Boris Pasternak (1890-1960)

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1958

The Russian poet, novelist, and translator Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was the foremost writer of the Soviet period. He constantly endeavored to shape the means of artistic expression to the ends of his integrity and concern for mankind.

Boris Leonidovich Pasternak

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1958 was awarded to Boris Pasternak «for his important achievement both in contemporary lyrical poetry and in the field of the great Russian epic tradition».

Boris Pasternak first accepted the award, but was later caused by the authorities of his country to decline the prize.

The culmination of his artistic career, Doctor Zhivago is Pasternak’s attempt to bring both prose and poetry to bear on the problems of the individual artist and his life in history. It combines an epic novel in prose of the scope of Tolstoy’s War and Peace with a selection of poetry attributed to the hero of the novel, Yury Zhivago. The subject of the novel is an individual poet’s life in conflict with his times. The novel spans the years 1902 to 1953.

Selected Works

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Poetry
Twin in the Clouds (1914)
Over the Barriers (1916)
Themes and Variations (1917)
My Sister, Life (1922)
On Early Trains (1944)
When the Weather Clears (1959)

Prose
Safe Conduct (1931)
Second Birth (1932)
Childhood (1941)
Essay in Autobiography (1956)
Doctor Zhivago (1957)

Translations
Boris Pasternak’s Translations of Shakespeare (1978)