PASTERNAK, Boris

(1890-1960). The Russian poet and novelist Boris Pasternak was honored around the world for his writings, especially the novel 'Doctor Zhivago'. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1958. In the Soviet Union, however, his novel was condemned as a libel on the Russian Revolution of 1917, and he was forced to decline the prize. (Jocelyn Suggestion: try to look at your novel at this angle and try to disambiguate the parts of the novel that may tell this stand of the author against Soviet Union, as they wanted social realism to be used by the writers during their time, specifically under Joseph Stalin regime). If you take this point, try to do histo-biographical approach |milieu et moment | of the author)

Suggested title:

Liberation in Writing: Dissolution of Soviet Union

(Historical-Biographical Approach in Boris Pasternaks Doctor Zhivago). (Huwag ka na rin gumamit ng social realism, try mong mag-search ng ism na pwedeng bumasag ng social realism, kaya mo yan! O kaya try mong tignan yung political discourse ng novel para that criticizes the government of the Soviet Union, then ARGUE!) (even if you may not see flagrantly the political discourse of the novel, assume lang ng assume then make connections!) (search mo yung style ni Boris Pasternak sa writing o yung possible ism na ginagamit niya; read critics about him) Pasternak was born on Feb. 10, 1890, in Moscow. His father was a professor of art, and his mother was a musician. He studied music for six years before switching to philosophy at Moscow University and the University of Marburg in Germany. During World War I he worked in a chemical factory, and after the war he obtained a position in the library of the Soviet commissariat of education. Pasternak's first poetry was published in 1913. With his next volumes, 'Over the Barriers' (1917) and 'My Sister Life' (1922), he was recognized as a major poet. During the rule of Joseph Stalin, Pasternak was afraid to publish anything because he did not write in the favored style of socialist realism. He became instead a translator of literary works. 'Doctor Zhivago' was completed in 1956, but it was rejected by the Soviet authorities. A copy reached Italy in 1957, and by 1958 it had been translated into 18 languages. A campaign of abuse was unleashed against Pasternak at home, and he was driven out of the translators' union. His last years were spent at his home in Peredelkino, near Moscow, where he died on May 30, 1960. In 1987 the Soviet authorities relented and allowed 'Doctor Zhivago' to be published in the author's homeland. 1

Literature
Traditionally, Soviet literature served the political regime. In 1932 all Soviet writers were organized into the Soviet Writers' Union, which was guided by the Stalinist doctrine of socialist realism. Under this concept writers were required to participate fully and prominently in building socialism. Those who did

1From Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia 1999 The Learning Company, Inc.

not conform would be expelled from the Writers' Union, as happened to the poet Anna Akhmatova in 1946 and to Boris Pasternak in 1958. Pasternak, who was awarded the Nobel prize for literature for his novel 'Doctor Zhivago' (1957), was expelled after it was published in the West. (See also Pasternak.) Maksim Gorki, who was a friend of Lenin, had established himself as an author in prerevolutionary Russia. He showed more sympathy for the working class (proletariat), however, than for the merchant capitalists and was honored by the early Bolsheviks. He dedicated the remainder of his life to salvaging the remnants of Russian culture and encouraging new Soviet authors, becoming the dean of Soviet authors in 1928 upon his return from a period in Italy. When he died in 1936 Soviet literature was well established. He was succeeded as the preeminent Soviet writer by Aleksei Tolstoi. (See also Gorki.) Tolstoi, Vladimir Mayakovski, Panteleimon Romanov, Fedor Gladkov, Valentin Katayev, and Boris Pilnyak each dealt with propagandistic and pragmatic themes, as illustrated by Gladkov's novel 'Cement' (1926). Also emerging along with Pasternak in the prewar period was Mikhail Sholokhov, a Cossack from the Don region, who won the Nobel prize for literature in 1965 for such works as 'And Quiet Flows the Don' (four volumes, 1928-40) and 'Virgin Soil Upturned' (two volumes, 1932-60). Sholokhov's novels describe Cossack life in the civil war and the period of collectivization. (See also Sholokhov.) The postwar period brought modest liberalization under Nikita Khrushchev. The unconventional poets Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Andrei Voznesensky emerged. Although Pasternak was never allowed to claim his Nobel prize and died an "unperson" in 1960, Alexander Solzhenitsyn was allowed to publish 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich', a short novel about the inmates of a Stalinist prison camp. Solzhenitsyn was later expelled from the Writers' Union for his so-called "anti-Soviet" novels, 'Cancer Ward' and 'The First Circle', and in 1974 he was charged with treason and exiled from the Soviet Union. Having been awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1970, he was able to accept it formally after his exile. (See also Solzhenitsyn; Yevtushenko.) 2

Literature After Stalin

With the death of Stalin in 1953, Russian literature was freed from the most oppressive demands of socialist realism. The two decades after Nikita Khrushchev succeeded Stalin were characterized by a thaw, during which works were published that earlier would have meant prison or worse. Afterward, in the era of Leonid Brezhnev, there was again a hardening of official attitudes. One intriguing masterpiece, 'The Master and Margarita' by Mikhail Bulgakov, was published in the Brezhnev era. It had been written prior to 1940 but was not allowed publication until 1967. In the late 1980s, with Mikhail Gorbachev heading the government, there was another thaw. Some writers, such as Boris Pasternak, were published for the first time in the Soviet Union. Pasternak was a poet, short-story writer, and novelist. In 1958 his historical novel 'Doctor Zhivago' was awarded the Nobel prize for literature. He was forced to refuse the prize because of the opposition to the book in the Soviet Union. (See also Pasternak, Boris.) Some of the best post-Stalinist writing took as its theme life in the Siberian prison camps. Best known of these memoirs is Alexander Solzhenitsyn's three-volume 'The Gulag Archipelago', parts of which were first published in Paris in 1973. During the thaw of the 1950s he had been allowed to publish his short novel 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich', another chilling picture of life in a slave labor camp. Solzhenitsyn, the winner of the 1970 Nobel prize for literature, was eventually expelled from the Soviet

2From Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia 1999 The Learning Company, Inc.

Union. His other fiction includes 'The Cancer Ward' and 'The First Circle'. Other prison-camp books were written by Yevgenia Ginzburg, Maria Ioffe, Lev Kopelev, Andrei Amalrik, and Vladimir Bukovski. The most significant postwar literary movements leaned toward naturalism. Writers using rural themes, called "village prose writers," include Fyodor Abramov and Valentin Rasputin. Such writers as Vasily Shukshin wrote about the lives of ordinary citizens in a highly original way. The byt' (life-quality) writers wrote about the lives of Soviet intellectuals. The works of Yuri Trofonov, for example, focus on the postStalin era and question the validity of Marxism-Leninism. There were further expulsions of outstanding Soviet writers in the 1970s and 1980s. Along with Solzhenitsyn, the writers Vladimir Maksimov, Vasily Voynovich, and Aleksandr Zinoviev were forced to emigrate to the West. Another emigre, Joseph Brodsky, won the Nobel prize for his poetry in 1987. The Gorbachev administration's policy of glasnost stimulated literary liberalization from 1985. Measures included the posthumous reinstatement of Pasternak and the publication of 'Doctor Zhivago' in the Soviet Union, as well as much more freedom of expression for all writers. (See also Russian Literature.) 3

3From Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia 1999 The Learning Company, Inc.