Here I’ve had a good sleep for some reason .<br />

What shall I do in the night?”<br />

He sat on the bed, which was covered by a cheap grey<br />

blanket, such as one sees in hospitals, <strong>and</strong> he taunted<br />

himself in his vexation:<br />

“So much for the lady with the dog…so much for the<br />

adventure… . You’re in a nice fix… .”<br />

That morning at the station a poster in large letters<br />

had caught his eye . “The Geisha” was to be performed<br />

for the first time . He thought of this <strong>and</strong> went to the<br />

theatre .<br />

“It’s quite possible she may go to the first performance,”<br />

he thought .<br />

The theatre was full . As in all provincial theatres, there<br />

was a fog above the ch<strong>and</strong>elier, the gallery was noisy<br />

<strong>and</strong> restless; in the front row the local d<strong>and</strong>ies were<br />

st<strong>and</strong>ing up before the beginning of the performance,<br />

with their h<strong>and</strong>s behind them; in the Governor’s box<br />

the Governor’s daughter, wearing a boa, was sitting<br />

in the front seat, while the Governor himself lurked<br />

modestly behind the curtain with only his h<strong>and</strong>s<br />

visible; the orchestra was a long time tuning up; the<br />

stage curtain swayed . All the time the audience were<br />

coming in <strong>and</strong> taking their seats Gurov looked at them<br />

eagerly .<br />

Anna Sergeyevna, too, came in . She sat down in the<br />

third row, <strong>and</strong> when Gurov looked at her his heart<br />

contracted, <strong>and</strong> he understood clearly that for him<br />

there was in the whole world no creature so near, so<br />

precious, <strong>and</strong> so important to him; she, this little<br />

woman, in no way remarkable, lost in a provincial<br />

crowd, with a vulgar lorgnette in her h<strong>and</strong>, filled his<br />

whole life now, was his sorrow <strong>and</strong> his joy, the one<br />

happiness that he now desired for himself, <strong>and</strong> to<br />

the sounds of the inferior orchestra, of the wretched<br />

provincial violins, he thought how lovely she was . He<br />

thought <strong>and</strong> dreamed .<br />

A young man with small side-whiskers, tall <strong>and</strong><br />

stooping, came in with Anna Sergeyevna <strong>and</strong> sat down<br />

beside her; he bent his head at every step <strong>and</strong> seemed<br />

to be continually bowing . Most likely this was the<br />

husb<strong>and</strong> whom at Yalta, in a rush of bitter feeling, she<br />

had called a flunkey . And there really was in his long<br />

figure, his side-whiskers, <strong>and</strong> the small bald patch on<br />

his head, something of the flunkey’s obsequiousness;<br />

his smile was sugary, <strong>and</strong> in his buttonhole there was<br />

some badge of distinction like the number on a waiter .<br />

USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 2012–2013<br />

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During the first interval the husb<strong>and</strong> went away to<br />

smoke; she remained alone in her stall . Gurov, who<br />

was sitting in the stalls, too, went up to her <strong>and</strong> said in<br />

a trembling voice, with a forced smile:<br />

“Good-evening .”<br />

She glanced at him <strong>and</strong> turned pale, then glanced<br />

again with horror, unable to believe her eyes, <strong>and</strong><br />

tightly gripped the fan <strong>and</strong> the lorgnette in her h<strong>and</strong>s,<br />

evidently struggling with herself not to faint . Both were<br />

silent . She was sitting, he was st<strong>and</strong>ing, frightened by<br />

her confusion <strong>and</strong> not venturing to sit down beside<br />

her . The violins <strong>and</strong> the flute began tuning up . He<br />

felt suddenly frightened; it seemed as though all the<br />

people in the boxes were looking at them . She got up<br />

<strong>and</strong> went quickly to the door; he followed her, <strong>and</strong> both<br />

walked senselessly along passages, <strong>and</strong> up <strong>and</strong> down<br />

stairs, <strong>and</strong> figures in legal, scholastic, <strong>and</strong> civil service<br />

uniforms, all wearing badges, flitted before their eyes .<br />

They caught glimpses of ladies, of fur coats hanging<br />

on pegs; the draughts blew on them, bringing a smell<br />

of stale tobacco . And Gurov, whose heart was beating<br />

violently, thought:<br />

“Oh, heavens! Why are these people here <strong>and</strong> this<br />

orchestra!…”<br />

And at that instant he recalled how when he had seen<br />

Anna Sergeyevna off at the station he had thought that<br />

everything was over <strong>and</strong> they would never meet again .<br />

But how far they were still from the end!<br />

On the narrow, gloomy staircase over which was<br />

written “To the Amphitheatre,” she stopped .<br />

“How you have frightened me!” she said, breathing<br />

hard, still pale <strong>and</strong> overwhelmed . “Oh, how you have<br />

frightened me! I am half dead . Why have you come?<br />

Why?”<br />

“But do underst<strong>and</strong>, Anna, do underst<strong>and</strong>…” he said<br />

hastily in a low voice . “I entreat you to underst<strong>and</strong>… .”<br />

She looked at him with dread, with entreaty, with love;<br />

she looked at him intently, to keep his features more<br />

distinctly in her memory .<br />

“I am so unhappy,” she went on, not heeding him . “I<br />

have thought of nothing but you all the time; I live<br />

only in the thought of you . And I wanted to forget, to<br />

forget you; but why, oh, why, have you come?”<br />

On the l<strong>and</strong>ing above them two schoolboys were<br />

smoking <strong>and</strong> looking down, but that was nothing to<br />

Gurov; he drew Anna Sergeyevna to him, <strong>and</strong> began<br />

kissing her face, her cheeks, <strong>and</strong> her h<strong>and</strong>s .<br />

“What are you doing, what are you doing!” she cried<br />

in horror, pushing him away . “We are mad . Go away<br />

to-day; go away at once… . I beseech you by all that is<br />

sacred, I implore you… . There are people coming this<br />

way!”<br />

Someone was coming up the stairs .<br />

“You must go away,” Anna Sergeyevna went on in a<br />

whisper . “Do you hear, Dmitri Dmitritch? I will come<br />

<strong>and</strong> see you in Moscow . I have never been happy; I am<br />

miserable now, <strong>and</strong> I never, never shall be happy, never!<br />

Don’t make me suffer still more! I swear I’ll come to<br />

Moscow . But now let us part . My precious, good, dear<br />

one, we must part!”<br />

She pressed his h<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> began rapidly going<br />

downstairs, looking round at him, <strong>and</strong> from her eyes<br />

he could see that she really was unhappy . Gurov stood<br />

for a little while, listened, then, when all sound had<br />

died away, he found his coat <strong>and</strong> left the theatre .<br />

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IV<br />

And Anna Sergeyevna began coming to see him in<br />

Moscow . Once in two or three months she left S——,<br />

telling her husb<strong>and</strong> that she was going to consult a<br />

doctor about an internal complaint—<strong>and</strong> her husb<strong>and</strong><br />

believed her, <strong>and</strong> did not believe her . In Moscow she<br />

stayed at the Slaviansky Bazaar hotel, <strong>and</strong> at once sent<br />

a man in a red cap to Gurov . Gurov went to see her,<br />

<strong>and</strong> no one in Moscow knew of it .<br />

Once he was going to see her in this way on a winter<br />

morning (the messenger had come the evening before<br />

when he was out) . With him walked his daughter,<br />

whom he wanted to take to school: it was on the way .<br />

Snow was falling in big wet flakes .<br />

“It’s three degrees above freezing-point, <strong>and</strong> yet it<br />

is snowing,” said Gurov to his daughter . “The thaw<br />

is only on the surface of the earth; there is quite<br />

a different temperature at a greater height in the<br />

atmosphere .”<br />

“And why are there no thunderstorms in the winter,<br />

father?”<br />

He explained that, too . He talked, thinking all the<br />

while that he was going to see her, <strong>and</strong> no living soul<br />

knew of it, <strong>and</strong> probably never would know . He had<br />

two lives: one, open, seen <strong>and</strong> known by all who cared<br />

to know, full of relative truth <strong>and</strong> of relative falsehood,<br />

exactly like the lives of his friends <strong>and</strong> acquaintances;<br />

<strong>and</strong> another life running its course in secret . And<br />

through some strange, perhaps accidental, conjunction<br />

of circumstances, everything that was essential, of<br />

interest <strong>and</strong> of value to him, everything in which he<br />

was sincere <strong>and</strong> did not deceive himself, everything<br />

that made the kernel of his life, was hidden from other<br />

people; <strong>and</strong> all that was false in him, the sheath in<br />

which he hid himself to conceal the truth—such, for<br />

instance, as his work in the bank, his discussions at<br />

the club, his “lower race,” his presence with his wife<br />

at anniversary festivities—all that was open . And he<br />

judged of others by himself, not believing in what he<br />

saw, <strong>and</strong> always believing that every man had his real,<br />

most interesting life under the cover of secrecy <strong>and</strong><br />

under the cover of night . All personal life rested on<br />

secrecy, <strong>and</strong> possibly it was partly on that account that<br />

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civilised man was so nervously anxious that personal<br />

privacy should be respected .<br />

After leaving his daughter at school, Gurov went on to<br />

the Slaviansky Bazaar . He took off his fur coat below,<br />

went upstairs, <strong>and</strong> softly knocked at the door . Anna<br />

Sergeyevna, wearing his favourite grey dress, exhausted<br />

by the journey <strong>and</strong> the suspense, had been expecting<br />

him since the evening before . She was pale; she looked<br />

at him, <strong>and</strong> did not smile, <strong>and</strong> he had hardly come in<br />

when she fell on his breast . Their kiss was slow <strong>and</strong><br />

prolonged, as though they had not met for two years .<br />

“Well, how are you getting on there?” he asked . “What<br />

news?”<br />

“Wait; I’ll tell you directly… . I can’t talk .”<br />

She could not speak; she was crying . She turned away<br />

from him, <strong>and</strong> pressed her h<strong>and</strong>kerchief to her eyes .<br />

“Let her have her cry out . I’ll sit down <strong>and</strong> wait,” he<br />

thought, <strong>and</strong> he sat down in an arm-chair .<br />

Then he rang <strong>and</strong> asked for tea to be brought to him,<br />

<strong>and</strong> while he drank his tea she remained st<strong>and</strong>ing<br />

at the window with her back to him . She was crying<br />

from emotion, from the miserable consciousness that<br />

their life was so hard for them; they could only meet<br />

in secret, hiding themselves from people, like thieves!<br />

Was not their life shattered?<br />

“Come, do stop!” he said .<br />

It was evident to him that this love of theirs would not<br />

soon be over, that he could not see the end of it . Anna<br />

Sergeyevna grew more <strong>and</strong> more attached to him . She<br />

adored him, <strong>and</strong> it was unthinkable to say to her that<br />

it was bound to have an end some day; besides, she<br />

would not have believed it!<br />

He went up to her <strong>and</strong> took her by the shoulders to<br />

say something affectionate <strong>and</strong> cheering, <strong>and</strong> at that<br />

moment he saw himself in the looking-glass .<br />

His hair was already beginning to turn grey . And it<br />

seemed strange to him that he had grown so much<br />

older, so much plainer during the last few years . The<br />

shoulders on which his h<strong>and</strong>s rested were warm <strong>and</strong><br />

quivering . He felt compassion for this life, still so warm<br />

<strong>and</strong> lovely, but probably already not far from beginning<br />

to fade <strong>and</strong> wither like his own . Why did she love him<br />

so much? He always seemed to women different from<br />

what he was, <strong>and</strong> they loved in him not himself, but<br />

the man created by their imagination, whom they had<br />

been eagerly seeking all their lives; <strong>and</strong> afterwards,<br />

when they noticed their mistake, they loved him all the<br />

same . And not one of them had been happy with him .<br />

Time passed, he had made their acquaintance, got on<br />

with them, parted, but he had never once loved; it was<br />

anything you like, but not love .<br />

And only now when his head was grey he had fallen<br />

properly, really in love—for the first time in his life .<br />

88<br />

Anna Sergeyevna <strong>and</strong> he loved each other like people<br />

very close <strong>and</strong> akin, like husb<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> wife, like tender<br />

friends; it seemed to them that fate itself had meant<br />

them for one another, <strong>and</strong> they could not underst<strong>and</strong><br />

why he had a wife <strong>and</strong> she a husb<strong>and</strong>; <strong>and</strong> it was as<br />

though they were a pair of birds of passage, caught<br />

<strong>and</strong> forced to live in different cages . They forgave each<br />

other for what they were ashamed of in their past, they<br />

forgave everything in the present, <strong>and</strong> felt that this love<br />

of theirs had changed them both .<br />

In moments of depression in the past he had comforted<br />

himself with any arguments that came into his mind,<br />

but now he no longer cared for arguments; he felt<br />

profound compassion, he wanted to be sincere <strong>and</strong><br />

tender… .<br />

“Don’t cry, my darling,” he said . “You’ve had your cry;<br />

that’s enough… . Let us talk now, let us think of some<br />

plan .”<br />

Then they spent a long while taking counsel together,<br />

talked of how to avoid the necessity for secrecy, for<br />

deception, for living in different towns <strong>and</strong> not seeing<br />

each other for long at a time . How could they be free<br />

from this intolerable bondage?<br />

“How? How?” he asked, clutching his head . “How?”<br />

And it seemed as though in a little while the solution<br />

would be found, <strong>and</strong> then a new <strong>and</strong> splendid life<br />

would begin; <strong>and</strong> it was clear to both of them that they<br />

had still a long, long road before them, <strong>and</strong> that the<br />

most complicated <strong>and</strong> difficult part of it was only just<br />

beginning .<br />

Chekhov’s “The Lady with a Dog”<br />

(1899)<br />

In the middle of Vladimir Nabokov’s discussion of<br />

“The Lady with a Dog,” just after he has summarized<br />

the intrigues <strong>and</strong> nuances of the story, he writes:<br />

All the traditional rules of storytelling have been<br />

broken in this wonderful short story of twenty<br />

pages or so . There is no problem, no regular<br />

climax, no point at the end . And it is one of the<br />

greatest stories ever written . 166<br />

What is it about such a seemingly inconsequential tale<br />

that draws Nabokov, a prominent twentieth-century<br />

Russian novelist, to form such a stunning conclusion?<br />

Nabokov suggests that the story lacks key elements of<br />

plot—a problem or conflict, a climax, <strong>and</strong> a concluding<br />

point—but these apparent lacks are more than<br />

made up for by other formal <strong>and</strong> aesthetic elements<br />

which Chekhov skillfully deploys <strong>and</strong> which Nabokov<br />

acknowledges .<br />

While the story does not depict aristocratic society<br />

in Russia at its worst as Tolstoy’s story does, it does<br />

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expose a way of life for its characters that, for much<br />

of the story, seems banal <strong>and</strong> wasted: “One did not<br />

know what to do with oneself .” The narrator stays<br />

deliberately removed from the narrative; for example,<br />

the story opens: “It was said that a new person had<br />

appeared… .” This is Constance Garnett’s translation,<br />

provided in this guide, which renders the opening line<br />

in English in passive voice—“It was said”—<strong>and</strong> leaves<br />

the agents—those who made this statement—vague<br />

<strong>and</strong> anonymous . In another translation, the first line<br />

appears as: “People were telling one another that a<br />

newcomer had been seen on the promenade… .” 167<br />

The anonymity of those announcing the arrival of the<br />

newcomer is preserved while the use of passive voice is<br />

lost . The point, however, is that the narrator’s distance<br />

from the appearance of the newcomer is preserved in<br />

both translations as the narrator merges into alignment<br />

with Gurov’s vision <strong>and</strong> perspective . Nabokov<br />

observes that the story is told “in the way one person<br />

relates to another the most important things in his life,<br />

slowly <strong>and</strong> yet without a break, in a slightly subdued<br />

voice .” 168 Following the impersonal opening, the story<br />

will remain unremittingly with Gurov, adopting his<br />

position in the love affair <strong>and</strong> revealing the unfolding<br />

of the “most important thing” in his life, his growing<br />

love for Anna .<br />

In fact, the reader knows little else about Gurov other<br />

than his growing passion for Anna . Why, for example,<br />

has he been in Yalta for two weeks without his family?<br />

The reader is left to wonder that as well as why<br />

Anna Sergeyevna has come there alone . More broadly,<br />

the lives depicted here suggest a pattern of leisure that<br />

leads to boredom—Gurov believes that the lady finds<br />

life in Yalta dull <strong>and</strong> she later tells him so . But Gurov<br />

counters, “‘That’s only the fashion to say it is dull<br />

here .’” Nevertheless, once Anna <strong>and</strong> Gurov begin to<br />

keep company with each other, they have little more<br />

to do than to go on drives <strong>and</strong> view the scenery . With<br />

so much time on their h<strong>and</strong>s, it would seem fated that<br />

Anna <strong>and</strong> Gurov begin an affair .<br />

But first, Gurov must display his repulsive attitude<br />

toward women at large, an attitude he will shed at<br />

the story’s end . Gurov secretly thinks of women as<br />

“‘the lower race,’” <strong>and</strong> yet he can’t get along without<br />

them for more than two days at a time . Something<br />

about being in the company of women frees him to be<br />

himself, <strong>and</strong> he likes the fact that he is attractive to<br />

women . Gurov has been unfaithful to his wife many<br />

times without regret . In fact, it seems that Gurov<br />

blames his wife for his low opinion of women . If Anna<br />

will only succumb to his advances, Gurov seems set on<br />

the course of another affair—<br />

when the lady sat down at the next table three<br />

paces from him, he remembered these tales of<br />

easy conquests, of trips to the mountains, <strong>and</strong><br />

the tempting thought of a swift, fleeting love<br />

affair, a romance with an unknown woman,<br />

whose name he did not know, suddenly took<br />

possession of him .<br />

The fact that Gurov thinks of an affair with a woman<br />

whose name he doesn’t know explains why the “lady<br />

with a dog” remains anonymous, individualized only<br />

by her association with her dog, until near the end of<br />

Part I . For by then, Gurov has learned her name <strong>and</strong><br />

some facts about her life . Later in his hotel room,<br />

Gurov thinks “‘There’s something pathetic about her,<br />

anyway…’” just before he falls asleep . She has faintly<br />

aroused his compassion as he ponders that she may<br />

never have been in a situation like this before where<br />

a stranger speaks to her “from a secret motive which<br />

she could hardly fail to guess,” yet she is so young<br />

that recently she had been at “lessons like his own<br />

daughter .”<br />

For Anna’s part, though the reader is never aligned<br />

with her thoughts, there is a constant <strong>and</strong> deep sense<br />

of remorse once the affair has begun . In contrast to<br />

Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Chekhov’s Anna is not<br />

doomed to take her own life but is forced to look in the<br />

mirror of her own sense of guilt . She seems to give in<br />

to Gurov too easily <strong>and</strong> blames herself after her “fall .”<br />

“Her face dropped <strong>and</strong> faded, <strong>and</strong> on both sides of it<br />

her long hair hung down mournfully; she mused in a<br />

dejected attitude like ‘the woman who was a sinner’ in<br />

an old-fashioned picture .” Yet she is the one woman<br />

with whom Gurov falls truly in love .<br />

When he follows her to her unnamed city, he struggles<br />

to find a way to talk to her, <strong>and</strong> decides to attend the<br />

opening performance of the comic opera The Geisha<br />

in the hope that she will be there . Chekhov had seen<br />

the opera in Yalta in 1899, as he worked on the story,<br />

<strong>and</strong> his choice of musical to mention by name is significant<br />

. 169 As an idealized woman always available,<br />

the image of the geisha strikes the note of infidelity<br />

<strong>and</strong> adultery which serves as the core of Chekhov’s<br />

story . The operetta itself is comic—all the characters<br />

end up with their desired partners—but for a while<br />

the British sailor engaged to Molly tarries with the geisha<br />

O Mimosa San . “‘Marry little English Miss, Flirt<br />

with pretty Japanese!’” is one of the lines sung by the<br />

geishas as they welcome the English sailors to their<br />

teahouse . Anna is surely not to be viewed as a geisha<br />

with whom Gurov can just dally as he wishes, but the<br />

lighthearted operetta serves to counterpoint a climactic<br />

moment when Gurov, overcome by passion, kisses<br />

Anna’s face <strong>and</strong> h<strong>and</strong>s on the staircase of the theater .<br />

While it may be true, as Nabokov observes, that “[t]<br />

here is no special moral to be drawn <strong>and</strong> no special<br />

message to be received,” 170 from the story, there is<br />

certainly a pattern of symbolism <strong>and</strong> imagery which<br />

seems to be death-driven . The story, beneath its<br />

shimmering surface, continuously points toward the<br />

inevitability of death . An advancing pattern of imagery<br />

associated with the color gray, for example, supports<br />

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this notion . Gurov thinks of Anna’s “lovely grey eyes,”<br />

an observation that is balanced against the narrator’s<br />

description of their earlier walk as they noticed “the<br />

strange light on the sea: the water was of a soft warm<br />

lilac hue, <strong>and</strong> there was a golden streak from the moon<br />

upon it .” The colors of twilight <strong>and</strong> moonlight offer<br />

insight into a growing relationship that may have come<br />

a bit too late .<br />

The color gray rapidly accumulates meaning in Part<br />

III when Gurov arrives in S——, the “best room” in<br />

the hotel has a floor covered with gray army cloth,<br />

the inkst<strong>and</strong> on the table is gray with dust, the fence<br />

opposite Anna’s house is gray <strong>and</strong> adorned with nails .<br />

The fence appears to be particularly hideous to Gurov,<br />

who thinks, “‘One would run away from a fence like<br />

that .’” The death of their affair, Gurov surmises, could<br />

be instigated by a fence like that, which would drive “a<br />

young woman who had nothing to look at from morning<br />

till night but that confounded fence” to amuse<br />

herself with someone else .<br />

In Part IV, once Anna has begun to visit Gurov secretly<br />

in Moscow, he looks in the mirror <strong>and</strong> realizes that<br />

“[h]is hair was already beginning to turn grey . And it<br />

seemed strange to him that he had grown so much<br />

older, so much plainer during the last few years .” The<br />

90<br />

Photograph of Anton Chekhov from<br />

1904, the year of his death.<br />

final bolt of insight shoots through Gurov as he realizes,<br />

“[a]nd only now when his head was grey he had<br />

fallen properly, really in love—for the first time in his<br />

life .” His underst<strong>and</strong>ing of how short his time may be<br />

is delicately balanced as the narrator observes that the<br />

“long road before them…was only just beginning .”<br />

While the imagery of grayness represents the drive<br />

toward death in this narrative, there are even more<br />

explicit references which underscore this theme . In<br />

one of Anna’s passionate outbursts after her affair<br />

with Gurov has begun, she tells him “‘The Evil One<br />

has beguiled me .’” Shortly after her reference to Satan<br />

<strong>and</strong> sin, the narrator inserts a passage that explicitly<br />

acknowledges death: “The leaves did not stir on the<br />

trees, grasshoppers chirruped, <strong>and</strong> the monotonous<br />

hollow sound of the sea rising up from below, spoke<br />

of the peace, of the eternal sleep awaiting us…<strong>and</strong> it<br />

will sound as indifferently <strong>and</strong> monotonously when we<br />

are all no more .” Yet balanced against the narrator’s<br />

reminder of death as the fate that awaits all, is Gurov’s<br />

sense that “everything is beautiful in this world when<br />

one reflects; everything except what we think or do<br />

ourselves when we forget our human dignity <strong>and</strong> the<br />

higher aims of our existence .” Following Anna’s return<br />

to her city, this scene ends, fittingly, with “a scent of<br />

autumn .”<br />

In his lecture on Chekhov, Nabokov argues that the<br />

Chekhovian narrative is fluid, rolling in a series of<br />

waves rather than accumulating, like Gorky’s prose,<br />

into “particles of matter .” 171 This sense of a fluid structure<br />

appears in the succession of four parts, as one<br />

seems to sweep over the next, replacing some elements<br />

with new ones; for example, Gurov’s dispassionate<br />

appraisal of the potential for an affair with Anna in<br />

Part I is superseded <strong>and</strong> replaced by successive waves of<br />

growing passion in Parts II, III, <strong>and</strong> IV . It is this passion<br />

that drives Gurov to increased self-recognition .<br />

As he takes his daughter to school in Moscow in the<br />

last part of the story, Gurov thinks about how he is living<br />

two lives—one is hidden <strong>and</strong> secret while the other<br />

is in the open . “[E]verything that made the kernel of<br />

his life, was hidden from other people; <strong>and</strong> all that was<br />

false in him, the sheath in which he hid himself to<br />

conceal the truth…all that was open .” This recognition<br />

leads to his determination to find a way to live openly<br />

with Anna, <strong>and</strong> the story ends inconclusively as Gurov<br />

<strong>and</strong> Anna attempt to make a plan: “And it seemed as<br />

though in a little while the solution would be found,<br />

<strong>and</strong> then a new <strong>and</strong> splendid life would begin; <strong>and</strong> it<br />

was clear to both of them that they had still a long,<br />

long road before them, <strong>and</strong> that the most complicated<br />

<strong>and</strong> difficult part of it was only just beginning .” With<br />

the closing word “beginning,” Chekhov balances the<br />

death drive of the narrative <strong>and</strong> its allusions to Gurov’s<br />

aging to suggest that the end of the “long, long road”<br />

may never be reached <strong>and</strong> to underscore the irony of<br />

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what may be hopelessness underlying the expression<br />

of hope .<br />

Yurii Zhivago pierces to the heart of Chekhov’s work,<br />

writing in his diary at Varykino,<br />

What I have come to like best in the whole of<br />

Russian literature is the childlike Russian quality<br />

of Pushkin <strong>and</strong> Chekhov, their modest reticence<br />

in such high-sounding matters as the ultimate<br />

purpose of mankind or their own salvation…they<br />

lived their lives, quietly, treating both their lives<br />

<strong>and</strong> their work as private, individual matters, of<br />

no concern to anyone else . And these individual<br />

things have since become of concern to all, <strong>and</strong><br />

their works, like apples picked while they are<br />

green, have ripened of themselves, mellowing<br />

gradually <strong>and</strong> growing richer in meaning (285) .<br />

From the perception of the ripening in time of the<br />

Chekhovian masterpiece, Yurii turns his attention to<br />

Alex<strong>and</strong>er Blok, a poet closer to him chronologically<br />

<strong>and</strong> the one who most suggests the spirit of tormented<br />

ambivalence with which so many of the intelligentsia,<br />

including the fictional Yurii himself, viewed the events<br />

of 1917 .<br />

The Life of Alex<strong>and</strong>er<br />

Alex<strong>and</strong>reyevich Blok (1880–1921)<br />

“Vladimir Maiakovskii was ‘the Poet’ of the revolution,<br />

<strong>and</strong> Aleks<strong>and</strong>r Blok’s The Twelve was ‘the Poem’ .” 172<br />

Like Pushkin <strong>and</strong> Tolstoy before him, Blok was the<br />

descendant of aristocrats <strong>and</strong> intelligentsia, <strong>and</strong> therefore<br />

of special interest to Bolshevik leaders as, early<br />

in the 1917 Revolution, he seemed to espouse their<br />

ideals . The most prominent of Russian Symbolists,<br />

Blok, near the end of his life, wrote the finest <strong>and</strong> yet<br />

most conflicted poem on the Bolshevik Revolution,<br />

The Twelve . In fact, Blok’s life spans the period of<br />

revolutionary transition from a Tsarist regime to the<br />

leadership of the Bolsheviks .<br />

Born in St . Petersburg on November 28, 1880,<br />

Alex<strong>and</strong>er Blok was the only child of Alex<strong>and</strong>er<br />

Lvovich Blok <strong>and</strong> Alex<strong>and</strong>ra Andreyevna Beketova .<br />

Not only had Blok’s German ancestors been prominent<br />

in the court of Catherine the Great, his maternal<br />

gr<strong>and</strong>father, Andrey Beketov, was the rector of the<br />

University of St . Petersburg <strong>and</strong> his maternal gr<strong>and</strong>mother,<br />

the daughter of an author, was familiar with<br />

the nineteenth-century Russian writers Nikolai Gogol,<br />

Fyodor Dostoevsky, <strong>and</strong> Leo Tolstoy . Blok’s father was<br />

a professor of government at the University of Warsaw,<br />

but early in his marriage to Blok’s mother, he tyrannized<br />

her, driving her to the protection of her parents’<br />

home where she gave birth to Alex<strong>and</strong>er . In 1889, they<br />

divorced . Blok’s childhood was spent with his mother’s<br />

family at their home in St . Petersburg <strong>and</strong> at the family<br />

estate Shakhmatovo .<br />

Portrait of Alex<strong>and</strong>er Blok from 1907.<br />

At the university in St . Petersburg, Blok studied law<br />

<strong>and</strong> philology, graduating in 1906, but he ultimately<br />

chose writing as his career . In 1903, while still in<br />

school, Blok married Lyubov Mendeleyeva, the daughter<br />

of the famous chemist Dmitri Mendeleyev; Blok’s<br />

idealized love for his wife would emerge in his poetry<br />

as the image of an “Eternal Feminine .” His first book<br />

of verse, Verses on the Beautiful Lady (1904), demonstrates<br />

the influence of the Italian poets Petrarch <strong>and</strong><br />

Dante in their devotion to an idealized woman, the<br />

impact of Platonism <strong>and</strong> Romantic poetry, an attachment<br />

to mysticism <strong>and</strong> Gnosticism, 173 <strong>and</strong> a devotion<br />

to the philosophy of the early Russian Symbolist poet<br />

<strong>and</strong> mystic Vladimir Soloviov (1848–1901) .<br />

The cycle of poems included in Verses on the Beautiful<br />

Lady were composed between January 1901 <strong>and</strong><br />

November 1902 . One poem, “The Intellect Cannot<br />

Measure the Divine,” embodies the intersection of so<br />

many themes in this early volume:<br />

The intellect cannot measure the divine,<br />

Azure is hidden from the intellect,<br />

But seraphim sometimes bring as a sigh<br />

A holy vision to the world’s elect .<br />

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I dreamt that I saw the Venus of Russia<br />

Wearing a heavy tunic once—<br />

Passionless her purity, joyless beyond measure,<br />

A calm vision lighting her countenance .<br />

Not for the first time she visited the world,<br />

But for the first time there thronged her ways<br />

Different warriors, champions of a new mould…<br />

And strange was the gleam in the depths of her<br />

eyes…174 The poem offers the image of the “Beautiful Lady” in a<br />

slightly different form from other verses in the volume,<br />

hinting at a transformation to come, when Blok turns<br />

to Russia as the central theme of his work . But the<br />

poem also incorporates mysticism <strong>and</strong> Symbolism in<br />

the unrevealed knowledge in the “depths” of the lady’s<br />

eyes <strong>and</strong> in the insistence that “the intellect cannot<br />

measure the divine” <strong>and</strong> only “the world’s elect” may<br />

experience a “holy vision .” Yet at the same time, the<br />

poem expresses a sense of foreboding—the cryptic<br />

mention of “warriors,” “champions of a new mould,”<br />

<strong>and</strong> the strangeness of the “gleam in the depths of [the<br />

lady’s] eyes .” The poet seems to question whether the<br />

vision will last <strong>and</strong> when the lady will ab<strong>and</strong>on him .<br />

Many of the poems of this cycle were inspired by Blok’s<br />

growing attachment to Lyubov, whom he would marry<br />

in the summer of 1903—in fact, Blok himself equated<br />

the “Beautiful Lady” with his wife, writing that his<br />

poems existed on both the “psychological” <strong>and</strong> the<br />

“mystical” level—his closeness to the real woman was<br />

measured in the poetry by the advance <strong>and</strong> retreat of<br />

an idealized feminine presence in the poems . 175 But it<br />

was Blok who would change; his sense of irony caused<br />

him to ab<strong>and</strong>on the ideal <strong>and</strong> turn his attention to the<br />

“mask,” the “doll,” the “double,” as he suffered the<br />

disillusionment of his visions . Blok explained this shift<br />

in attitude in 1910, writing:<br />

If I were painting a picture I should convey the<br />

experience of the moment this way: in the lilac<br />

twilight of the vast world rocks a huge white<br />

catafalque <strong>and</strong> on it lies a dead doll with a face<br />

vaguely resembling what was once glimpsed<br />

among the roses of heaven… . The man who<br />

experiences all this is no longer alone; he is full<br />

of many demons… . 176<br />

With the loss of visionary experiences <strong>and</strong> the impact<br />

of the Revolution of 1905, Blok turned increasingly to<br />

the world of reality <strong>and</strong> the urban l<strong>and</strong>scape . Blok’s<br />

relationship with his wife was deteriorating at the<br />

same time as his change in vision; idealizing her,<br />

he visited prostitutes rather than infect her with the<br />

venereal disease he had contracted, <strong>and</strong> she sought<br />

intimacy elsewhere, engaging in an affair with his close<br />

friend <strong>and</strong> fellow Symbolist poet, Andrey Bely .<br />

At this stage of his life, Blok increasingly took refuge<br />

in drink, even embodying the slogan “in vino veritas”<br />

92<br />

Portrait of Alex<strong>and</strong>er Blok shown with his<br />

wife Lyubov Mendeleyeva. Blok’s idealized<br />

love for his wife would emerge in his poetry<br />

as the image of an “Eternal Feminine.”<br />

(in wine there is truth) in his poem “The Stranger .”<br />

The drunken speaker sees the seamy side of life, his<br />

“Beautiful Lady” now a “girl’s shape in a silken garment”<br />

who walks unescorted among the drunkards,<br />

feathers waving in her hat as her perfume lingers in the<br />

air, but the speaker’s vision is clouded:<br />

Entranced by her presence, near <strong>and</strong> enigmatic,<br />

I gaze through the dark of her lowered veil<br />

And I behold an enchanted shoreline<br />

And enchanted distances, far <strong>and</strong> pale .<br />

I am made a guardian of the higher mysteries,<br />

Someone’s sun is entrusted to my control .<br />

Tart wine has pierced the last convolution<br />

of my labyrinthine soul .<br />

And now the drooping plumes of ostriches<br />

Asway in my brain droop slowly lower<br />

And two eyes, limpid, blue, <strong>and</strong> fathomless<br />

Are blooming on a distant shore .<br />

Inside my soul a treasure is buried .<br />

The key is mine <strong>and</strong> only mine .<br />

How right you are, you drunken monster!<br />

I know: the truth is in the wine . 177<br />

Here the poet seems to renounce much of what he<br />

believed in his earlier volumes of poetry—the blue<br />

of the lady’s eyes does not suggest the “azure” vision<br />

hidden from the intellect in “The Intellect Cannot<br />

Measure the Divine,” <strong>and</strong> the speaker holds the key<br />

only to his own vision distorted by wine .<br />

In the spirit of a “transcendental irony” with which<br />

he felt all Romantic lyricists wrote, Blok produced<br />

his drama The Puppet Show in 1906 . 178 Staged in St .<br />

Petersburg <strong>and</strong> directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold, the<br />

play participates in the spirit of Italian commedia<br />

dell’arte to engage the distant past <strong>and</strong> the present in<br />

mocking theatrical conventions—one of the charac-<br />

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ters, for example, cries out that he’s bleeding cranberry<br />

juice . The play includes a love triangle centering on the<br />

clown figure, Pierrot, who loses his fiancée Columbine<br />

to the Harlequin <strong>and</strong> a group of mystics in pursuit of<br />

death . The “Author” appears onstage to rejoin the separated<br />

lovers, but as he attempts to join their h<strong>and</strong>s,<br />

the stage scenery is drawn up, leaving Pierrot alone on<br />

the stage as the play ends . Reviews <strong>and</strong> audience reaction<br />

were mixed as some saw the play as a satire on the<br />

failure of the 1905 Revolution . 179<br />

During the rehearsals for the play, Blok began an affair<br />

with the actress Natalya Volokhova, who inspired a<br />

cycle of poems composed in 1907, including “The<br />

Snow Maiden .” Like the Stranger, the Snow Maiden<br />

is a doll, not the Beautiful Lady; she brings demonic<br />

wildness, unreality, <strong>and</strong> death:<br />

She came to me from the vast distance—<br />

The child of night <strong>and</strong> other times .<br />

Her kin were lost in space <strong>and</strong> seasons,<br />

Our skies didn’t brighten for her eyes .<br />

She is not aligned with Sophia, eternal wisdom, but<br />

with Cleopatra, the temptress:<br />

And she dreamed of her Egypt native<br />

Through the dark mists of our North,<br />

When blizzards with their stars attractive<br />

Were covering her gentle forms…180 By 1908, Blok had become more aware of the deep<br />

divide between the classes in Russia; he felt out of<br />

touch with reality <strong>and</strong> sought to reconcile his bent<br />

toward Symbolism with the need to engage with real<br />

people in his historical moment . From 1908 on, the<br />

image of Russia controlled the thematic center of<br />

Blok’s work . Blok wrote to the director Stanislavsky:<br />

“‘This is how I see my theme, the theme of Russia…I<br />

consciously <strong>and</strong> irrevocably dedicate my life to this<br />

theme .’” 181 Blok seemed to sense that, despite the<br />

apparent failure of the Revolution of 1905, Russia<br />

was poised for major change, <strong>and</strong> his poetry began to<br />

reflect this sense of foreboding <strong>and</strong> even impending<br />

doom . “On the Field of Kulikovo,” discussed in more<br />

depth shortly, is a prime example of this shift in Blok’s<br />

poetic mood .<br />

Blok traveled to Italy <strong>and</strong> France in 1909; his experiences<br />

there inspired the volume Italian Verses <strong>and</strong> a<br />

series of essays on art . In the same year, Blok traveled<br />

to be with his dying father; <strong>and</strong> though they had been<br />

estranged, Blok was very moved by his father’s death .<br />

In the wake of his father’s death, Blok began work on<br />

his autobiographical verse epic Retribution, a work that<br />

closes with the scene of his father’s death but which<br />

was left unfinished at his own death . In the work,<br />

which Blok conceived as following the evolution of his<br />

own family, Blok contended with irreconcilable contradictions<br />

in life <strong>and</strong> in art, writing about this concern<br />

in his diary that there was only “‘the tragic conscious-<br />

Photograph of Alex<strong>and</strong>er Blok from 1917. Blok<br />

was mobilized with the corps of engineers in 1916,<br />

<strong>and</strong> in 1917, he was a member of a commission<br />

working for the Provisional Government.<br />

ness of the incompatibility <strong>and</strong> the irreparability of<br />

everything, irreconcilable contradictions, dem<strong>and</strong>ing<br />

reconciliation…’” 182 It is the artist’s function, Blok<br />

argued, to “‘discover the place of light’ so as ‘to underst<strong>and</strong><br />

darkness .’” 183<br />

By 1912, Blok’s fame had spread with additional books<br />

of poetry, dramas, <strong>and</strong> a three-volume collection of<br />

his work in print . Blok found solace once again in the<br />

arms of another woman, the singer Lyubov Delmas,<br />

whom he heard for the first time in the role of Carmen<br />

in the opera of the same name, <strong>and</strong> his next cycle of<br />

poems was dedicated to her <strong>and</strong> was entitled, like the<br />

opera that inspired them, Carmen . With the onset of<br />

World War I <strong>and</strong> an impending revolution, Blok found<br />

himself irrevocably in the whirlwind of history . He was<br />

mobilized with the corps of engineers in 1916, <strong>and</strong> in<br />

1917, he was a member of a commission working for<br />

the Provisional Government . His work was twofold:<br />

he was involved in investigating former Tsarist ministers,<br />

but he was also drafted to reorganize the theaters<br />

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<strong>and</strong> to edit world literature under the directorship of<br />

Maxim Gorky .<br />

Blok would produce the poem for which he is best<br />

known, The Twelve, during this period, writing it rapidly<br />

in January 1918 . Blok felt that this was his best<br />

work, fusing the “‘music’” of the epoch with his own<br />

personal “‘music .’” 184 The poem, in twelve movements<br />

or sections, is an intensely complex metaphor for<br />

the Revolution . The poem is set in a storm, evoking<br />

the black of night, the white snow, <strong>and</strong> the sound of<br />

the wind . In many ways, the poem fulfills the vision<br />

<strong>and</strong> prophecy of “On the Field of Kulikovo,” the galeforce<br />

winds purge the old world, but the agents of its<br />

destruction are twelve Red Guards, who are brutal <strong>and</strong><br />

vengeful but march on through the blizzard . Yet these<br />

common soldiers, their number echoing the number<br />

of the apostles, serve as the agents of change <strong>and</strong> are<br />

led by a mysterious figure identified in the last line<br />

as Jesus Christ . Blok wrote about the politics in this<br />

poem:<br />

It would however be wrong to deny all connection<br />

between ‘The Twelve’ <strong>and</strong> politics . The<br />

truth is that the poem was written in that<br />

exceptional <strong>and</strong> always very brief period when<br />

the passing revolutionary cyclone raises a storm<br />

in every sea—nature, life <strong>and</strong> art…The seas of<br />

nature, life <strong>and</strong> art were raging <strong>and</strong> the foam rose<br />

up in a rainbow over them . I was looking at that<br />

rainbow when I wrote ‘The Twelve’; that is why<br />

some drops of politics remained in the poem . 185<br />

In <strong>Lit</strong>erature <strong>and</strong> Revolution, Leon Trotsky wrote: “Blok<br />

belonged to pre-October literature, but he overcame<br />

this, <strong>and</strong> entered into the sphere of October when he<br />

wrote The Twelve . That is why he will occupy a special<br />

place in the history of Russian literature .” 186 For<br />

Trotsky, the poem represented the “swan song of the<br />

individualistic art that went over to the Revolution,”<br />

exposing the old way of life as the “mangy cur” that it<br />

is . Anatoly Lunacharsky, Soviet minister of education<br />

until 1929, captures the importance of Blok for Soviet<br />

literature in the following:<br />

Blok’s works <strong>and</strong>, therefore, his whole personality<br />

are of considerable significance for us, an<br />

object lesson in history . Here we have a perfect<br />

specimen-product of the last, decadent stages<br />

of the culture of the nobility <strong>and</strong>, to a certain<br />

extent, of the whole of pre-revolutionary Russian<br />

culture…At the same time, it is interesting to<br />

note a profoundly positive <strong>and</strong> admirable feature—the<br />

ability of this last child of a long line<br />

to perceive <strong>and</strong> to underst<strong>and</strong> something of the<br />

greatness of the revolution…187 Almost immediately after writing The Twelve,<br />

Blok began The Scythians, a poem that applauds<br />

Slavophilism, the resistance to incursions of thought<br />

<strong>and</strong> philosophy from the West which aligns itself with<br />

94<br />

Asia, while at the same time inviting the West to join<br />

with Russia:<br />

O, old world! While you still survive,<br />

While you still suffer your sweet torture,<br />

Come to a halt, sage as Oedipus,<br />

Before the ancient riddle of the Sphinx!…<br />

Russia is a Sphinx, rejoicing, grieving,<br />

And drenched in black blood,<br />

It gazes, gazes, gazes at you,<br />

With hatred <strong>and</strong> with love!…188 The poem foresees the possibility of cataclysmic violence<br />

inspired by the clash between two heritages in<br />

Russia: the European <strong>and</strong> the Asiatic . This clash is<br />

mirrored by <strong>and</strong> frames the conflict between Reds<br />

<strong>and</strong> Whites in a brewing civil war . 189 Blok wrote very<br />

little more; he had lost the enthusiasm the October<br />

Revolution inspired in 1917 <strong>and</strong> lived in poverty, losing<br />

even his beloved estate Shakhmatovo to the Bolshevik<br />

regime . Malnourished <strong>and</strong> possibly in the late stages of<br />

venereal disease, Blok died in August 1921 .<br />

S e l e c t e d W o r k<br />

“On the Field of Kulikovo,”<br />

by Alex<strong>and</strong>er Blok, 1908,<br />

TRANSLATED BY ROBIN KEMBALL<br />

From the Russian Review, Vol . 13, No . 1 (Jan ., 1954), pp . 33–37 .<br />

Published by Blackwell Publishing .<br />

The plain of Kulikovo lies between the Don <strong>and</strong> its<br />

tributary, the Nepriadva, some 200 miles to the south<br />

of Moscow . It was here, in 1380, that the first league<br />

of the Russian princes, under Dmitri Donskoi, Gr<strong>and</strong><br />

Duke of Vladimir <strong>and</strong> Moscow, met <strong>and</strong> defeated the<br />

Tatar Golden Horde . Just when the invaders seemed<br />

on the point of a crushing victory, one of Dmitri’s<br />

regiments sprang out of the night, took the enemy by<br />

surprise, <strong>and</strong> completely routed them, their leader, the<br />

gr<strong>and</strong> Khan Mamai, himself perishing during flight .<br />

(Cf . Part III of Blok’s poem .)<br />

The battle marks a turning-point in Russian history .<br />

For the first time ever, the Russian princes had formed<br />

a more or less united front against the Asian invader;<br />

Dmitri’s brilliant victory did much to strengthen their<br />

self-confidence, <strong>and</strong> marked the dawning of a wider<br />

national consciousness that was to grow up under the<br />

leadership of Muscovy . Though, in the following year,<br />

the Tatars themselves surprised Dmitri, turning the<br />

tables <strong>and</strong> again forcing him into submission, it was<br />

yet clear that the Russians were henceforth willing<br />

<strong>and</strong> able to defend themselves, <strong>and</strong> could no longer, as<br />

in the past, be attacked with impunity on the basis of<br />

divide et impera .<br />

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Accounts of the Battle of Kulikovo show the influence<br />

of a Russian epic of much earlier st<strong>and</strong>ing—The Lay<br />

of the Campaign of Igor (c . 1185), which, by reason of<br />

its magnificent poetry, its rich symbolism, <strong>and</strong> vivid<br />

imagery, occupies a unique place in Russian literature .<br />

This prose-poem was, of course, known to Blok,<br />

<strong>and</strong> his own account also bears evident traces of its<br />

influence . Blok’s poem was written in 1908 .<br />

I<br />

The river stretches wide . It mourns, me<strong>and</strong>ers, idly,<br />

Lapping the banks . Beyond<br />

The bare loam ochre cliffs, the haystacks sadly<br />

Mourn in the steppe’s despond .<br />

O, Russ, my own! My wife, my own! To sorrow<br />

Clear runs the long road still!<br />

Our road—our breast, pierced with the agelong arrow<br />

Of Tatar will .<br />

Our road—the steppe, our road—in boundless longing,<br />

Your longing, Russ, your tears!<br />

Not even night—in shrouding mist <strong>and</strong> foreign—<br />

Shall make me fear .<br />

Come, night! Lead onward . Light the steppe-long distance—<br />

One flaming trail .<br />

From the steppe smoke, a sacred st<strong>and</strong>ard glistens<br />

And Khanate sword of steel…<br />

And endless battle! Sleep, we dream, but sample<br />

Through blood <strong>and</strong> dust… .<br />

They speed, they speed, the steppe mare’s hoofs, <strong>and</strong> trample<br />

The coarse steppe grass…<br />

No end! The versts flash by, the gorges flicker<br />

And fade…Hold hard!<br />

They swoop, they swoop, the storm-clouds, panic-stricken,<br />

The sunset’s blood!<br />

The sunset’s blood! With blood the heart is streaming!<br />

Weep, heart, but weep…<br />

And still, the steppe mare gallops, onward speeding!<br />

There is no sleep!<br />

II<br />

Lone, we stood—the midnight steppe lay sleeping:<br />

Not for us to turn, to look behind .<br />

Over the Nepriadva, swans were scrieking,<br />

And again, they scriek upon the wind…<br />

By the road, a stone gleams—white <strong>and</strong> saddened .<br />

Far across the stream—a pagan horde .<br />

Never shall our regiment’s bright st<strong>and</strong>ard<br />

Hail again the victory of the sword .<br />

Hear a friend, with head bowed earthward:—Sharper,<br />

Soldier, whet your sword—his voice implores,<br />

—Not to grapple vainly with the Tatar,<br />

—Not to lie, slain in a sacred cause!<br />

I am not the first—not the last soldier,<br />

Long the l<strong>and</strong> will languish, sick with strife .<br />

Pray the morning for my soul’s composure,<br />

Dear my friend, serenely radiant wife!<br />

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III<br />

Night came—o’er the steppe <strong>and</strong> by the bridges<br />

Mamai’s horde lay low,<br />

We were with You on the darkened ridges—<br />

Possibly You knew?<br />

There, before the Don, dark <strong>and</strong> foreboding,<br />

‘Mid the fields of night,<br />

Heard Your voice amid the swan’s far scrieking<br />

With prophetic heart .<br />

Sudden, rose the army of the princes<br />

From the midnight cloud,<br />

Clinging to the stirrups, from the distance,<br />

Mothers sobbed aloud .<br />

Fowls hung hovering above the night in<br />

Distant circling rings .<br />

Silent, over Russia, sheets of lightning<br />

Safeguarded the prince .<br />

Eagles shrieked of doom above the Tatar<br />

Camp—ill-omened tale,<br />

And the fog lay, shrouding the Nepriadva<br />

Like a bridal veil,<br />

With the fog she slept in, the Nepriadva,<br />

You swooped from the night<br />

Straight at me—<strong>and</strong> never scared my charger—<br />

Clothed in streaming light,<br />

Shone upon Your darling—waves of silver<br />

On my sabre’s steel .<br />

Freshly washed the dust from off my shoulder,<br />

From my coat of mail .<br />

When the horde moved, dark, upon the morning,<br />

In my shield I saw<br />

Fair Your face, <strong>and</strong> not of earthly forming,<br />

Radiant evermore .<br />

IV<br />

Once more, with a hundred-year sighing,<br />

The steppe grass lies trampled <strong>and</strong> trod .<br />

Once more, from afar, you are crying,<br />

The river lies shrouded in fog…<br />

The steppe mares have bolted like thunder .<br />

No trace—galloped off down the plain,<br />

And savage, the passions loosed under<br />

The yoke of the moon on the wane .<br />

And I, with a hundred-year sighing,<br />

A wolf ‘neath the moon on the wane,<br />

Know neither which way to go flying<br />

Behind you, nor what’s to be done!<br />

I hear the swords clash in the tussle,<br />

The bugles of Tatary, shrill,<br />

I see, far afield, over Russia,<br />

A carpet of flame, wide <strong>and</strong> still .<br />

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I trot on my faithful white charger,<br />

My longing of infinite might…<br />

The storm-clouds run free <strong>and</strong> together<br />

In the height of the mist of the night .<br />

There rise the most brilliant of visions<br />

Through the torments that tear at my heart,<br />

And fade—the most brilliant of visions,<br />

Consumed in the fire of the dark…<br />

—Come, teach me, then, marvel of marvels,<br />

—To be brilliant, in deed as in thought!<br />

Erect st<strong>and</strong>s the mane of the charger…<br />

On the wind comes the call of the sword…<br />

…<strong>and</strong> cast its shroud<br />

Of inescapable disasters,<br />

Forbidding, o’er the coming day .<br />

Vladimir Soloviov<br />

V<br />

Once more, the field of Kulikovo—<br />

The mist has lifted, ebbed away,<br />

Like some stern cloud, has cast its shadow,<br />

Forbidding, o’er the coming day .<br />

Behind the peace, in wakeless slumber,<br />

Behind the teeming mist of night,<br />

Unheard, the wondrous battle’s thunder,<br />

Unseen, the flashing of the fight .<br />

But I shall know you, fateful dawning<br />

Of days, momentous, turbulent!<br />

Above the hostile camp, the storming<br />

Still echoes, with the swans’ lament .<br />

The heart is restless, all unsettled .<br />

The storm—clouds have not chanced this way .<br />

The mail hangs heavy ere the battle .<br />

Your hour has sounded .—Watch, <strong>and</strong> pray!<br />

Blok’s “On the Field of Kulikovo”<br />

(1908)<br />

Written in 1908, “On the Field of Kulikovo” clearly<br />

marks the turning point mentioned earlier in the direction<br />

of Blok’s poetry . With this poem, Blok signals that<br />

he has begun to distance himself from the more ethereal,<br />

other-worldly concerns of Symbolist poetry <strong>and</strong><br />

has shifted his attention to Russia as the center of his<br />

work . The poem, a poetic cycle in a series of brief stanzas,<br />

takes as its subject an important battle in Russian<br />

history fought between the Russian princes <strong>and</strong> the<br />

Tatar Golden Horde in 1380 near the Nepriadva <strong>and</strong><br />

Don Rivers .<br />

Led by the Khan Mamai, the Tatars were on the verge<br />

of winning the battle when the forces of the Gr<strong>and</strong><br />

Prince of Muscovy, Dmitri Donskoi, so named for his<br />

victory at the Don River, took the enemy by surprise<br />

<strong>and</strong> sent them into retreat . The battle is widely recog-<br />

96<br />

nized as a turning point in medieval Russian history,<br />

demonstrating that the Russian princes could present<br />

a united front <strong>and</strong> defend themselves against Asian<br />

invaders; this was the beginning of the end of Mongol/<br />

Tatar rule that had begun a century before under<br />

Genghis Khan . Dmitri’s recognition that his horsemen<br />

could not match the speed of the nomadic invaders<br />

prompted him to use the terrain of the steppe in his<br />

favor, blocking his flank so that the Mongol horde<br />

could not surround him . Blok’s use of this momentous<br />

occasion in his country’s history suggests a prescience<br />

about events to come as well as a look backward at the<br />

failure of the 1905 Revolution, underscoring Blok’s<br />

ambivalence toward Russia’s position between East<br />

<strong>and</strong> West .<br />

The poem is set just at the threshold of battle <strong>and</strong><br />

is structured into five sections of varying metrical<br />

patterns <strong>and</strong> rhyme schemes which are difficult<br />

to reproduce in English translation . In the poetic<br />

translation included in this guide, though, there are<br />

alternating patterns of rhythm reproduced in longer<br />

lines interspersed with shorter lines in Sections I <strong>and</strong><br />

III, while Sections II, IV, <strong>and</strong> V contain lines of similar<br />

lengths <strong>and</strong> similar numbers of beats . The translation<br />

by Robin Kemball also attempts to reproduce a pattern<br />

of alternating rhyming in an abab pattern, lines 1 <strong>and</strong><br />

3 rhyme as do lines 2 <strong>and</strong> 4; the translation also reproduces<br />

feminine rhyme in lines 1 <strong>and</strong> 3—“idly” <strong>and</strong><br />

“sadly” in the first stanza .<br />

The speaker is anonymous, taking on the role of one<br />

of Donskoi’s knights who speaks for the experiences<br />

of his regiment . In Section I, the speaker’s vision is<br />

broad—sweeping across the vast steppes <strong>and</strong> plains<br />

surrounding the battlefield . The speaker longs to free<br />

Russia, his “wife,” his “own” from the “agelong arrow/<br />

Of Tatar will .” “Russ” or Russia here takes on the<br />

image of the beautiful lady of Blok’s Symbolist lyrics<br />

. The alternating line lengths of this section also<br />

work to recreate the sound of speed as the regiment<br />

<strong>and</strong> the Tatars gallop over the steppes . Working with<br />

the alternating line lengths, repetition also becomes a<br />

prominent feature of sound in the section <strong>and</strong> contributes<br />

to the reproduction of speed: “They speed, they<br />

speed, the steppe mare’s hoofs… .” The lines also suggest<br />

pursuit as the Mongol/Tartar invaders would most<br />

likely have ridden steppe mares, chasing the Russian<br />

princes’ regiments on their chargers . The first stanza<br />

suggests that even the l<strong>and</strong>scape “mourns” Russia’s<br />

bondage . And the remaining stanzas of the section<br />

contrast the stationary vastness of the steppe <strong>and</strong> idle<br />

motion of the wide river with the speed of the galloping<br />

regiment <strong>and</strong> the steppe mares of the Mongol horde,<br />

hurtling onward to battle .<br />

The four stanzas of Section II continue the alternating<br />

pattern of rhyme within more even line lengths . The<br />

regiment, represented by the poem’s speaker, surveys<br />

the field at midnight near the Nepriadva River, listens<br />

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to the sound of swans “scrieking” or shrieking on the<br />

wind over the river, <strong>and</strong> sees the “pagan horde” on the<br />

other side . The mood is one of foreboding <strong>and</strong> fear of<br />

loss in battle . The speaker urges a fellow soldier to<br />

sharpen his sword to fight the Tatar, so that the battle<br />

will not be in vain . An awareness of what will happen<br />

at dawn strikes the speaker, “I am not the first—not<br />

the last soldier,/Long the l<strong>and</strong> will languish, sick with<br />

strife .” And he prays to his “serenely radiant wife,”<br />

Russia, to help him find the composure to face battle .<br />

The soldier seems to know that this battle, though it<br />

may end in victory, will not end the rule of the Tatar in<br />

the immediate future . This section reproduces stasis,<br />

st<strong>and</strong>ing, <strong>and</strong> contemplation rather than the whirlwind<br />

of motion in the first section .<br />

In Section III the structure returns to the alternating<br />

line lengths of the first section, reproducing once more<br />

the sound of speed: “Sudden, rose the army of princes/<br />

From the midnight cloud,/Clinging to the stirrups… .”<br />

Birds of prey circle overhead; the speaker identifies<br />

them as eagles, prophets of doom who sound the<br />

Tatar’s doom . An unidentified “You” appears in this<br />

section, <strong>and</strong> as the section develops, it becomes clear<br />

that “You” blends Russia with Blok’s Beautiful Lady:<br />

You swooped from the night<br />

Straight at me—<strong>and</strong> never scared my charger—<br />

Clothed in streaming light,<br />

Shone upon Your darling—waves of silver<br />

On my sabre’s steel .<br />

Freshly washed the dust from off my shoulder,<br />

From my coat of mail .<br />

When the horde moved, dark, upon the morning,<br />

In my shield I saw<br />

Fair Your face, <strong>and</strong> not of earthly forming,<br />

Radiant evermore .<br />

The next section continues the reproduction of<br />

motion—in the galloping of the steppe mares <strong>and</strong> of<br />

the knights’ chargers, the sound of the swords <strong>and</strong><br />

the bugles of the Tatars, <strong>and</strong> the speaker experiences a<br />

vision of the end of Tatar rule . He sees that in the wake<br />

of a hundred years’ rule, the “steppe mares have bolted<br />

like thunder,” as the battle seems imminent:<br />

I hear the swords clash in the tussle,<br />

The bugles of Tatary, shrill,<br />

I see, far afield, over Russia,<br />

A carpet of flame, wide <strong>and</strong> still .<br />

The speaker calls upon the vision to make him brave<br />

to be ready for “the call of the sword .” The section<br />

ends with a prophetic quotation from Vladimir<br />

Soloviov: “…<strong>and</strong> cast its shroud/Of inescapable disasters,/Forbidding,<br />

o’er the coming day .”<br />

Soloviov’s prophecy shapes the theme of the closing<br />

section, as the speaker seems to inhabit the past <strong>and</strong><br />

present at once . The battle seems to be over, its “thunder”<br />

unheard, its “flashing” unseen, but it continues<br />

The Battle of Kulikovo (1850), a huge canvas from<br />

the Gr<strong>and</strong> Kremlin Palace painted by Adolphe<br />

Yvon, depicts Dmitry Donskoi in the thick of<br />

the fray during the Battle of Kulikovo.<br />

to cast a shadow over the future . The speaker knows<br />

that there will be a “fateful dawning/[of] days, momentous,<br />

turbulent!” <strong>and</strong> knows that the storm clouds will<br />

come . The last line produces a warning for the people<br />

of Russia in 1908: “Your hour has sounded .—Watch,<br />

<strong>and</strong> pray!”<br />

As early as 1911, Yurii Zhivago, along with many in<br />

his generation in Moscow <strong>and</strong> St . Petersburg, announces<br />

that he is “mad about Blok” (79) . In the splendor<br />

of Moscow’s illuminated Christmas appearance, Yurii<br />

senses that Blok’s Symbolist poetry is the reflection of<br />

the Russian Christmas spirit <strong>and</strong> to underst<strong>and</strong> him,<br />

“…all you had to do was to paint a Russian version of<br />

a Dutch Adoration of the Magi with snow in it, <strong>and</strong><br />

wolves, <strong>and</strong> a dark fir forest” (81) . Yet that feeling of<br />

adoration for both the lit places <strong>and</strong> dark woods of<br />

Russia yields, during World War I, to Yurii’s sense of<br />

loss of his former way of life <strong>and</strong> of his support of<br />

the Revolution of 1905 . These fragmented impressions<br />

converge in Yurii’s later concept of the manner<br />

in which the Symbolists, including Blok, accumulate<br />

images just as “the street in a busy town hurries past<br />

us, with its crowds <strong>and</strong> its broughams <strong>and</strong> carriages at<br />

the end of the last century, or its streetcars <strong>and</strong> subways<br />

at the beginning of ours” (488) . Yurii has made here a<br />

deliberate connection between the correspondences<br />

<strong>and</strong> contiguities of the symbol to the intersection of<br />

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that street, sidewalk, <strong>and</strong> streetcar where he will meet<br />

his own destiny .<br />

In the closing pages of the novel, Misha Gordon utters<br />

the final words on Blok, using a line from Blok’s poetry<br />

to relate to Russia’s future . Gordon reflects upon the<br />

motion of history as one “lofty ideal” after another<br />

gives way to “crude materialism” (518) . Russia’s crude<br />

materialism is its Revolution . For Blok, who did not<br />

live to see the terrors in the aftermath of civil war <strong>and</strong><br />

the Stalinist years, the “children of Russia’s terrible<br />

years” were the intelligentsia, witness to the onset of<br />

an inexplicable <strong>and</strong> apocalyptic future . Blok’s poem<br />

“Those Born in Obscure Years,” written in September<br />

1914, is brief <strong>and</strong> riveting . As the plural speaker “we”<br />

trembles on the edge of the future, he foretells both<br />

doom <strong>and</strong> resurrection:<br />

Those born in obscure times<br />

Do not remember their way .<br />

We, children of Russia’s frightful years<br />

Cannot forget a thing .<br />

Incinerating years!, do you bring tidings<br />

Of madness or of hope?<br />

The days of war, the days of freedom<br />

Have left a bloody sheen on our faces .<br />

There is a muteness—the tocsin bell<br />

98<br />

Has made us close our lips .<br />

In our hearts, once so ardent,<br />

There is a fateful emptiness .<br />

Let the croaking ravens<br />

Take flight above our deathbed—<br />

O Lord, O Lord, may those more worthy than us,<br />

Behold Thy kingdom! 190<br />

But at the time of the closure of Doctor Zhivago, in<br />

the aftermath of two world wars, bloody civil war,<br />

<strong>and</strong> social evils, Gordon writes the future when “[t]he<br />

children are children <strong>and</strong> the terrors are terrible, there<br />

you have the difference” (518) . The ideal is gone . Yet<br />

Pasternak refuses to end on this note, extending the<br />

companionship of the two friends to a time five or<br />

ten years later, presumably after the iron grip of Stalin<br />

has been loosened, <strong>and</strong> he closes the narrative portion<br />

of the novel with a brief section which brings Yurii’s<br />

poetry into the center, as a life-renewing ritual . As<br />

Dudorov <strong>and</strong> Gordon read Yurii’s book of poems, they<br />

think about Moscow, the events they’ve experienced,<br />

<strong>and</strong> the people they’ve known: “they were filled with<br />

tenderness <strong>and</strong> peace, <strong>and</strong> they were enveloped by the<br />

unheard music of happiness that flowed all about them<br />

<strong>and</strong> into the distance . And the book they held seemed<br />

to confirm <strong>and</strong> encourage their feeling .”<br />

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NOTES<br />

1 . A movement in the late eighteenth century<br />

which privileged the expression of powerful<br />

emotions in the arts in reaction against the ideals<br />

of rationalism <strong>and</strong> Classicism of the earlier part<br />

of the century .<br />

2 . Succeeding <strong>and</strong> reacting against Romanticism,<br />

Realism was a movement which dominated the<br />

mid-nineteenth century <strong>and</strong> sought to reproduce<br />

real life in art as faithfully as possible .<br />

3 . A late nineteenth-century movement in the arts<br />

which privileged the use of symbols as signs of<br />

indirect knowledge of absolute truths .<br />

4 . Victor Erlich, “Russian Formalism,” Journal of<br />

the History of Ideas 34 .4 (1973): 635 .<br />

5 . Quoted in Lazar Fleishman, Boris Pasternak:<br />

The Poet <strong>and</strong> His Politics (Cambridge: Harvard<br />

University Press, 1990) 297 .<br />

6 . Pasternak’s birth date is calculated here according<br />

to the Julian calendar which was still in effect in<br />

Russia in 1890 . Some sources, especially internet<br />

sources, may give February 10 th as Pasternak’s<br />

birth date, which would conform to dating<br />

according the Gregorian calendar; but Pasternak’s<br />

biographers adhere to the Julian calendar date .<br />

7 . Christopher Barnes, Boris Pasternak: A <strong>Lit</strong>erary<br />

Biography, Volume I: 1890–1928 (Cambridge:<br />

Cambridge University Press, 1989) 8 .<br />

8 . A Russian word for a vacation home .<br />

9 . Scriabin’s compositions, written largely for<br />

piano, were influenced by the music of Frédéric<br />

Chopin but evolved into more individual <strong>and</strong><br />

atonal expressions during the course of his<br />

career . Atonal music lacks a tonal center or key<br />

so that the notes of the chromatic scale function<br />

independently . See “Atonality,” Wikipedia,<br />

.<br />

10 . Quoted in Barnes, Volume I, 27 .<br />

11 . Ibid ., 55 .<br />

12 . Ibid ., 57 .<br />

13 . Ibid ., 64 .<br />

14 . French for “the city with tentacles” or “the<br />

sprawling city which engulfs the countryside,”<br />

popularized in the late nineteenth-century work<br />

of poet Emile Verhaeren (1855–1916) .<br />

15 . An example of this idea of the power of the<br />

symbol can be found in a stanza of Charles<br />

Baudelaire’s “Correspondences”:<br />

Nature is a temple in which living pillars<br />

Sometimes give voice to confused words;<br />

Man passes there through forests of symbols<br />

Which look at him with underst<strong>and</strong>ing eyes .<br />

Notice here the relationships between nature <strong>and</strong><br />

temple, the living pillars of nature voicing words<br />

which are confused, <strong>and</strong> the human observer<br />

passing through a forest of nature filled with<br />

symbols whose eyes seem to underst<strong>and</strong> him .<br />

“Charles Baudelaire’s Fleurs du Mal/Flowers of<br />

Evil, .<br />

16 . Note that since the Russian language uses<br />

the Cyrillic alphabet, this guide may contain<br />

variations in the way names are spelled in<br />

English . In most cases, the most common<br />

spelling in English will be adhered to .<br />

17 . Barnes, Volume I, 76 .<br />

18 . Ibid .<br />

19 . Ibid ., 79 .<br />

20 . Ibid ., 96 .<br />

21 . At its height in the Marburg school which<br />

Pasternak attended, neo-Kantianism placed<br />

its emphasis on the transcendental method of<br />

the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804),<br />

exploring the nature <strong>and</strong> limits of human<br />

knowledge <strong>and</strong> seeking to raise the study of<br />

philosophy to the level <strong>and</strong> precision of the study<br />

of mathematics . Under Hermann Cohen, the<br />

Marburg neo-Kantians stressed the nature of<br />

essences <strong>and</strong> the use of logic . See Encyclopedia<br />

Britannica for more<br />

detail .<br />

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22 . The full poem may be found online at: .<br />

23 . Quoted in Barnes, Volume I, 137 .<br />

24 . Ibid ., 151 .<br />

25 . Ibid ., 147 .<br />

26 . Ibid ., 157 .<br />

27 . Ibid . Notice the use of a geometrical figure<br />

“rhombus” to suggest the geographical<br />

configuration of city space .<br />

28 . Ibid ., 171 .<br />

29 . Ibid ., 172 .<br />

30 . Ibid ., 181 .<br />

31 . Larissa Rudova, Underst<strong>and</strong>ing Boris Pasternak<br />

(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press,<br />

1997) 47 . See for further discussion of this<br />

novella .<br />

32 . Technically, the term Post-Impressionism was<br />

coined by painter <strong>and</strong> art critic Roger Fry to<br />

describe the style of painting after the French<br />

painter Manet . For Fry, Post-Impressionists<br />

extended the work of Impressionism by increased<br />

emphasis on geometric form, distortion of shape,<br />

<strong>and</strong> the use of unnatural color .<br />

33 . Quoted in Barnes, Volume I, 174 .<br />

34 . Ibid ., 227 .<br />

35 . Ibid .<br />

36 . Rudova, 23–4 .<br />

37 . Note that the phrase does not come from the<br />

poetic speaker but from a chorus of voices—<br />

Pasternak always denied that the phrase<br />

expressed authorial sentiment . Alex<strong>and</strong>er<br />

Kerensky was leader of the Provisional<br />

Government before the coup <strong>and</strong> takeover by<br />

Lenin near the end of 1917 .<br />

38 . These are the last two stanzas of the poem<br />

quoted in Barnes, Volume I, 212, translated from<br />

the original Russian by Barnes himself . There are<br />

variations in translations, for example, the third<br />

line quoted above reads, in a variant translation:<br />

“It’s a blinding exit to the Forum,” which helps<br />

gloss the more difficult but more poetically<br />

interesting “debouch .” See Boris Pasternak’s My<br />

Sister-life, trans . Mark Rudman (Toronto: Exile<br />

Editions Limited, 1989) 34 .<br />

39 . Quoted in Barnes, Volume I, 253 .<br />

40 . Ibid ., 266 .<br />

41 . Ibid ., 163 .<br />

42 . Ibid ., 268 .<br />

43 . Ibid ., 291 .<br />

100<br />

44 . Also known as the Guild of Poets, Acmeism<br />

emerged in Russia under the leadership of<br />

Gumilyov <strong>and</strong> sought to counterpose neoclassical<br />

forms <strong>and</strong> “Apollonian” clarity to the<br />

symbolic overabundance of the Symbolists . The<br />

group met regularly in Petrograd <strong>and</strong> included<br />

Gumilyov, Akhmatova, <strong>and</strong> Osip M<strong>and</strong>elstam,<br />

among others . M<strong>and</strong>elstam’s poetic collection<br />

Stone is considered the high point of the<br />

movement .<br />

45 . Quoted in Barnes, Volume I, 293 .<br />

46 . Ibid ., 303 .<br />

47 . Ibid ., 323 .<br />

48 . In Russian, the term denotes a long poem as<br />

distinct from a short lyric .<br />

49 . Barnes, Volume I, 325 .<br />

50 . Ibid ., 343 .<br />

51 . Ibid ., 345 .<br />

52 . In fact, Pasternak kept Dickens’s A Tale of<br />

Two Cities on his desk as he worked on Doctor<br />

Zhivago, <strong>and</strong> referred to himself as a Dickensian<br />

character in a letter to his father in 1934 . Sidney<br />

Carton fits in with Pasternak’s developing<br />

conception of the “hero” as a vacillating, Hamletlike<br />

character who is also Christ-like in his<br />

willingness to accept sacrificial victimization .<br />

See Christopher J . Barnes, “Pasternak, Dickens<br />

<strong>and</strong> the Novel Tradition,” Forum for Modern<br />

<strong>Language</strong> Studies 27 .4 (1990): 326 .<br />

53 . Quoted in Barnes, Volume I, 362–3 .<br />

54 . Ibid ., 370 .<br />

55 . Ibid ., 370–1 .<br />

56 . Ibid ., 371 .<br />

57 . Ibid ., 387 .<br />

58 . Ibid ., 399 .<br />

59 . Ibid ., 403 .<br />

60 . Ibid ., 414 .<br />

61 . Ibid ., 414–5 .<br />

62 . Quoted in Fleishman, 159 .<br />

63 . Barnes, Boris Pasternak: A <strong>Lit</strong>erary Biography,<br />

Volume 2: 1928–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge<br />

University Press, 1998) 28 .<br />

64 . Quoted in Barnes Volume 2, 47–8 .<br />

65 . Quoted in Fleishman, 166 .<br />

66 . Quoted in Barnes, Volume 2, 59 .<br />

67 . Fleishman, 170 .<br />

68 . Fleishman, 169 .<br />

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69 . Fleishman, 180 .<br />

70 . Ibid ., 188 .<br />

71 . Formalism certainly implies a study of poetic<br />

form <strong>and</strong> structure, but the attack of the Stalinist<br />

circle against formalists included the Russian<br />

formalist theorists like Victor Sklovsky, who<br />

emphasized the study of literature as a science<br />

based upon a specialized use of language which<br />

is not determined by outside, historical forces .<br />

This theory was not centered on the material<br />

conditions of life which the Soviet government<br />

focused on, <strong>and</strong> Trotsky’s <strong>Lit</strong>erature <strong>and</strong><br />

Revolution (1924) began the attack on a method<br />

which neglected the impact of the social world<br />

on culture . The leaders of the movement suffered<br />

persecution in the 1920s which intensified when<br />

Stalin came into power .<br />

72 . Fleishman, 199 .<br />

73 . This is the designation, also known as the Great<br />

Purge, for the years 1936–39, when widespread<br />

persecution reached every area of Soviet life .<br />

74 . Fleishman, 220 .<br />

75 . Ibid ., 222 .<br />

76 . Quoted in Barnes, Volume II, 170 .<br />

77 . Stefan Schimanski, “The Duty of the Younger<br />

Writer,” quoted in Fleishman, 234 .<br />

78 . Quoted in Fleishman, 237 .<br />

79 . Ibid ., 241 .<br />

80 . The labor <strong>and</strong> concentration camp system under<br />

Stalin; Russian writer Aleks<strong>and</strong>r Solzhenitsyn<br />

wrote a three-volume account based on<br />

eyewitness testimony entitled The Gulag<br />

Archipelago .<br />

81 . Boris Pasternak, The Collected Prose Works,<br />

introd . Stefan Schimanski (London: Lindsay<br />

Drummond, Ltd ., 1945) .<br />

82 . Quoted in Fleishman, 246 .<br />

83 . See Fleishman, 252, for this claim .<br />

84 . Ibid ., 252 .<br />

85 . Ibid ., 254 .<br />

86 . Ibid ., 259 .<br />

87 . Ibid ., 275 .<br />

88 . Ibid ., 290 .<br />

89 . Ibid ., 297 .<br />

90 . Ibid ., 302 .<br />

91 . Ibid ., 303 .<br />

92 . Ibid ., 307 .<br />

93 . Quoted in “A Russian Author ‘St<strong>and</strong>s Straight,”<br />

The Milwaukee Journal, Monday, October 27,<br />

1958, 8 . Available online at: .<br />

94 . Ibid .<br />

95 . Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago, trans Max<br />

Hayward <strong>and</strong> Manya Harari (New York:<br />

Pantheon Books, 1991) 391 . All quotations are<br />

taken from this edition <strong>and</strong> will be cited in the<br />

text by page number in parentheses .<br />

96 . Boris Pasternak, “Notes on Translations of<br />

Shakespeare’s Tragedies,” quoted in Anna Kay<br />

France, “Iago <strong>and</strong> Othello in Boris Pasternak’s<br />

Translation,” Shakespeare Quarterly 28 .1 (Winter<br />

1977): 73 .<br />

97 . Ann Pasternak Slater, “Rereading: Doctor<br />

Zhivago,” The Guardian, November 6, 2010,<br />

.<br />

98 . Ibid .<br />

99 . Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago, trans . Richard<br />

Pevear <strong>and</strong> Larissa Volokhonsky (New York:<br />

Pantheon Books, 2010) 122 .<br />

100 . Slater, “Rereading: Doctor Zhivago .”<br />

101 . Ibid .<br />

102 . Ibid .<br />

103 . The correct form of semi-formal address in<br />

Russian includes the first name followed by the<br />

patronymic, the father’s name with an ending<br />

which indicates “son of” or “daughter of .”<br />

Nikolaievich translates as “son of Nikolai .”<br />

104 . Prolepsis is a narrative device which<br />

manipulates time in a leap forward to reveal an<br />

event that will happen in a future moment to<br />

the time of the events being narrated .<br />

105 . The name Kirghiz, now spelled “Kyrgyz,” dates<br />

to the eighth century <strong>and</strong> refers to a Turkic<br />

ethnic group which originated in Siberia <strong>and</strong><br />

traveled to the area now known as Kyrgyzstan .<br />

The feature describes slanted, Asian eyes .<br />

106 . Rudova, 60 .<br />

107 . Roman Jakobson, Verbal Art, Verbal Sign, Verbal<br />

Time, eds . Krystyna Pomorska, Stephen Rudy<br />

(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,<br />

1985) 17 .<br />

108 . Quoted in Boris Gasparov, “Temporal<br />

Counterpoint as a Principle of Formation in<br />

Doctor Zhivago,” Doctor Zhivago: A Critical<br />

Companion, ed . Edith W . Clowes (Evanston:<br />

Northwestern University Press, 1995) n . 5, p .<br />

113 .<br />

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109 . See for support of this claim, F . T . Griffiths<br />

<strong>and</strong> S .J .Rabinowitz, “Doctor Zhivago <strong>and</strong> the<br />

Tradition of National Epic,” Comparative<br />

<strong>Lit</strong>erature 32 .1 (Winter 1980): 66 .<br />

110 . Ibid . As the “third Rome,” Moscow would follow<br />

Rome itself as first, then Constantinople as the<br />

Rome of the East .<br />

111 . Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago, trans . Pevear<br />

<strong>and</strong> Volokhonsky, 530 .<br />

112 . See for more on this point: Ian K . Lilly,<br />

“Moscow as City <strong>and</strong> Symbol in Pasternak’s<br />

Doctor Zhivago,” Slavic Review 40 .2 (Summer,<br />

1981): 245 .<br />

113 . Ibid .<br />

114 . Ibid ., 250 .<br />

115 . As has been noted in the section on Pasternak’s<br />

biography, Pasternak translated Goethe’s Faust,<br />

itself an epic of the unquenchability of the<br />

human thirst for knowledge—which in Faust’s<br />

case drives him to make a pact with the devil,<br />

figured as Mephistopheles .<br />

116 . William Shakespeare, Romeo <strong>and</strong> Juliet, Act V,<br />

Scene 3, line 82 .<br />

117 . Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago, trans . Hayward <strong>and</strong><br />

Harari, 523 .<br />

118 . The conflict between Christ <strong>and</strong> the Pharisees<br />

as narrated in the New Testament centers on<br />

Christ’s teaching on love <strong>and</strong> the Pharisees’<br />

insistence on the rule of law <strong>and</strong> the scorning of<br />

sinners .<br />

119 . Barnes Volume 2, 187 .<br />

120 . Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago, trans . Pevear <strong>and</strong><br />

Volokhonsky, 460 .<br />

121 . Translated by Christopher Barnes <strong>and</strong> quoted in<br />

Barnes, Volume 2, 341 .<br />

122 . The “superfluous man” is modeled on Byron,<br />

an educated <strong>and</strong> refined individual who, though<br />

filled with passion <strong>and</strong> ideas, has no outlet for<br />

them . In Russia, Mikhail Lermontov’s A Hero of<br />

Our Time (1840) provides an additional example<br />

of Byron’s hero as the superfluous man .<br />

123 . John A . Mersereau, Jr ., “The Nineteenth<br />

Century: Romanticism, 1820–40,” Charles<br />

A . Moser, ed ., The Cambridge History of<br />

Russian <strong>Lit</strong>erature (Cambridge MA: Cambridge<br />

University Press, 1992) 137 .<br />

124 . Quoted in Robert H . Stacy, Russian <strong>Lit</strong>erary<br />

Criticism, a Short History (Syracuse NY:<br />

Syracuse University Press, 1974) 49 .<br />

125 . Ibid ., 98 .<br />

102<br />

126 . Boris Gasparov, “Poetry of the Silver Age,”<br />

Evgeny Dobrenko <strong>and</strong> Marina Balina, eds ., The<br />

Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century<br />

Russian <strong>Lit</strong>erature (Cambridge MA: Cambridge<br />

University Press, 2011) 3 .<br />

127 . Ibid ., 7 .<br />

128 . From Blok’s note on The Twelve, quoted in<br />

Helen Muchnic, From Gorky to Pasternak: Six<br />

Writers in Soviet Russia (New York: Vintage<br />

Books, 1961) 162 .<br />

129 . Quoted in David Bethea <strong>and</strong> Sergei Davydov,<br />

“Pushkin’s Life,” The Cambridge Companion<br />

to Pushkin, ed . Andrew Kahn (Cambridge MA:<br />

Cambridge University Press, 2006) 11 .<br />

130 . Ibid ., 12 .<br />

131 . French for a male “governor” or tutor .<br />

132 . Quoted in “Alex<strong>and</strong>er Pushkin,” (Green Lamp<br />

Press, 2011) .<br />

133 . Ibid ., “1817–1820 . St . Petersburg .”<br />

134 . Ibid ., “Southern Exile .”<br />

135 . Bethea <strong>and</strong> Davydov, 17 .<br />

136 . “Alex<strong>and</strong>er Pushkin,” “Exile in Mikhaylovskoye<br />

1824–1826 .”<br />

137 . “1826–1831 Moscow <strong>and</strong> St . Petersburg” in<br />

“Alex<strong>and</strong>er Pushkin .”<br />

138 . Pushkin, “The Prophet,” The Poems, Prose<br />

<strong>and</strong> Plays of Alex<strong>and</strong>er Pushkin, ed . Avrahm<br />

Yarmolinsky (New York: The Modern Library,<br />

1936) 62 .<br />

139 . See Lyubov Tsarevskaya, “Alex<strong>and</strong>er Pushkin:<br />

The Boldino Autumn,” The Voice of Russia,<br />

.<br />

140 . Gathering together a heterogeneous army<br />

of dissatisfied Cossacks, Tatars, religious<br />

dissidents, <strong>and</strong> serfs, the rebel Cossack Emilian<br />

Pugachev launched a revolt against Catherine’s<br />

rule in the fall of 1773 which spread throughout<br />

1774 <strong>and</strong> ended with his execution in January<br />

1775 .<br />

141 . Pushkin, “Unto Myself I Reared a Monument,”<br />

The Poems, Prose <strong>and</strong> Plays of Alex<strong>and</strong>er<br />

Pushkin, 88 .<br />

142 . Bethea <strong>and</strong> Davydov, 12 .<br />

143 . Masculine rhyme consists of two rhyming words<br />

each containing a single syllable—you, too—<br />

<strong>and</strong> feminine rhyme consists of two rhyming<br />

words whose last two syllables rhyme—winking,<br />

blinking .<br />

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144 . Armida was a character created by the Italian<br />

poet Torquato Tasso—a Saracen princess<br />

during the Crusades, she falls in love with<br />

the Christian soldier Rinaldo <strong>and</strong> creates an<br />

enchanted garden where she holds him prisoner .<br />

Rinaldo is finally freed by fellow Crusaders .<br />

The tale inspired a number of works, including<br />

operas by Salieri (a contemporary of Mozart),<br />

Haydn, <strong>and</strong> Rossini .<br />

145 . A figure of speech which includes direct address<br />

to a person or personified object .<br />

146 . The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word<br />

prosaism as: “a prosaic phrase or expression, esp .<br />

one occurring in poetic writing,” thus Pushkin<br />

is calling attention to the “unpoetic” use of<br />

the word “organism” which might more likely<br />

appear in prose than in poetry . The Oxford<br />

English Dictionary online at the California State<br />

University Bakersfield Walter Stiern Library,<br />

.<br />

147 . A lyric of triumph or thanksgiving .<br />

148 . Quoted in Richard Pevear, “Introduction,” War<br />

<strong>and</strong> Peace by Leo Tolstoy (New York: Alfred A .<br />

Knopf, 2007) i .<br />

149 . Leo Tolstoy, Resurrection (Annotated with<br />

Biography <strong>and</strong> Critical Essay (Golgotha Press,<br />

2011) location 164 . (This is not a print source<br />

but an ebook specifically published for the<br />

Kindle, so locations serve in the place of page<br />

numbers .)<br />

150 . French, Turkish, <strong>and</strong> British troops attacked<br />

the city of Sebastopol in the Crimea, the<br />

home of the Tsar’s Black Sea fleet, beginning<br />

in September 1854 . The fall of Sebastopol<br />

led to Russian defeat in the Crimean War; it<br />

is estimated that 100,000 Russians died in<br />

the defense of Sebastopol . See “The Siege of<br />

Sevastopol,” BritishBattles .com .<br />

151 . Harold Bloom, Leo Tolstoy: Bloom’s Major<br />

Novelists, Comprehensive Research <strong>and</strong> Study<br />

Guide (Broomall, PA: Chelsea House Publishers,<br />

2002) 1 .<br />

152 . Ibid ., 2 .<br />

153 . Ibid ., 5 .<br />

154 . Ibid .<br />

155 . Ibid ., 46 .<br />

156 . Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, trans . Pevear <strong>and</strong><br />

Volokhonsky (Penguin Classics, 2004) 768 .<br />

157 . Barnes, Volume I, 96 . Mt . Elbrus is an inactive<br />

volcano <strong>and</strong> the highest peak (18,510 feet) in the<br />

western Caucasus mountain range, higher than<br />

Mont Blanc (15,782 feet), the highest peak in the<br />

Alps .<br />

158 . Leonid Pasternak, “My Meetings with Tolstoy,”<br />

Russian Review 19 .2 (April 1960): 131 .<br />

159 . See for a fuller description, “Orthodoxy, Autocracy,<br />

<strong>and</strong> Nationality,” .<br />

160 . One of the oldest <strong>and</strong> most elite of the Russian<br />

regiments formed by Peter the Great in the<br />

seventeenth century .<br />

161 . Yurii refers here to War <strong>and</strong> Peace .<br />

162 . Robespierre, influential during the French<br />

Revolution, ushered in the “Reign of Terror,”<br />

when, after the execution of Louis XVI,<br />

widespread violence <strong>and</strong> mass executions of<br />

enemies of the Revolution prevailed .<br />

163 . Quoted in “Anton Chekhov,” .<br />

164 . Quoted in James N . Loehlin, ed ., The<br />

Cambridge Introduction to Chekhov (Cambridge,<br />

MA: Cambridge University Press, 2010) 3 .<br />

165 . Ibid ., 10 .<br />

166 . Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Russian<br />

<strong>Lit</strong>erature (New York: Mariner Books, 2002)<br />

262 . Nabokov’s hyperbole in praising this gem<br />

of a story was offered in a lecture, so it bears<br />

the dramatic flourish that a dynamic instructor<br />

like Nabokov would have brought to the study of<br />

Chekhov .<br />

167 . Anton Chekhov, “Lady with Lapdog,” trans . Ivy<br />

<strong>Lit</strong>vinov, Anton Chekhov’s Short Stories (New<br />

York: W . W . Norton & Company, 1979) 221 .<br />

168 . Nabokov, 262 .<br />

169 . Yorimitsu Hashimoto, “Japanese Tea Party:<br />

Representations of Victorian Paradise<br />

<strong>and</strong> Playground in The Geisha (1896),” in<br />

John K . Walton, ed ., Histories of Tourism:<br />

Representation, Identity <strong>and</strong> Conflict (Clevedon,<br />

UK: Channel View Publications, 2005) 105 .<br />

170 . Nabokov, 262 .<br />

171 . Ibid .<br />

172 . Quoted in Shoshanah Dietz, “Reverence or<br />

Blasphemy: Translation Strategies in Alex<strong>and</strong>r<br />

Blok’s Dvenadtsat’/The Twelve,” TTR: traduction,<br />

terminologie, redaction 2 .1 (1989): 103 .<br />

173 . Gnosticism is a system of beliefs in salvation<br />

through the experience of transcendent<br />

knowledge (of the mysteries of the universe, for<br />

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104<br />

example) arrived at only through internal <strong>and</strong><br />

intuitive methods .<br />

174 . Alex<strong>and</strong>er Blok, “The Intellect cannot Measure<br />

the Divine,” Alex<strong>and</strong>r Blok: Selected Poems,<br />

trans . Jon Stallworthy <strong>and</strong> Peter France<br />

(Manchester: Carcanet Press, 2000) 25 .<br />

175 . Ibid ., 14 .<br />

176 . Quoted in “Introduction,” Alex<strong>and</strong>r Blok:<br />

Selected Poems,15 .<br />

177 . Alex<strong>and</strong>r Blok, “The Stranger,” (1906) Trans .<br />

George M . Young, Jr ., The Silver Age of Russian<br />

Poetry, eds . Carl Proffer <strong>and</strong> Ellendea Proffer<br />

(Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1975) 85–6 . .<br />

178 . Quoted in “Translators’ Note,” The Puppet<br />

Show, trans . Mary Kriger <strong>and</strong> Gleb Struve, The<br />

Slavonic <strong>and</strong> East European Review 28 .71 (April,<br />

1950): 309 .<br />

179 . See for a wealth of information on the staging<br />

<strong>and</strong> performances of the play: “An Enchanted<br />

Masquerade: Alex<strong>and</strong>er Blok’s ‘The Puppet<br />

Show’ from the Stage to the Streets” .<br />

180 . From Alex<strong>and</strong>er Blok, “The Snow Maiden,” trans<br />

Yevgeny Bonner .<br />

181 . Quoted in “Introduction,” Alex<strong>and</strong>r Blok:<br />

Selected Poems, 18 .<br />

182 . Quoted in Helen Muchnic, 148 .<br />

183 . Ibid .<br />

184 . Ibid ., 160 .<br />

185 . Quoted in “Introduction,” Alex<strong>and</strong>r Blok:<br />

Selected Poems, 22 .<br />

186 . Leon Trotsky, <strong>Lit</strong>erature <strong>and</strong> Revolution (1924),<br />

trans Rose Strunsky (New York: Russes &<br />

Russell, 1957) Chapter Three, .<br />

187 . Anatoly Lunacharsky, On <strong>Lit</strong>erature <strong>and</strong> Art<br />

(1932), trans Avril Pyman <strong>and</strong> Fainna Glagoleva<br />

(Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1965) .<br />

188 . Alex<strong>and</strong>er Blok, The Scythians, .<br />

189 . Andrew Kahn, “Poetry of the Revolution,” The<br />

Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century<br />

Russian <strong>Lit</strong>erature, eds . Evgeny Dobrenk<br />

<strong>and</strong> Marina Balina (Cambridge: Cambridge<br />

University Press, 2011) 41 .<br />

190 . Alex<strong>and</strong>er Blok, “Those Born in Obscure Years,”<br />

From the Ends to the Beginning: A Bilingual<br />

Anthology of Russian Verse, trans . Tatiana<br />

Tulchinsky, Andrew Wachtel, <strong>and</strong> Gwenan<br />

Wilbur, .<br />

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