Reading Order
Doctor Zhivago Reading Order
Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago (1957) is a complete standalone novel. It follows Yuri Zhivago, a Russian doctor and poet, from the 1890s through the Russian Revolution, the Civil War, and into the 1940s — and his love for Lara Antipova, a woman he meets and loses and finds again against the upheavals of Russian history. The novel was suppressed in the Soviet Union and published first in Italian translation in Milan in 1957; Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1958 but was forced under political pressure to decline it.
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Doctor Zhivago
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Doctor Zhivago
Boris Pasternak·1957·Standalone — Yuri Zhivago's life across the Russian Revolution and Civil War; the great Russian novel of the twentieth century; ends with a section of Zhivago's poems, which Pasternak considered the novel's culmination
Doctor Zhivago — Frequently Asked Questions
Is Doctor Zhivago a standalone?
Yes — Doctor Zhivago is entirely self-contained and has no sequel. It is Boris Pasternak's only novel; he was primarily known as a poet and translator during his lifetime.
Why was Doctor Zhivago banned in the Soviet Union?
Doctor Zhivago was rejected by the Soviet literary journal Novy Mir in 1956 and refused publication in the USSR throughout Pasternak's lifetime. Soviet authorities objected to its portrayal of the Revolution as a catastrophe for individuals, its religious imagery, and its refusal to endorse the Soviet state's view of its own history. Pasternak smuggled the manuscript to the Italian publisher Feltrinelli, who published it in Italian in 1957. It was not published in the Soviet Union until 1988.
Who was Lara Antipova based on?
Lara Antipova is generally believed to be based in part on Olga Ivinskaya, Pasternak's long-term companion from 1946 until his death in 1960. Ivinskaya was imprisoned by Stalin in 1949 as a hostage for Pasternak's behavior, and again in 1960 after his death. She wrote a memoir, A Captive of Time, about their relationship.
What are the poems at the end of Doctor Zhivago?
The novel ends with a section titled 'The Poems of Yuri Zhivago' — twenty-five poems Pasternak wrote in the voice of Zhivago the fictional poet, including 'Hamlet,' 'August,' 'Winter Night,' and 'Mary Magdalene.' Pasternak considered the poems the culmination of the novel rather than an appendix; the prose narrative is, among other things, a preparation for the poems. The Nobel committee specifically cited the poems as central to the award.
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