Year of writing:
1955
Reading time:
Description of the work:
The novel Doctor Zhivago, for which Boris Pasternak received the Nobel Prize, was written in 1955. However, in Russia, the novel, which so broadly reveals a person’s relationship with the era, was published only 33 years later, in 1988, since Doctor Zhivago was previously not allowed for publication for ideological reasons.
Below read a summary of the novel Doctor Zhivago.
When Yurin's uncle Nikolai Nikolaevich moved to St. Petersburg, other relatives, Gromeko, took care of him, who was left an orphan at the age of ten, in whose house on Sivtsev Vrazhek there were interesting people, and where the atmosphere of the professorial family was quite conducive to the development of Yurin's talents.
The daughter of Alexander Alexandrovich and Anna Ivanovna (nee Kruger), Tonya, was a good friend to him, and his high school classmate Misha Gordon was a close friend, so he did not suffer from loneliness.
Once, during a home concert, Alexander Alexandrovich had to accompany one of the invited musicians on an urgent call to the rooms where his good friend Amalia Karlovna Guishar had just attempted to commit suicide. The professor gave in to Yura and Misha's request and took them with him.
While the boys stood in the hallway and listened to the victim’s complaints that she was pushed to take such a step by terrible suspicions, which fortunately turned out to be only a figment of her frustrated imagination, a middle-aged man came out from behind the partition into the next room, waking up the girl who was sleeping in the chair.
She responded to the man’s glances with a wink from her accomplice, pleased that everything worked out well and their secret was not revealed. There was something frighteningly magical about this silent communication, as if he were a puppeteer and she a puppet. Yura's heart sank at the contemplation of this enslavement. On the street, Misha told a friend that he had met this man. A few years ago, he and his dad were traveling with him on the train, and he soldered Yuri’s father on the road, who then threw himself from the platform onto the rails.
The girl Yura saw turned out to be the daughter of Madame Guichard. Larisa was a high school student. At sixteen, she looked eighteen and was somewhat burdened by the position of a child - the same as her friends. This feeling intensified when she succumbed to the advances of Viktor Ippolitovich Komarovsky, whose role under her mother was not limited to the role of an adviser in business and a friend at home. He became her nightmare, he enslaved her.
A few years later, already as a medical student, Yuri Zhivago met Lara again under unusual circumstances.
Together with Tonya Gromeko on the eve of Christmas, they went to the Sventitsky Christmas tree along Kamergersky Lane. Recently, Anna Ivanovna, who had been seriously ill for a long time, joined their hands, saying that they were made for each other. Tonya was truly a close and understanding person. And at that moment she caught his mood and did not interfere with admiring the frost-covered windows, glowing from the inside, in one of which Yuri noticed a black thawed patch, through which the fire of a candle could be seen, facing the street almost with a conscious gaze. At this moment, the lines of the poems that had not yet taken shape were born: “The candle was burning on the table, the candle was burning...”
He had no idea that outside the window Lara Guichard was telling Pasha Antipov at that moment, who had not hidden his adoration since childhood, that if he loved her and wanted to keep her from death, they should immediately get married. After this, Lara went to the Sventitskys, where Yura and Tonya were having fun in the hall, and where Komarovsky was sitting playing cards. At about two o'clock in the morning a shot was suddenly heard in the house. Lara, shooting at Komarovsky, missed, but the bullet hit a fellow prosecutor of the Moscow judicial chamber. When Lara was led through the hall, Yura was stunned - she was the same one! And again the same gray-haired man who was involved in the death of his father! To top it all off, upon returning home, Tonya and Yura no longer found Anna Ivanovna alive.
Through the efforts of Komarovsky, Lara was saved from trial, but she fell ill, and Pasha was not yet allowed to see her. However, Kologrivov came and brought “rewards”. More than three years ago, Lara, in order to get rid of Komarovsky, became the teacher of his youngest daughter. Everything was going well, but then her empty-headed brother Rodya lost the public money. He was going to shoot himself if his sister didn't help him. The Kologrivovs helped out with the money, and Lara gave it to Roda, taking away the revolver with which he wanted to shoot himself. Kologrivov never managed to repay the debt. Lara, secretly from Pasha, sent money to his exiled father and paid extra to the owners of the room in Kamergersky. The girl considered her position with the Kologrivovs to be false, and saw no way out of it except to ask Komarovsky for money. Life disgusted her. At the Sventitskys’ ball, Viktor Ippolitovich pretended to be busy with cards and not notice Lara. He turned to the girl who entered the hall with a smile, the meaning of which Lara understood so well...
When Lara felt better, she and Pasha got married and left for Yuryatin, in the Urals. After the wedding, the newlyweds talked until the morning. His guesses alternated with Lara’s confessions, after which his heart sank... In her new place, Larisa taught at the gymnasium and was happy, although she had a house and three-year-old Katenka. Pasha taught Latin and ancient history. Yura and Tonya also celebrated their wedding. Meanwhile, war broke out. Yuri Andreevich ended up at the front without having time to really see his born son. In another way, Pavel Pavlovich Antipov found himself in the thick of battle.
The relationship with my wife was not easy. He doubted her love for him. To free everyone from this fake family life, he completed officer courses and ended up at the front, where he was captured in one of the battles. Larisa Fedorovna entered the ambulance train as a sister and went to look for her husband. Second Lieutenant Galiullin, who knew Pasha since childhood, claimed that he saw him die.
Zhivago witnessed the collapse of the army, the outrages of anarchist deserters, and upon returning to Moscow, he found even more terrible devastation. What he saw and experienced forced the doctor to reconsider a lot in his attitude towards the revolution.
To survive, the family moved to the Urals, to the former estate of the Krugers Varykino, not far from the city of Yuryatin. The path ran through snow-covered spaces dominated by armed gangs, through areas of recently pacified uprisings, which with horror repeated the name of Strelnikov, who were pushing back the whites under the command of Colonel Galiullin.
In Varykino they stayed first with the former manager of the Kruegers, Mikulitsyn, and then in the outbuilding for the servants. They planted potatoes and cabbage, tidied up the house, and the doctor sometimes saw the sick. The unexpected appearance of his half-brother Evgraf, energetic, mysterious, very influential, helped strengthen their position. Antonina Alexandrovna seemed to be expecting a child.
Over time, Yuri Andreevich got the opportunity to visit the library in Yuryatin, where he saw Larisa Fedorovna Antipova. She told him about herself, that Strelnikov was her husband Pavel Antipov, who returned from captivity, but hid under a different name and did not maintain relations with his family. When he took Yuryatin, he bombarded the city with shells and never once inquired whether his wife and daughter were alive.
Two months later, Yuri Andreevich once again returned from the city to Varykino. He deceived Tonya, continuing to love her, and was tormented by this. That day he drove home with the intention of confessing everything to his wife and not meeting Lara again.
Suddenly three armed men blocked his way and announced that the doctor was from that moment mobilized into the detachment of Liveriy Mikulitsyn. The doctor had his hands full: in the winter - rash, in the summer - dysentery, and at all times of the year - the wounded. Before Livery, Yuri Andreevich did not hide the fact that the ideas of October did not ignite him, that they were still so far from being realized, and seas of blood had been paid for just talking about it, so that the end did not justify the means. And the very idea of remaking life was born by people who did not feel its spirit. Two years of captivity, separation from family, hardship and danger ended with an escape.
The doctor appeared in Yuryatin at the moment when the whites left the city, handing it over to the reds. He looked wild, unwashed, hungry and weak. Larisa Fedorovna and Katenka were not at home. He found a note in the key hiding place. Larisa and her daughter went to Varykino, hoping to find him there. His thoughts were confused, fatigue was making him sleepy. He lit the stove, ate a little and, without undressing, fell fast asleep. When he woke up, he realized that he was undressed, washed and lying in a clean bed, that he had been sick for a long time, but was quickly recovering thanks to Lara’s care, although until he fully recovered there was nothing to think about returning to Moscow. Zhivago went to serve in the Gubernia Health, and Larisa Fedorovna - in the Gubernia. However, the clouds were gathering over them. The doctor was seen as a social alien; the ground began to shake under Strelnikov. The emergency was raging in the city.
At this time, a letter arrived from Tony: the family was in Moscow, but Professor Gromeko, and with him she and the children (now they, in addition to their son, have a daughter, Masha) were being sent abroad. The grief is that she loves him, but he doesn’t love her. Let him build his life according to his own understanding.
Suddenly Komarovsky showed up. He is invited by the government of the Far Eastern Republic and is ready to take them with him: they are both in mortal danger. Yuri Andreevich immediately rejected this proposal. Lara had long ago told him about the fatal role that this man played in her life, and he told her that Viktor Ippolitovich was responsible for his father’s suicide. It was decided to take refuge in Varykino. The village had long been abandoned by its inhabitants, wolves howled around at night, but the appearance of people would have been worse, but they did not take weapons with them. In addition, Lara recently said that she seems to be pregnant. I no longer had to think about myself. Just then Komarovsky arrived again. He brought the news that Strelnikov was sentenced to death and Katenka must be saved if Lara does not think about herself. The doctor told Lara to go with Komarovsky.
In the snowy, forest solitude, Yuri Andreevich slowly went crazy. He drank and wrote poems dedicated to Lara. Crying for a lost loved one grew into generalized thoughts about history and man, about the revolution as a lost and lamented ideal.
One evening the doctor heard the crunch of steps, and a man appeared at the door. Yuri Andreevich did not immediately recognize Strelnikov. It turned out that Komarovsky had deceived them! They talked almost all night.
About the revolution, about Lara, about childhood on Tverskaya-Yamskaya. They went to bed in the morning, but when they woke up and went out to get water, the doctor discovered his interlocutor had shot himself.
In Moscow, Zhivago appeared already at the beginning of the New Economic Policy, emaciated, overgrown and wild. He traveled most of the way on foot. Over the next eight or nine years of his life, he lost his medical skills and lost his writing skills, but still took up the pen and wrote thin books. Fans appreciated them.
The daughter of a former janitor, Marina, helped him with the housework; she worked at the telegraph office on the foreign communication line. Over time, she became the doctor's wife and they had two daughters. But one summer day, Yuri Andreevich suddenly disappeared. Marina received a letter from him that he wanted to live alone for a while and not to be looked for. He did not say that brother Evgraf, who had appeared out of nowhere again, rented him a room in Kamergersky, provided him with money, and began to bother about a good place to work.
However, on a sweltering August day, Yuri Andreevich died of a heart attack. An unexpectedly large number of people came to Kamergersky to say goodbye to him. Larisa Fedorovna was among those saying goodbye. She came into this apartment out of old memory. Her first husband Pavel Antipov once lived here. A few days after the funeral, she suddenly disappeared: she left home and did not return. Apparently she was arrested.
Already in the forty-third year, at the front, Major General Evgraf Andreevich Zhivago, asking the linen worker Tanka Bezcheredova about her heroic friend, intelligence officer Khristina Orletsova, inquired about her, Tanina’s, fate. He quickly realized that this was the daughter of Larisa and brother Yuri. Fleeing with Komarovsky to Mongolia, when the Reds were approaching Primorye, Lara left the girl at a railway crossing with the guard Marfa, who ended her days in a mental hospital. Then homelessness, wandering...
By the way, Evgraf Andreevich not only took care of Tatyana, but also collected everything his brother wrote. Among his poems was the poem “Winter Night”: “Shallow, shallow all over the earth / To all limits. / The candle was burning on the table, / The candle was burning...”
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This post was inspired by reading Boris Pasternak's novel "Doctor Zhivago". Despite the fact that I really liked the book, I “tormented” it for two months.
Summary of Boris Pasternak's novel "Doctor Zhivago"
Yuri Zhivago is the central character of the novel by Boris Pasternak. The narrative begins with a description of the funeral of Yura's mother, who was still quite small at that time. Yura's father, a once rich representative of the Zhivago family, soon passed away. He threw himself from a moving train and crashed. It was rumored that the reason for this was a certain very clever lawyer named Komarovsky. It was he who managed the financial affairs of Yuri’s father and thoroughly confused them.
Yura remained in the care of his uncle, who took charge of his development and education. His uncle's family belonged to the intelligentsia, so Yura developed comprehensively. Yura had good friends: Tonya Kruger, Misha Gordon and Innokenty Dudorov.
Yura decides to become a doctor, because his personality fits this profession perfectly (as we will see later, Zhivogo really became a good doctor). After completing his education, Yuri marries Tonya. But family happiness did not last long - the First World War began, and Yuri was still called to the front immediately after the birth of his son Alexander. Yuri went through the entire war and saw not only the horrors of the war itself, but also the revolution that caused the collapse of the army and the Russian state. After the revolution, the Civil War began.
Yuri made it to Moscow with difficulty and found it in a very sad state: there was no food, the Provisional Government was unable to cope with its responsibilities, and the Bolsheviks, incomprehensible to anyone, were gaining strength.
Another very important heroine of Boris Pasternak's novel, Larisa, was the daughter of Madame Guichard, who owned a small sewing workshop. Larisa was smart and beautiful, which Komarovsky, already known to us, who was in charge of Madame Guichard’s affairs, did not fail to notice. He seduced Larisa and kept her in some kind of irrational fear and submission. Larisa was friends with Pavel Antipov, whom he secretly helps with money. Pavel is the son of a man of Bolshevik views and beliefs. He was constantly persecuted, so Paul was raised by strangers.
Over time, Pavel and Larisa start a family and have a daughter. They go to the Urals, to Yuryatin, and work as teachers in a gymnasium. Pavel, obeying some strange urge, enrolls in an officer course and goes to war, where he goes missing. Pavel's comrade Galiullin considers him dead, but Pavel was captured. Larisa becomes a nurse and goes in search of Pavel. Fate brings them together at the front with Yuri Zhivago. They felt strong sympathy for each other, but their feelings had not yet become strong. Fate separates them - Zhivago returns to Moscow, Larisa - to Yuryatin.
The Zhivago family lives in Moscow in limbo: there is not enough money, there is no or little work, a civil war is raging in the country. They remember Tony’s grandfather’s estate in Varykino (not far from Yuryatin) and decide to go there to relive the horrors of war in a distant and abandoned corner. After a long process of obtaining the necessary documents, they set off on a long journey. Trains run poorly and irregularly, the whites and reds have not yet figured out who is stronger, the country is overrun with robbers and marauders. How long does it take them to reach Yuryatin and come to Varykino, where they first settle in the manager’s house, and then set up their home. They are engaged in agriculture and are slowly improving their life.
Zhivago heals people from time to time and becomes a very famous person in the city. He visits Yuryatin's library from time to time and one day meets Larisa there. Now their feelings have made themselves felt and they become lovers. Yuri loves both Tonya and Larisa very much. Out of great respect for his wife, he decides to confess to his betrayal and leave Larisa, but on the way home he is captured by the Red partisans. He spent the next almost two years with the partisans, performing the duties of a doctor. Therefore, he did not even see the child with whom Tonya was pregnant at the time of his capture.
Yuri Zhivago wanders with the partisans around Siberia, treats the sick and patiently endures all the conversations of the fanatical partisan commander Mikulitsyn (he was the son of the manager of the Varykino estate). One day he flees from the partisans, when the unknown and worry for his family could no longer keep him in the detachment. He gets to Yuryatin on foot and learns that his family is safe; they left for Moscow and are preparing for forced deportation abroad (as representatives of a layer of society that is unnecessary to the new government - the intelligentsia). Tonya informs him about all this in a letter and allows him to live as he sees fit.
Zhivago also finds Larisa; With her he again develops the closest relationship. She was leaving him after an illness caused by a long march to Yuryatin. Briy recovers and they try to improve their lives, both enter the service. As time passed, they felt that the new government was unlikely to be able to accept them. Therefore, they decide to leave for Varykino again in order to save themselves and hide from the raging new government there. Ironically, Larisa's father-in-law Antipov, who doesn't particularly love her, wants to send her into trouble. Larisa, as we remember. secretly helped him and Pavel with money when they were experiencing hardship. Shortly before Larisa and Yuri leave, the same Komarovsky finds them and invites them to leave for the Far East, where white power still remains. Zhivago and Larisa refuse and leave for Varykino.
They spent only about two weeks in Varykino: Larisa understands that Komarovsky is the only chance to save her daughter, but she categorically does not want to leave Yuri, who categorically does not want to go with Komarovsky. Komarovsky, meanwhile, arrives in Varykino and convinces Yuri to let Larisa go with him. Yuri realizes that he will never see her again, but allows them to leave.
After Larisa and Komarovsky leave, Yuri begins to go crazy from loneliness and degrade: he drinks a lot, but at the same time writes poems about Larisa. One day a stranger comes to Varykino; he turns out to be the once formidable Strelnikov, who terrified all of Siberia, and is now a fugitive. This same Strelnikov is opposing the Whites, who are led by Galiullil, already known to us. Strelnikov turns out to be Larisa's husband Pavel Antipov, who, being an idealist, wanted to make the world a better place and bring it to Larisa's feet (Antipov was Galiullin's colleague during the First World War). He thought that she never loved him, but Zhivago said that she even cheated him when she was with Yuri. Strelnikov-Antipov, shocked by this news, realizes how much stupidity and evil he has done. In the morning, Yuri finds him shot and buries him. After this, Yuri sets off on foot to Moscow.
Having reached Moscow through the territory of a destroyed and wounded country, Zhivago again begins to write and publish his books, which are popular among the intelligentsia. At the same time, he gives up, abandons his practice and enters into a relationship with his third and last woman - the daughter of the former janitor of the family, Tony. They have two children. 8 or 9 years pass like this.
One day Zhivago disappears and informs his family that he will live separately for a while. The fact is that he is found again by his half-brother Evgraf, who turns out to be a man with connections and opportunities. Many years ago, he helped Tonya get Yuri out after his illness, and now he rented him a room, which, ironically, turns out to be the very room where Larisa and Pavel once lived. Yuri tries to write again, gets a job, and dies on the day he goes back to work (his heart has failed). A lot of people come to Yuri's funeral; Larisa also attended, but after that she disappeared without a trace (probably was arrested).
The narrative of Boris Pasternak's novel "Doctor Zhivago" ends in the forties (during the offensive of our troops against the Nazis): his old friends Dudorov and Gordon meet and discuss all sorts of news, including the amazing fate of the daughter of Yuri and Larisa. Their daughter was an orphan and a street child, but she was eventually found and taken under his wing by Yuri’s half-brother Evgraf, who turned out to be a general. the general also took care of Yuri’s work.
Meaning
Probably, the life of Yuri Zhivago should be associated with the existence of a forever lost layer - the Russian intelligentsia. Weak, impractical, but deeply sympathetic and sacrificial, the Russian intelligentsia ceased to exist, unable to find a place for itself in the new coordinate system. Just like Yuri Zhivago couldn’t find a place for himself.
Conclusion
I read the book for a very long time. At first I didn’t find it exciting, but I slowly read it and couldn’t put it down. I liked it very much. I recommend reading!
B. Pasternak's novel "Doctor Zhivago" is often called one of the most complex works in the writer's work. This concerns the features of depicting real events (the first and October revolutions, world and civil wars), understanding his ideas, characteristics of the characters, the name of the main one is Doctor Zhivago.
The role of the Russian intelligentsia in the events of the early 20th century, however, is as difficult as its fate.
Creative history
The first idea of the novel dates back to the age of 17-18, but Pasternak began serious work only almost two decades later. 1955 marked the end of the novel, followed by publication in Italy and the awarding of the Nobel Prize, which the Soviet authorities forced the disgraced writer to refuse. And only in 1988 did the novel first see the light in its homeland.
The title of the novel changed several times: “The Candle Was Burning” - the title of one of the poems of the main character, “There Will Be No Death”, “Innokenty Dudorov”. As a reflection of one of the aspects of the author's plan - “Boys and Girls”. They appear on the first pages of the novel, grow up, and experience through themselves the events of which they are witnesses and participants. Teenage perception of the world continues into adulthood, as evidenced by the thoughts, actions of the characters and their analysis.
Doctor Zhivago - Pasternak was attentive to the choice of name - this is the name of the main character. First there was Patrick Zhivult. Yuri is most likely St. George the Victorious. The surname Zhivago is most often associated with the image of Christ: “You are the son of the living God (genitive case form in the Old Russian language).” In this regard, the idea of sacrifice and resurrection arises in the novel, running like a red thread through the entire work.
Image of Zhivago
The writer focuses on historical events of the first and second decades of the 20th century and their analysis. Doctor Zhivago - Pasternak portrays his entire life - in 1903 loses his mother and finds himself under the tutelage of his uncle. While they are traveling to Moscow, the boy’s father, who had left his family even earlier, also dies. Next to his uncle, Yura lives in an atmosphere of freedom and the absence of any prejudices. He studies, grows up, marries a girl he has known since childhood, gets a job and begins to do the job he loves. And he also awakens an interest in poetry - he begins to write poetry - and philosophy. And suddenly the usual and established life collapses. The year is 1914, and even more terrible events follow. The reader sees them through the prism of the main character's views and their analysis.
Doctor Zhivago, just like his comrades, reacts vividly to everything that happens. He goes to the front, where many things seem meaningless and unnecessary to him. Upon returning, he witnesses how power passes to the Bolsheviks. At first, the hero perceives everything with delight: in his mind, the revolution is a “magnificent surgery” that symbolizes life itself, unpredictable and spontaneous. However, with time comes a rethinking of what happened. You cannot make people happy without their desire, it is criminal and, at the very least, absurd - this is the conclusion that Doctor Zhivago comes to. Analysis of the work leads to the idea that a person, whether he wants it or not, finds himself drawn into Pasternak’s hero in this case practically goes with the flow, not openly protesting, but also not unconditionally accepting the new government. This is what was most often reproached to the author.
During the civil war, Yuri Zhivago ends up in a partisan detachment, from where he escapes, returns to Moscow, and tries to live under the new government. But he cannot work as before - this would mean adapting to the conditions that have arisen, and this is contrary to his nature. What remains is creativity, in which the main thing is the proclamation of the eternity of life. This will be shown by the hero’s poems and their analysis.
Doctor Zhivago, thus, expresses the position of that part of the intelligentsia that was wary of the revolution that happened in 1917 as a way to artificially establish new orders, initially alien to any humanistic idea.
Death of a Hero
Suffocating in new conditions that his essence does not accept, Zhivago gradually loses interest in life and mental strength, in the opinion of many, even degenerates. Death overtakes him unexpectedly: in a stuffy tram, from which Yuri, who feels unwell, has no way to get out. But the hero does not disappear from the pages of the novel: he continues to live in his poems, as evidenced by their analysis. Doctor Zhivago and his soul gain immortality thanks to the great power of art.
Symbols in the novel
The work has a ring composition: it begins with a scene describing the mother’s funeral, and ends with his death. Thus, the pages narrate the fate of an entire generation, represented mainly by Yuri Zhivago, and emphasize the uniqueness of human life in general. The appearance of a candle (for example, the young hero sees it in the window), personifying life, is symbolic. Or blizzards and snowfall as a harbinger of adversity and death.
There are also symbolic images in the hero’s poetic diary, for example, in the poem “Fairy Tale”. Here the “corpse of a dragon” - the victim of a duel with a serpent rider - personifies a fairy-tale dream that has turned into eternity, as imperishable as the soul of the author himself.
Poetry collection
“The Poems of Yuri Zhivago” - 25 in total - were written by Pasternak while working on the novel and form one whole with it. At the center of them is a man caught in the wheel of history and facing a difficult moral choice.
The cycle opens with Hamlet. Doctor Zhivago - analysis shows that the poem is a reflection of his inner world - turns to the Almighty with a request to alleviate the fate assigned to him. But not because he is afraid - the hero is ready to fight for freedom in the surrounding kingdom of cruelty and violence. This work is about Shakespeare's famous hero facing a difficult fate and the cruel fate of Jesus. But the main thing is a poem about a person who does not tolerate evil and violence and perceives what is happening around as a tragedy.
The poetic entries in the diary correspond to various stages of Zhivago’s life and mental experiences. For example, an analysis of Doctor Zhivago’s poem “Winter Night”. The antithesis on which the work is built helps to show the confusion and mental anguish of the lyrical hero, trying to determine what is good and evil. The hostile world in his mind is destroyed thanks to the warmth and light of a burning candle, symbolizing the quivering fire of love and home comfort.
The meaning of the novel
One day “... waking up, we... will not regain our lost memory” - this thought of B. Pasternak, expressed on the pages of the novel, sounds like a warning and a prophecy. The coup that took place, accompanied by bloodshed and cruelty, caused the loss of the commandments of humanism. This is confirmed by subsequent events in the country and their analysis. “Doctor Zhivago” is different in that Boris Pasternak gives his understanding of history without imposing it on the reader. As a result, everyone gets the opportunity to see events in their own way and, as it were, becomes its co-author.
The meaning of the epilogue
The description of the death of the main character is not the end. The novel's action briefly shifts to the early forties, when Zhivago's half-brother meets Tatyana, the daughter of Yuri and Lara, who works as a nurse, in the war. She, unfortunately, does not possess any of the spiritual qualities that were characteristic of her parents, as an analysis of the episode shows. "Doctor Zhivago", thus, identifies the problem of spiritual and moral impoverishment of society as a result of the changes that have occurred in the country, which is opposed by the immortality of the hero in his poetic diary - the final part of the work.
In 1957, the Italian publishing house Feltrinelli published the first copies of Doctor Zhivago. In 1958, Boris Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for this novel, which he was forced to publicly refuse. In Russia, the work was published only in 1988 (in the magazine “New World”), more than thirty years from the date of the first publication of “Doctor Zhivago”. The action of the novel takes place in that difficult time when Russia faced all the trials at once: the First World War and the Civil Wars, the abdication of the Tsar, the revolution. Boris Pasternak's novel about the fate of his generation, which became a witness, participant and victim of this madness. Reviews in the press The famous novel by the Nobel laureate has been republished several times and has long become a programmatic work of Russian literature. Here is an audio performance of the work performed by Honored Artist of Russia Alexei Borzunov. The text is reproduced without abbreviations: both parts of the masterpiece and the poem by Yuri Zhivago. Your leisure time Listening to a novel performed by an artist is not as easy as it might seem at first glance, because the listener will be required to fully participate, and this is affected by the specificity of the novel as a whole and Borzunov’s intonation features: he reads as if he were telling a story about himself, very trusting and very sincere, so you begin to listen, empathize, follow the course of history and in the end you become part of it. Those who are familiar with the plot of the novel should listen to the audio version, at least to compare their own attitude to certain events occurring in the novel with the emphasis placed by Alexey Borzunov. AIF “I want to know everything” © B. Pasternak (heirs) ©&? IP Vorobiev V.A. ©&? ID UNION
"Doctor Zhivago" - plot
The main character of the novel, Yuri Zhivago, appears before the reader as a little boy on the first pages of the work, describing the funeral of his mother: “They walked and walked and sang “Eternal Memory” ....” Yura is a descendant of a wealthy family that made a fortune in industrial, commercial and banking operations. The parents' marriage was not happy: the father abandoned the family before the death of the mother.
Orphaned Yura will be sheltered for a while by his uncle living in the south of Russia. Then numerous relatives and friends will send him to Moscow, where he will be accepted as one of his own into the family of Alexander and Anna Gromeko.
Yuri's exceptionalism becomes obvious quite early - even as a young man, he shows himself as a talented poet. But at the same time he decides to follow in the footsteps of his adoptive father Alexander Gromeko and enters the medical department of the university, where he also proves himself as a talented doctor. The first love, and subsequently the wife of Yuri Zhivago, becomes the daughter of his benefactors, Tonya Gromeko.
Yuri and Tony had two children, but then fate separated them forever, and the doctor never saw his youngest daughter, who was born after the separation.
At the beginning of the novel, new faces constantly appear before the reader. All of them will be tied into a single ball by the further course of the story. One of them is Larisa, the slave of the elderly lawyer Komarovsky, who tries with all her might and cannot escape the captivity of his “patronage.” Lara has a childhood friend, Pavel Antipov, who will later become her husband, and Lara will see her salvation in him. Having gotten married, he and Antipov cannot find their happiness; Pavel leaves his family and goes to the front of the First World War. Subsequently, he would become a formidable revolutionary commissar, changing his surname to Strelnikov. At the end of the Civil War, he plans to reunite with his family, but this desire will never come true.
Fate brings Yuri Zhivago and Lara together in different ways during the First World War in the front-line settlement of Melyuzeyevo, where the main character of the work is called to war as a military doctor, and Antipova volunteers as a sister of mercy, trying to find her missing husband Pavel. Subsequently, the lives of Zhivago and Lara intersect again in the provincial Yuryatin-on-Rynva (a fictional Ural city, the prototype of which was Perm), where they vainly seek refuge from the revolution that destroys everything. Yuri and Larisa will meet and fall in love. But soon poverty, hunger and repression will separate both Doctor Zhivago’s family and Larina’s family. For a year and a half, Zhivago will disappear in Siberia, serving as a military doctor in captivity of the Red partisans. Having escaped, he will return on foot back to the Urals - to Yuryatin, where he will again meet with Lara. His wife Tonya, together with Yuri's children and father-in-law, while in Moscow, writes about imminent forced deportation abroad. Hoping to wait out the winter and the horrors of the Yuryatinsky Revolutionary Military Council, Yuri and Lara take refuge in the abandoned Varykino estate. Soon an unexpected guest comes to them - Komarovsky, who received an invitation to head the Ministry of Justice in the Far Eastern Republic, proclaimed on the territory of Transbaikalia and the Russian Far East. He persuades Yuri Andreevich to let Lara and her daughter go with him to the east, promising to transport them abroad. Yuri Andreevich agrees, realizing that he will never see them again.
Gradually he begins to go crazy from loneliness. Soon Lara's husband, Pavel Antipov (Strelnikov), comes to Varykino. Demoted and wandering across the expanses of Siberia, he tells Yuri Andreevich about his participation in the revolution, about Lenin, about the ideals of Soviet power, but, having learned from Yuri Andreevich that Lara has loved and loves him all this time, he understands how bitterly he was mistaken. Strelnikov commits suicide with a rifle shot. After Strelnikov's suicide, the doctor returns to Moscow in the hope of fighting for his future life. There he meets his last woman - Marina, the daughter of the former (back in Tsarist Russia) Zhivag janitor Markel. In a civil marriage with Marina, they have two girls. Yuri gradually sinks, abandons scientific and literary activities and, even realizing his fall, cannot do anything about it. One morning, on the way to work, he becomes ill on the tram and dies of a heart attack in the center of Moscow. His half-brother Evgraf and Lara, who will soon go missing soon after, come to say goodbye to him at his coffin.
Ahead will be the Second World War, and the Kursk Bulge, and the washerwoman Tanya, who will tell Yuri Andreevich’s gray-haired childhood friends - Innokenty Dudorov and Mikhail Gordon, who survived the Gulag, arrests and repressions of the late 30s, the story of their lives; It turns out that this is the illegitimate daughter of Yuri and Lara, and Yuri’s brother, Major General Evgraf Zhivago, will take her under his wing. He will also compile a collection of Yuri's works - a notebook that Dudorov and Gordon read in the last scene of the novel. The novel ends with 25 poems by Yuri Zhivago.
Story
In November 1957, the novel was first published in Italian in Milan by the Feltrinelli publishing house, “despite all the efforts of the Kremlin and the Italian Communist Party” (for this Feltrinelli was later expelled from the Communist Party).
On August 24, 1958, a “pirated” (without the consent of Feltrinelli) edition in Russian was released in Holland with a circulation of 500 copies.
The Russian edition, based on a manuscript not corrected by the author, was published in Milan in January 1959.
Awards
On October 23, 1958, Boris Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize with the wording “for significant achievements in modern lyric poetry, as well as for continuing the traditions of the great Russian epic novel.” The USSR authorities, led by N. S. Khrushchev, perceived this event with indignation, since they considered the novel anti-Soviet. Due to the persecution that unfolded in the USSR, Pasternak was forced to refuse to receive the prize. Only on December 9, 1989, the Nobel diploma and medal were awarded to the writer’s son, Evgeniy Pasternak, in Stockholm.
Criticism
V. V. Nabokov gave a negative assessment of the novel, which replaced Lolita in the list of bestsellers: “Doctor Zhivago is a pathetic thing, clumsy, banal and melodramatic, with hackneyed situations, voluptuous lawyers, implausible girls, romantic robbers and banal coincidences.”
Ivan Tolstoy, author of the book “The Laundered Novel”: Because this man overcame what all other writers in the Soviet Union could not overcome. For example, Andrei Sinyavsky sent his manuscripts to the West under the pseudonym Abram Terts. In the USSR in 1958 there was only one person who, raising his visor, said: “I am Boris Pasternak, I am the author of the novel Doctor Zhivago. And I want it to come out in the form in which it was created." And this man was awarded the Nobel Prize. I believe that this highest award was awarded to the most correct person on Earth at that time.
Reviews
Reviews of the book "Doctor Zhivago"
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Yulia Olegina
The Great Russian Epic Novel
I really enjoyed this novel! Moreover, Doctor Zhivago has become my favorite Russian novel!
Everyone knows that it was for this work that Pasternak was given the Nobel Prize with the wording “... for continuing the traditions of the great Russian epic novel.” And it is true. "Doctor Zhivago" is a new "War and Peace", only a century later. It shows different destinies, the impact of the First World War on the lives of people from different social strata. There is love that breaks through walls and love that is locked.
At first I didn't really like it. The description of the life of Yura Zhivago, Gordon, Lara in childhood is not very interesting and even a little “intrusive”. The plot jumps from one character to another, you don’t even have time to remember everyone, who, to whom and by whom. But from the moment Yura and Tonya’s promise to Tonya’s dying mother to love each other, the novel seems to get a “second wind.” Now the action unfolds rapidly, excitingly and most importantly - powerfully. You read avidly and can’t stop. Pasternak put a lot of effort into his narration style, every word of his is precise, you can neither delete nor add. Just the way it should be.
1. For everyone who loves classic Russian novels, such as "War and Peace", "Anna Karenina", "The Captain's Daughter", etc.