Boris Pasternak is a Russian poet and writer. He also owns the best translations of Shakespeare and other foreign classics. Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize. For which book did the Russian writer receive a prestigious award? And what role did this event play in his fate? Pasternak's works are the topic of the article.
Biography
Boris Pasternak was born in Moscow in a creative family. Father was an artist. Mother is a pianist. The Parsnip House was located in the heart of the capital. The future poet from childhood was surrounded by people of art. Famous writers, artists and musicians often visited the house. Once Pasternak’s apartment was visited even by Rilke himself. Acquaintance with the German poet, composer Scriabin and other prominent people played an important role in the formation of a creative personality.
Pasternak's works reflect the impressions he received as a child. Once he fell under the blows of protesters gathered at Myasnitskaya. About this, years later, he will write in one of his poems. The future poet graduated with honors from high school. Teachers were astonished by the perseverance and perseverance of the teenager. The pursuit of excellence did not leave him all his life.
Boris Pasternak graduated from the Law Faculty in Moscow. He studied philosophy in Germany. With his parents, he visited Venice in 1912. Some of Pasternak’s works written at the beginning of the century convey memories of a trip to Europe.
In 1921, the family left Russia. Parents and sisters settled in Berlin. Since 1936, the poet himself lived intermittently in Peredelkino. The Russian writer and poet passed away in 1960. He was buried in a cemetery located near the writers' village in Peredelkino.
The beginning of creativity
After returning from Germany, the future poet decided to devote now most of the time to the study of philosophy. The beginning of his literary path also dates to this period. Pasternak's early works were inspired by the work of Russian futurists. Among the poets who influenced the beginning writer, first of all, Vladimir Mayakovsky should be named.
The most famous works of Pasternak, a list of which is presented below, were created after the revolution. But he published the first collection of his works in 1913. However, it included not only his creations, but also poems of other poets.
In 1916, the book “Over the Barriers” was published. By that time, Boris Pasternak was quite famous in literary circles as a poet. The works that are included in this collection: “Marburg”, “Yard”, “Winter Sky”, “Happiness”, “Echo”, “Swifts”, “Ural for the first time”, “Ice drift”, “Snowstorm” and others.
“My sister is life”
This collection was published in 1922. Pasternak's works created during this period are united by a common idea. List of poems that are included in the collection "My sister is life":
- "Waltz with a Tear."
- "A life".
- “February, get ink and cry!”
- "Railway station".
Pasternak combined memories of childhood and adolescence with lyric works. The list above is certainly not complete. Most of the poems that were included in this collection were created back in 1917. And two years before its publication, Pasternak wrote the poems Nine Hundred and Fifth Year, Spektorsky, and Lieutenant Schmidt.
Prose
In the late twenties, Boris Pasternak writes poems less and less. He turns to prose. At first it was small essays, memories. In 1930, the book "Security Certificate" was published. During this period, the authorities treated the writer very favorably. However, soon her attitude to the future author of the novel "Doctor Zhivago" changed.
In disgrace
For some time Pasternak treated with some respect and even admiration for Stalin. After the arrest of Gumilyov, he wrote him a letter in which he asked for the release of the poet. The request has been fulfilled. The poet was soon released. But the relationship between Pasternak and the Soviet regime in 1936 deteriorated. They began to demand from the poet ideological content, which allegedly was not in his works. Parsnip, in turn, was not able to satisfy this requirement. In his poems, tragic shades became more and more distinct.
Translations
In the forties, Boris Pasternak wrote less and less. The famous works of Shakespeare, Goethe, Schiller were translated by him. Thus he saved his family from lack of money. But later he admitted that he spent his best years on translations, while he could create many more lyrical and prosaic works. Until the end of his days, the writer was in disgrace. There was no talk of publishing his works.
Pasternak, whose best works only at the end of the eighties became known to Soviet readers, was rehabilitated after death. In 1988, the novel “Doctor Zhivago” was first published in the Soviet Union. It was only in the nineties that the poems written by Boris Pasternak entered the program.
Nobel Prize
For what work was the writer awarded this prestigious award? The novel "Doctor Zhivago", published in 1958, in the Soviet Union was read only by a limited circle of people. The Nobel Prize was awarded to the writer for his contribution to the development of the epic Russian novel. Soviet officials called the book "Doctor Zhivago" libelous. Harassment began throughout the country.
Pasternak was expelled from the Writers' Union. Prominent writers, including Sergei Mikhalkov, wrote angry articles about him. The official representatives of Soviet prose demanded to deprive the author of the scandalous novel of citizenship and expel him from the country. Pasternak, to the delight of his enemies, would have been imprisoned, but he was too famous in Europe. Surprisingly, many criticized the book. But almost none of them read it.
Later, the poet wrote the poem "Nobel Prize." For this work he was summoned to the Lubyanka. This time he was really threatened with the charge of "treason". But, fortunately, everything worked out.
So, Pasternak became the second Russian Nobel laureate in literature. The first is Ivan Bunin. The novel, for which he was awarded the prize, caused many years of scandal in the writer's homeland. What is the work that has sparked so much hatred?
"Doctor Zhivago"
And the work, which caused a storm of indignation, tells the story of the fate of the son of a bankrupt businessman. The main character is Yuri Zhivago, a descendant of the once rich family. But his father squandered all his fortune in revelry. The hero of the novel was taken up by the wife of Gromeko. Yuri grows with their daughter Tonya, who will subsequently become his wife.
Yuri became a doctor. Once, when he was still a student, he witnessed a tragic scene: a young girl made an attempt to kill the famous Moscow lawyer Komarovsky. This man once had a hand in the ruin of the dissolute father Zhivago. Yuri forever remembered the girl who tried to shoot Komarovsky. Her name was Larisa. She became his lover years later, during the First World War, when Yuri worked as a doctor in one of the provincial hospitals.
The Civil War turned everything upside down. Zhivago will return to Moscow, but in the house where he spent his youth, the janitor Markel is now the boss. With Yuri, he now communicates differently. After all, there is a saying: who was nothing, that will become everything. Zhivago marries Markel's daughter and will soon die of a heart attack. In the last chapter of the novel, a meeting of the friends of Zhivago takes place. One of them - Mikhail Gordon - gets acquainted with the illegitimate daughter of Yuri and compiles a collection of his poems. Among these poetic works:
- "Hamlet".
- "On Passion."
- "Wedding".
- "Fall".
- "White Night".
- "Dawn".
- "Winter night".
- "Miracle".
- "Magdalene".
- "Bad days."