Born into a talented Jewish family (his father was a professor and his mother a concert pianist), Pasternak attended the Moscow Conservatory, but gave up his musical studies for philosophy in 1910. He then attended Marburg University in Germany and returned to Moscow in 1914. He published his first collection of poetry, Bliznets v Tuchakn, later that year. Because of a leg injury, he avoided military service during the First World War. Instead, he worked as a private tutor in the Urals. During the subsequent Revolution, Pasternak was appalled at the brutality of the Bolsheviks, but he nevertheless supported the Revolution. His family did not share his enthusiasm and they emigrated to Germany in 1921. From 1917, he worked as a librarian and his publication of Over the Barriers, enhanced his fame as a poet. During the 1920's, Pasternak began to study historical and moral problems and his writing tended away from the official lines of Socialism and the Revolution. For the next 20 years, his work was rejected by the authorities and he was forced to work as a translator. When war broke out again, he devoted himself to patriotic writing which gained Stalin's grudging respect. In 1954, Pasternak completed his masterpiece, Doctor Zhivago, which was smuggled out of Russia and published in the West in 1958 to tremendous acclaim. In 1965, the book was made into an Oscar-winning film. The book was soundly criticized by the Soviet government and Pasternak was even forced to decline the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958. He died of lung cancer in 1960. It wasn't until 1987 that Pasternak's writings became freely available in Russia. His son accepted the Nobel Prize on behalf of his father in 1989. Pasternak's other works include My Sister-Life (1922), The Childhood of Luves (1925), Sublime Malady (1928), Safe Conduct (1931), The Last Summer (1934), On Early Trains (1943) and When the Sky Clears (1960). |
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