Boris Pasternak

Boris Pasternak
Pasternak in 1959
Pasternak in 1959
BornBoris Leonidovich Pasternak
10 February [O.S. 29 January] 1890
Moscow, Russian Empire
Died30 May 1960(1960-05-30) (aged 70)
Peredelkino, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
OccupationPoet, writer
CitizenshipRussian Empire (1890–1917)
Soviet Russia (1917–1922)
Soviet Union (1922–1960)
Notable worksMy Sister, Life, The Second Birth, Doctor Zhivago
Notable awardsNobel Prize in Literature
(1958)
(Declined)
ParentsLeonid Pasternak and Rosa Kaufman
RelativesLydia Pasternak Slater (sister); Yevgeny Pasternak (son)
Signature

Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (/ˈpæstərnæk/;[1] Russian: Борис Леонидович Пастернак, IPA: [bɐˈrʲis lʲɪɐˈnʲidəvʲɪtɕ pəstɨrˈnak];[2] 10 February [O.S. 29 January] 1890 – 30 May 1960) was a Russian poet, novelist, composer, and literary translator.

Composed in 1917, Pasternak's first book of poems, My Sister, Life, was published in Berlin in 1922 and soon became an important collection in the Russian language. Pasternak's translations of stage plays by Goethe, Schiller, Calderón de la Barca and Shakespeare remain very popular with Russian audiences.

Pasternak was the author of Doctor Zhivago (1957), a novel that takes place between the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the First World War. Doctor Zhivago was rejected for publication in the USSR, but the manuscript was smuggled to Italy and was first published there in 1957.[3]

Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1958, an event that enraged the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which forced him to decline the prize. In 1989, Pasternak's son Yevgeny finally accepted the award on his father's behalf. Doctor Zhivago has been part of the main Russian school curriculum since 2003.[4]

  1. ^ "Pasternak". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
  2. ^ F.L. Ageenko; M.V. Zarva. Slovar' udarenij (in Russian). Moscow: Russkij jazyk. p. 686.
  3. ^ "CIA Declassifies Agency Role in Publishing Doctor Zhivago". Central Intelligence Agency. 14 April 2014. Archived from the original on 21 July 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2014.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference r1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).