Doctor Zhivago

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For other uses, see Doctor Zhivago (disambiguation).
Doctor Zhivago
Author Boris Pasternak
Original title Доктор Живаго (in Russian)
Country Italy
Language Russian
Genre(s) Historical, Romantic novel
Publisher Feltrinelli (first edition), Pantheon Books
Publication date 1957
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages 592 (Pantheon)
ISBN NA (Feltrinelli) & ISBN 0-679-77438-6 (Pantheon)

Doctor Zhivago (Russian: Доктор Живаго, Doktor Zhivago) is a 20th century novel by Boris Pasternak. The novel is named after its protagonist, Yuri Zhivago, a medical doctor and poet. The word zhivago shares a root with the Russian word for life (жизнь), one of the major themes of the novel. It tells the story of a man torn between two women, set primarily against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent Russian Civil War of 1918-1920. More deeply, the novel discusses the plight of a man as the life that he has always known is dramatically torn apart by forces beyond his control. The book was made into a film by David Lean in 1965 and has also been adapted numerous times for television, most recently as a miniseries for Russian TV in 2005.

Contents

[edit] Foreground

Although it contains passages written in the 1910s and 1920s, Doctor Zhivago was not completed until 1956. After submission for publication to the journal Novy mir, it was rejected because of Pasternak's political viewpoint (incorrect in the eyes of the Soviet Union): the author, like Dr Zhivago, was more concerned with the welfare of the individual person than with the welfare of the State, with passages that may have been misinterpreted as anti-Marxist. In 1957, the Italian publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli smuggled the book manuscript from the Soviet Union and simultaneously published editions in both Russian and Italian in Milan, Italy. The next year, it was published in English, (translated from the Russian by Ehud Harari and Max Hayward) and was eventually published in a total of eighteen different languages. The publication of this novel was partly responsible for Pasternak's being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958. The Soviet government asked the committee not to award him the prize, leading him to reject it in order to prevent a scandal back at home; Boris Pasternak died on 30 May 1960, of natural causes.

Doctor Zhivago was finally published in the Soviet Union in 1988, in the pages of Novy mir, although earlier samizdat editions existed.

[edit] Plot summary

Yuri Zhivago is sensitive and poetic nearly to the point of mysticism. In medical school, one of his professors reminds him that bacteria may be beautiful under the microscope, but they do ugly things to people.

Zhivago's idealism and principles stand in brutal contrast to the horrors of World War I, the Russian Revolution, and the subsequent Russian Civil War. A major theme of the novel is how the mysticism of things and idealism are destroyed by both the Bolsheviks, and the White Army alike, as both sides commit horrible atrocities. Yuri must witness dismemberment, and other horrors suffered by the innocent civilian population during the turmoil. Even the love of his life, Lara, is taken from him.

He ponders on how war can turn the whole world senseless, and make an otherwise reasonable group of people destroy each other with no regard for life. His journey through Russia has an epic feeling because of his travelling through a world which is in such striking contrast to himself, relatively uncorrupted by the violence, and to his desire to find a place away from it all, which drives him across the Arctic Siberia of Russia, and eventually back to Moscow. Pasternak gives subtle criticism of Soviet ideology: he disagrees with the idea of "building a new man," which is against nature. This fits in the story's theme of life.

Lara's life is also dealt with in considerable detail. Lara, whose full name is Larissa Feodorovna Antipova, is the daughter of a bourgeois mother. She becomes involved in an affair with Viktor Komarovsky, a powerful lawyer with political connections, who both repulses and attracts her. Lara is engaged to Pavel "Pasha" Antipov, an idealistic young student who becomes involved in Bolshevism through to his father. Torn between the two men, she is raped by Komarovsky for attempting to break off their "arrangement" and attempts to kill him.

Lara meets Zhivago as a nurse during the First World War, and the two fall in love as they serve together. They do not consummate their relationship until much later, meeting in the town of Yuriatin after the war.

Pasha and Komarovsky continue to play important roles in the story. Pasha is assumed killed in World War I, but is actually captured by the Germans and escapes. He joins the Bolsheviks and becomes Strelnikov (the executioner), a fearsome Red Army general who becomes infamous for executing White prisoners (hence his nickname). However, he is never a true Bolshevik and yearns for the fighting to be over so he can return to Lara. (The film version would change his character significantly, making him a hard-line Bolshevik.) He falls from grace, and later returns to Varykino, near Yuriatin, hoping to find Lara, who had just left with Komarovsky. After having a lengthy conversation with Zhivago, he commits suicide and is found the next morning by Zhivago.

Komarovsky reappears towards the end of the story. He has gained some influence in the Bolshevik government and been appointed head of the Far Eastern Republic, a Bolshevik puppet state in Siberia. He offers Zhivago and Lara transit out of Russia. They initially refuse, but Komarovsky ultimately convinces Lara to go with him - although Zhivago still refuses.

Another major character is Liberius, commander of the "Forest Brotherhood", the Red Partisan band which conscripts Yuri into service. Liberius is depicted as loud-mouthed and vain, a dedicated and heroic revolutionary, who bores Yuri with his continuous lectures on the justice of their cause and the inevitability of their victory. He is also addicted to cocaine.

Other major characters include Tonya Gromeko, Zhivago's wife and stepsister, and her parents Alexander and Anna, who adopted Zhivago after he lost his parents as a child. And there is Yevgraf (Evgraf) Zhivago, Yuri's younger, illegitimate half-brother (by a Mongolian princess), a mysterious figure who gains power and influence with the Bolsheviks and helps his brother evade arrest throughout the course of the story.

Pasternak's description of the singer Kubarikha in the chapter "Iced Rowanberries" is almost identical to the description of the gypsy singer Nadezhda Plevitskaya (1884-1940) by Sofia Satina (sister-in-law and cousin of Sergei Rachmaninoff). Since Rachmaninoff was a friend of the Pasternak family, and Plevitskaya a friend of Rachmaninoff, Plevitskaya was probably Pasternak's "mind image" when he wrote the chapter; something which also shows how Pasternak had roots in music.

[edit] Names and places

Pushkin Library, Perm
Pushkin Library, Perm
  • Zhivago: the Russian root zhiv is similar to 'life'
  • Larissa: a Greek name suggesting 'bright, cheerful'
  • Komarovsky: komar is the Russian for 'mosquito'
  • Pasha: the diminutive form of 'Pavel', from the Latin word parvus, meaning 'small'
  • Strelnikov: strelok means 'the shooter'
  • Yuriatin: the fictional town was based on the real Perm, where Pasternak had lived for part of the Second World War
  • The original of the public reading room at Yuriatin was the Pushkin Library, Perm

[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

Doctor Zhivago has been adapted for film and stage several times:

  • The most famous version is the 1965 film adaptation, by David Lean, featuring the Egyptian actor Omar Sharif as Zhivago and English actress Julie Christie as Lara, with Geraldine Chaplin as Tonya and Alec Guinness as Yevgraf. The film was commercially successful and won several Oscars, but was a critical failure; currently, it is widely considered to be a classic popular film. Maurice Jarre's score, featuring the romantic "Lara's Theme," is a big part of the film's appeal. Though faithful to the novel's plot, depictions of several characters and events are noticeably different.
  • An eleven-part Russian mini-series was released in 2006.
  • A made-for-cable film remake had been announced in 2002, which would have had Joseph Fiennes as Zhivago and Jeremy Irons as Komarovsky, but was cancelled. It is unclear whether or not it was the Masterpiece Theatre production or a different version altogether. [1]
  • The first film version of Doctor Zhivago was a 1959 Brazilian television film that is currently unavailable. [2]
  • Zhivago, a musical adaptation of the story, features music by Lucy Simon ("The Secret Garden"), a book by Michael Weller ("Hair," "Ragtime" screenplays), and lyrics by Michael Korie ("Doll" and the "Harvey Milk" opera libretto) and Amy Powers ("Lizzie Borden" and songs for "Sunset Boulevard"). It was a direct adaptation of Pasternak's novel rather than Lean's film. It made its debut at the La Jolla Playhouse in 2005 as a Page-To-Stage workshop, and then in a main-stage production which opened in May 2006. A Broadway debut is planned sometime in 2007.
  • A new musical called "Doktor Zhivago" is to be premiered in the Urals city of Perm' on March 22 2007, and to remain in the repertoire of Perm' Musical Theatre throughout the 50th Anniversary year.[citation needed] Perm' claims many links with the novel since Pasternak was evacuated there during WW2. Perm' features in the novel under the name "Yuriatin" (which is a fictional city invented by Pasternak for the book) and many locations for events in the book can be accurately traced in Perm', since Pasternak left the street-names mostly unchanged. For example, the Public Reading-Room in which Yuri and Larissa have their chance meeting in "Yuriatin" is exactly where the book places it in contemporary Perm'.

[edit] In popular culture

  • Dr. Zhivago is mentioned in the lyrics of The Beta Band song "Won."
  • Dr. Zhivago was mentioned in the lyrics of 98 Degrees' hit song "The Hardest Thing".
  • Dr. Zhivago was mentioned in the infamous Unforgivable online video series.
  • In the movie Nine Months Hugh Grant and Julianne Moore's characters are told by Robin Williams' character that they should get rid of the cat if they want to keep the baby and Hugh Grant's character says not to believe Dr. Zhivago, given the fact that Robin Williams character is from Russia.
  • In the film True Romance, when referencing the large quantity of cocaine he has brought with him to California, Clarence Worley refers to the stash over the telephone as "Dr. Zhivago"; a metaphor the film producer on the other side of the telephone conversation would easily understand without explanation. This is an obvious reference to the snowy landscapes seen throughout the 1965 film.
  • Lana Lang is shown reading a paperback copy of Dr. Zhivago in the Smallville episode, "Cool".
  • In the film Red Heat (1988) James Belushi's character tells Schwarzenegger's character after ordering tea with lemon : "What do you think ? I've read Doctor Zhivago".
  • In the film Must Love Dogs, John Cusack's character repeatedly watches Dr. Zhivago while lamenting the sorry state of his own love life.
  • In a Calvin and Hobbes strip, when Calvin is taking a walk in the snow with his parents against his will, he complains, "I feel like I'm in "Dr. Zhivago"."
  • The song Pictures of People by the band Black Lab has the lines "My heart gets so cold / Driving around this town / I feel like Dr. Zhivago, lost in Chicago".

On their 1996 release,'Songs Of The Cows',San Francisco band,The Mermen( sometimes described as psychedelic surf),included an original track entitled 'Varykino Snow' which was inspired by the novel.


[edit] See also

[edit] External links