Aca-Dec Language and Lit - Teachers
Aca-Dec Language and Lit - Teachers
Aca-Dec Language and Lit - Teachers
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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 />
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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 />
Shawnee Mission NW HS - Shawnee Mission, K
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 />
Shawnee Mission NW HS - Shawnee Mission, K
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 />
Shawnee Mission NW HS - Shawnee Mission, K
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 />
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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 />
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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 />
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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 />
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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 />
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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 />
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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 />
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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 />
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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 />
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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 />
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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 />
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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 />
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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 />
Shawnee Mission NW HS - Shawnee Mission, K
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 />
USAD <strong>Language</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Lit</strong>erature Resource Guide 2012–2013<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 />
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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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