Boris Pasternak

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Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (10 February [O.S. 29 January] 1890 – 30 May 1960) was a Russian poet, novelist, 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 is also known as the author of Doctor Zhivago (1957), a novel that takes place between the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the Second World War.

Doctor Zhivago was rejected for publication in the USSR and the manuscript had to be secretly smuggled to Italy for publication.

Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958, an event that enraged the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which forced him to decline the prize, though his descendants were able to accept it in his name in 1988.

Doctor Zhivago has been part of the main Russian school curriculum since 2003.

Early life

Pasternak was born in Moscow on 10 February (Gregorian), 1890 (29 January, Julian) into a wealthy, assimilated Jewish family. His father was the post-Impressionist painter Leonid Pasternak, who taught as a professor at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. His mother was Rosa Kaufman, a concert pianist and the daughter of Odessa industrialist Isadore Kaufman and his wife. Pasternak had a younger brother, Alex, and two sisters, Lydia and Josephine. The family claimed descent on the paternal line from Isaac Abarbanel, the famous 15th-century Sephardic Jewish philosopher, Bible commentator, and treasurer of Portugal.

From 1904 to 1907, Boris Pasternak was the cloister-mate of Peter Minchakievich (1890–1963) in Holy Dormition Pochayiv Lavra, located in West Ukraine. Minchakievich came from an Orthodox Ukrainian family and Pasternak came from a Jewish family. Some confusion has arisen as to Pasternak attending a military academy in his boyhood years. The uniforms of their monastery Cadet Corp were only similar to those of The Czar Alexander the Third Military Academy, as Pasternak and Minchakievich never attended any military academy. Most schools used a distinctive military-looking uniform particular to them as was the custom of the time in Eastern Europe and Russia. Boyhood friends, they parted in 1908, friendly but with different politics, never to see each other again. Pasternak went to the Moscow Conservatory to study music (later Germany to study philosophy), and Minchakievich went to L'viv University (L'vov, Lwów) to study history and philosophy. The good dimension of the character Strelnikov in Dr. Zhivago is based upon Peter Minchakievich. Several of Pasternak's characters are composites. After World War One and the Revolution, fighting for the Provisional or Republican government under Kerensky, and then escaping a Communist jail and execution, Minchakievich trekked across Siberia in 1917 and became an American citizen. Pasternak stayed in Russia.

In a 1959 letter to Jacqueline de Proyart, Pasternak recalled:

Shortly after his birth, Pasternak's parents had joined the Tolstoyan Movement. Novelist Leo Tolstoy was a close family friend, as Pasternak recalled, "my father illustrated his books, went to see him, revered him, and ...the whole house was imbued with his spirit."

In a 1956 essay, Pasternak recalled his father's feverish work creating illustrations for Tolstoy's novel Resurrection. The novel was serialized in the journal Niva by the publisher Fyodor Marx, based in St Petersburg. The sketches were drawn from observations in such places as courtrooms, prisons and on trains, in a spirit of realism. To ensure that the sketches met the journal deadline, train conductors were enlisted to personally collect the illustrations. Pasternak wrote,

According to Max Hayward, "In November 1910, when Tolstoy fled from his home and died in the stationmaster's house at Astapovo, Leonid Pasternak was informed by telegram and he went there immediately, taking his son Boris with him, and made a drawing of Tolstoy on his deathbed."

Regular visitors to the Pasternaks' home also included Sergei Rachmaninoff, Alexander Scriabin, Lev Shestov, Rainer Maria Rilke. Pasternak aspired first to be a musician. Inspired by Scriabin, Pasternak briefly was a student at the Moscow Conservatory. In 1910 he abruptly left for the German University of Marburg, where he studied under Neo-Kantian philosophers Hermann Cohen, Nicolai Hartmann and Paul Natorp.

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Life and career

Pasternak and his cousin Olga Freidenberg (1890-1955), who were reunited in 1910. They had shared the same nursery but were separated when the Freidenberg family moved to Saint Petersburg. They fell in love right away, but they were never meant to be partners. The romance, on the other hand, is made explicit in their letters: Pasternak's article: "Today" is not a word in Pasternak's book: "The love is made abundantly."

The cousins' initial enthusiasm developed into a lifelong close friendship. Pasternak and Freidenberg exchanged often in letters, and their correspondence lasted more than 40 years before 1954. In 1936, the cousins last met.

Pasternak fell in love with Ida Wissotzkaya, a daughter of a prominent Moscow Jewish family of tea retailers, whose company Wissotzky Tea was the world's largest tea company. In the last class of high school, Pasternak had tutored her. He aided her in preparing for the finals. When Boris' father, Leonid Pasternak, was in Marburg in 1912, they met there.

Despite Professor Cohen's recommendation that he stay in Germany and pursue a Philosophy doctorate, Pasternak decided against it. He returned to Moscow around the time of the First World War's outbreak. Pasternak proposed marriage to Ida as a result of the tragedies. Nevertheless, Pasternak's poor prospects surprised the Wissotzky family, who begged Ida to refuse him. In the poem "Marburg" (1917): she turned him down and told of his passion and skepticism.

He joined Centrifuge (Tsentrifuga) in Russia around this time, as a young boy — poetry was just a passion for him then. It was in Lirika, the group's journal in which some of his oldest poems were published. His involvement with the Futurist movement as a whole in Rukonog, which slammed Lirika and the Ego-Futurists because Shershenevich himself was refused to collaborate with Centrifuge because he was a naturally gifted poet. The riot culminated in a verbal contest among several members of the parties, demanding to be recognized as the first, truest Russian Futurists; by this time, the Cubo-Futurists were also known for their scandalous behavior. Pasternak's first and second books of poetry were published within hours of these performances.

In his third and first big book, My Sister, Life, another failed love story in 1917 inspired the poems. His early verse debating Immanuel Kant's philosophy. Its fabric includes striking alliterations, wild rhythmic combinations, day-to-day vocabulary, and subtle allusions to his favorite poets, such as Rilke, Lermontov, Pushkin, and German-language Romantic poets.

According to Max Hayward,

My Sister, Life of Pasternak revolutionized Russian poetry when it was first published in 1922. Pasternak became the model for younger poets and changed the poetry of Osip Mandelshtam, Marina Tsvetayeva, and others.

Pasternak produced some hermetic works of uneven quality, including his masterpiece, the lyric cycle Rupture (1921). Both Pro-Soviet writers and their White emigre counterparts applauded Pasternak's poetry as pure, unbridled inspiration.

He was also involved in the much-anticipated tripartite exchange with Rilke and Tsvetayeva in the late 1920s. Pasternak's vibrant style came at odds with a less educated audience, as the 1920s came to an end. He sought to make his poetry more comprehensible by reworking his earlier pieces and introducing two long poems on the Russian Revolution of 1905. He also turned to prose and wrote many autobiographical books, including "The Childhood of Luvers" and "Safe Conduct." (The collection Zhenia's Childhood and Other Stories was published in 1982.)

Evgenia Lurye (вени уре), a student at the Art Institute, was married by Pasternak in 1922. Yevgenii's son was born the following year.

Pasternak's support for younger members of the Communist Party's leadership as late as 1926 is shown by his poem "In Memory of Reissner," which may have been based on the typhus of Bolshevik leader Larisa Reisner's age, who died in February.

He explained:

Pasternak had dramatically changed his style to make it more understandable to the general public by 1932, and he published the new collection of poems titled The Second Birth. Although the book's Caucasian pieces were as good as the previous attempts, it alienated Pasternak's nimble audience abroad, which was mainly made of anti-immigration emigres.

Pasternak's wife, Zinaida Neuhaus, married Pasternak in 1932. Both divorced and married two years later.

He continued to change his poetry, simplifying his style and terminology through the years, as shown in his forthcoming book, Early Trains (1943).

Osip Mandelstam recited his "Stalin Epigram" to Pasternak in April 1934. "I didn't hear this, you didn't recite it to me," Pasternak said after listening to Mandelstam. Because, you know, very strange and troubling things are happening right now: they've started to pick people up." The walls have ears, and perhaps even these benches on the boulevard here may be able to listen and tell stories. So let's pretend that I heard nothing."

Mandelstam was arrested on the night of 14 May 1934 based on a warrant issued by NKVD boss Genrikh Yagoda. Pasternak, distraught, stormed Izvestia's offices and begged Nikolai Bukharin to intervene on Mandelstam's behalf.

The phone rang in Pasternak's Moscow apartment right after his meeting with Bukharin. "Comrade Stalin wishes to talk with you," a Kremlin spokesperson said. Pasternak was struck dumb by Ivinskaya, according to Ivinskaya. "He was completely unprepared for such a discussion." But then he heard his voice, Stalin's voice, come across the line. "In your literary circles about Mandelstam's detention, the Leader spoke to him in a rather bluff uncouth style.'" Pasternak, a flustered teenager, denied that there was any discussion or that there were any literary circles left in Soviet Russia. Stalin went on to ask Mandelstam's opinion on himself. Pasternak said in a "eager fumbling way" that he and Mandelstam had a completely different approach to poetry. "I see, you aren't able to stick up for a comrade," Stalin finally said, chuckling the receiver.

According to Pasternak, the Union of Soviet Writers requested all members to sign a statement supporting the death penalty for the defendants during the 1937 show trial of General Iona Yakir and Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky. And after the Union's leadership visited and threatened Pasternak, he refused to sign. Pasternak argued in a letter shortly after that he appealed specifically to Stalin, referring to his family's strong Tolstoyan convictions and putting his own life at Stalin's disposal; he said he could not live as a self-appointed judge of life and death. Pasternak was sure he would be arrested, but Stalin is said to have crossed Pasternak's name from an execution list, saying, "Do not approach this cloud dweller" (or, in another way, "Leave the holy fool alone!" "You should not be surprised" by the title.

Titsian Tabidze, Pasternak's close friend, died as a result of the Great Purge. Pasternak wrote an autobiographical essay about Tabidze's execution and Maria Tsvetaeva and Paolo Iashvili's suicides as the best heartbreaks of his life.

"I think there was an amazing, silent duel" between Stalin and Pasternak, according to Ivinskaya.

Pasternak, a writer's building on Lavrushinski Street, exploded as the Luftwaffe bombed Moscow. He helped remove German bombs that fell on it, according to Ivinskaya.

Pasternak was finally allowed to visit the soldiers at the front in 1943. He enjoyed it despite the hardships of the ride (he had a weak leg from an old injury) and wanted to visit the most dangerous destinations. He read his poetry and spoke frequently with the active and injured troops.

The Soviets hoped to see the end of the Holocaust of Nazism in 1945 and wished for the end of Stalin's purges. However, sealed trains carried large numbers of prisoners to the Soviet Gulags. Some were Nazi collaborators who had served under General Andrey Vlasov, but the bulk of Soviet officers and men were ordinary Soviet officers and men. Ex-POWs were moved directly from Nazi Germany to Soviet concentration camps, according to Pasternak. As well as Jews from the Anti-Fascist Committee and other groups, white emigres who had returned to the Gulag due to amnesty promises were sent by mail. Thousands of innocent people were jailed in connection with the Leningrad affair and the so-called doctors' plot, while entire ethnic groups were barred from Siberia.

"We may not have been sad to see Stalin fall in a bad dream," Pasternak later said. Then, an end to the war in favour of our allies, civilized countries with democratic roots, would have resulted in a hundred times less suffering for our people than that which Stalin unleashed on the country after his victory.

The twice-married Pasternak met Olga Ivinskaya, a 34-year-old single mother employed by Novy Mir in October 1946. Pasternak gave Ivinskaya numerous volumes of his poetry and literary translations, deeply moved by her similarity to his first love, Ida Vysotskaya. Although Pasternak never divorced Zinaida, he began an extramarital affair with Ivinskaya that would last for the remainder of Pasternak's life. "He phoned almost every day and, instinctively afraid to see or hear him, but ultimately dying of happiness, "I would stammer out that today." However, almost every afternoon, just after the end of working hours, he came in person to the office and walked with me through the streets, boulevards, and squares all the way home to Potapov Street. 'Shall I make you a presenter of this square?' "He'd ask" if he wanted to know."

She gave her neighbor Olga Volkova, who lived below, the phone number of her neighbor Olga Volkova, who lived below. Pasternak and Volkova would phone in the evenings, and Olga would warn Volkova of the ban on the water pipe that linked their homes.

Pasternak was translating the verse of Hungary's national poet, Sándor Petfi, when they first met. Pasternak gave his lover a book of Petfi, with the words, "Petfi served as a code in May and June 1947," my close translations of his lyrics are an expression that was adapted to the text's demands, as well as my sentiments and thoughts for you and about you. "B.P., May 1948," in honor of it all.

On a photograph of himself, Pasternak said, "Petfi is majestic for his descriptive lyrics and picture of nature, but you are better still." When I first heard you, I worked on him a great deal in 1947 and 1948. Thank you for your service. I was translating both of you." Later, Ivinskaya would refer to the Pet-fi translations as "the first declaration of love."

Zinaida Pasternak was enraged by her husband's infidelity, according to Ivinskaya. Zinaida once more, when Leonid's younger brother Leonid was critically ill, Zinaida and his mother held firm that the boy's sickbed would be ended. Pasternak begged Luisa Popova, a mutual friend, to inform Ivinskaya of his promise. Popova told him that he would do it himself. Ivinskaya happened to be sick at Popova's apartment when Zinaida Pasternak appeared and confronted her.

Ivinskaya later recalled,

Pasternak's 1948 advises Ivinskaya that resigning her position at Novy Mir, which was becoming increasingly difficult due to their family's union. Pasternak began to instruct her in translating poetry in the aftermath. They began referring to her apartment on Potapov Street as "Our Shop" in time.

The KGB arrested Ivinskaya at her apartment on October 6, 1949. Ivinskaya claims in her memoirs that she was at her typewriter assisting with the translations of Korean poet Won Tu-Son. In her presence, her apartment was ransacked, and all items connected with Pasternak were piled up. Ivinskaya was admitted to the Lubyanka Prison and interrogated on a regular basis, but she refused to divulge any information concerning Pasternak. At the time, she was pregnant with Pasternak's child and suffered with a miscarriage early in her ten-year stint in the GULAG.

Pasternak called Liuisa Popova and begged her to come at once to Gogol Boulevard after learning of his mistress' arrest. She discovered him sitting on a bench outside the Palace of Soviet Metro Station. "All is finished now," Pasternak told her. They've taken her away from me, and I'll never see her again. It's like death, even worse."

"He always referred to Stalin as a "murderer" after this, in a talk with people he barely knew," Ivinskaya says. He frequently wondered, 'When will there be an end to this freedom for a lackeys who happily walk over corpses to further their own ends?' He spent a considerable length of time in Akhmatova, who was still waiting for her by most of the people who knew her. He concentrated on Doctor Zhivago's second half.

"She was put in prison on my account," Pasternak wrote in a letter to a friend in West Germany, as the individual suspected by the espionage police to be nearest to me, and they hoped that by a grueling interrogation and threats, they might gather enough evidence from her to bring me on trial." To her heroism and tenacity, I owe my life and the fact that they did not touch me in those years.

In the 1950 version of Novy Mir, Pasternak's translation of the first part of Faust caused him to be assaulted. As well as reinstating aesthetic and individualistic values, the critic accused Pasternak of distorting Goethe's "prose art" theories. Pasternak explained in a subsequent letter to Marina Tsvetaeva's daughter that the play's supernatural elements, which Novy Mir termed "irrational," had been translated as Goethe had written them. Pasternak also confirmed that, despite the assaults on his translation, his deal for the second segment had not been terminated.

When Stalin died of a stroke on March 5, 1953, Ivinskaya was still detained in the Gulag, and Pasternak was in Moscow. Waves of anxiety, confusion, and public displays of sadness dominated the nation. "Men who are not free... always visualize their bondage," Pasternak wrote.

Pasternak's affair with Ivinskaya began shortly after she was released. "For so long, we were ruled over by a madman and a killer, and now by a fool and a pig," she said. Despite his ferocious obscurantism, the madman had his occasional flights of fancy, and he had an acute nascent sense for certain things. Now we are ruled by mediocrities." Pasternak was delighted to read a clandestine copy of George Orwell's Animal Farm in English during this period. In a talk with Ivinskaya, Pasternak revealed that the pig dictator Napoleon "actually reminded" him of Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev.

Despite the fact that it contains passages from the 1910s and 1920s, Doctor Zhivago was not finished until 1955. In 1956, Pasternak submitted the book to Novy Mir, but the novel was rejected for publication due to its rejection of socialist realism. The author, as well as his her protagonist Yuri Zhivago, expressed more concern about individual characters' wellbeing than for "progress" of society. Some passages were also considered anti-Soviet by censors, including the novel's critiques of Stalinism, Collectivisation, the Great Purge, and the Gulag.

Pasternak's fortunes were about to change quickly, however. Sergio D'Angelo, a writer who served in the Italian Communist Party in March 1956, welcomed him to work in the Soviet Union, and his status as a writer as well as his membership in the Italian Communist Party enabled him to enjoy various aspects of Moscow's cultural life at the time. D'Angelo, a Milan publisher, had already received a commission to find new works of Soviet literature that would be popular to Western audiences, and had immediately returned to Perpetu to inform Pasternak's company that he would be published. Pasternak's first appearance was awestruck. "You are now invited to see me face the firing squad," then rescued the manuscript from his study and told D'Angelo with a chuckle.

Pasternak was aware that he was taking a serious risk, according to Lazar Fleishman. When such conduct caused the Soviet state to declare war on Boris Pilnyak and Evgeny Zamyatin, no Soviet author had attempted to deal with Western publishers since the 1920s. Pasternak, on the other hand, believed that Feltrinelli's Communist association did not only guarantee publication, but could also compel Russia to publish the book in Russia.

Both Olga Ivinskaya and Zinaida Pasternak were horrified by Doctor Zhivago's transfer to a Western publishing house in a rare moment of peace. Pasternak, on the other hand, refused to change his mind and alerted a Feltrinelli emissary that he was going to suffer any sacrifice in order to see Doctor Zhivago published.

Feltrinelli's company announced in 1957 that the book would be published by his publisher. Despite repeated demands from visiting Soviet emissaries, Feltrinelli refused to cancel or postpone publication. "He didn't expect that we'd ever publish this paper here and felt he had no right to refuse a masterpiece from the world," Ivinskaya said. Pasternak was coerced to tell the publisher to delete the manuscript from the website, but Feltrinelli was sent separate, classified letters advising him not to ignore the telegrams.

Doctor Zhivago became a instant hit in the non-Communist world following its introduction in November 1957, and the Soviet campaign against the novel, as well as the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's cover of hundreds of copies of the book as it came off the presses around the world (see "Nobel Prize" section below). Pasternak's book in the State of Israel, on the other hand, was chastised for its assimilationist stances against Jews. Pasternak replied, "No problem." When notified of this, he said, "No problem." "I am above race," Pasternak wrote the disputed passages long before Israeli independence. Pasternak had been attending Russian Orthodox Divine Liturgy for the past two years. According to the author, converted Soviet Jews returning to Christianity was preferable to assimilating into atheism and Stalinism.

Max Hayward and Manya Harari's first English translation of Doctor Zhivago was hurriedly produced in order to meet the overwhelming public demand. It was first published in August 1958 and was the only version in existence for more than fifty years. The English language version of the New York Times bestseller list spent 26 weeks between 1958 and 1959.

In Samizdat, Ivinskaya's daughter Irina sold typed copies of the novel. Doctor Zhivago was mocked in the state-owned press, even though no Soviet commentators had read the banned book. "I haven't read Pasternak, but I condemn him," a joking Russian said.

Pasternak had written a series of poems on Gospel subjects during the Second World War. Pasternak regarded Stalin as a "giant of the pre-Christian period," according to Ivinskaya. Pasternak's decision to write Christian poetry was thus "a form of resistance."

Viktor Pertsov, the Literary Gazette critic, retaliated on September 9, 1958, proclaiming "the decadent religious poetry of Pasternak, which reminds of mothballs from 1908-2010 production." In addition, the author has received a lot of hate mail from Communists both locally and abroad. Pasternak continued to receive such letters for the remainder of his life, according to Ivinskaya.

Pasternak recalled the words of his friend Ekaterina Krashennikova after reading Doctor Zhivago in a letter sent to his sister Josephine. "Don't forget yourself to the point of assuming it was you who wrote this book," she had said. It was the Russian people and their ill health that spawned it. Thank you for expressing it through your pen."

"Rumors that Pasternak was to win the Nobel Prize began right after World War II," Yevgeni Borisovich Pasternak said. Lars Gyllensten, the former Nobel Committee Chair, says his nomination was discussed every year from 1946 to 1950, then again in 1957 (it was eventually in 1958). Pasternak predicted this from the growing tides of resistance in the USSR. He had to defend his European fame often,' he said.' According to the Union of Soviet Writers, several literary circles of the West have a special place in my work, not meeting its modesty and low profitability.'

In the meantime, Pasternak wrote to Renate Schweitzer and his sister, Lydia Pasternak Slater. In both letters, the author expressed the hope that he would be passed over by the Nobel Committee in favour of Alberto Moravia. Pasternak wrote that he was overcome with fear and worry over the prospect of placing his loved ones in risk.

Boris Pasternak, the Nobel Laureate winner, was announced on October 23, 1958. Pasternak's contribution to Russian lyric poetry as well as his role in "continuing the great Russian epic tradition" was cited in the citation. "Infinitely grateful, touched, proud, and overwhelmed" Pasternak wrote to the Swedish Academy on October 25th. The Literary Institute in Moscow demanded that all its students sign a petition condemning Pasternak and his book on the same day. They were also encouraged to attend a "sponsorous" protest demanding Pasternak's removal from the Soviet Union. The Literary Gazette published a letter on the same day that was sent by the editors of the Soviet literary journal Novy Mir to B. Pasternak in September 1956 to explain Doctor Zhivago's rejection of Doctor Zhivago. The Soviet authorities wanted to justify the steps taken against the author and his work in this letter. The Literary Gazette published an article by David Zaslavski entitled, Reactionary Propaganda Uprising Over a Literary Weed on October 26th.

According to Solomon Volkov:

In addition, Pasternak was advised that if he traveled to Stockholm to receive his Nobel Medal, he would not be allowed to return to the Soviet Union. As a result, Pasternak sent a second telegram to the Nobel Committee on October 29: "I must renounce this undeserved distinction which has been bestowed on me in light of the subject's meaning." "Please do not take my voluntary renunciation of others in vain." "This refusal, of course, in no way affects the award's validity," the Swedish Academy said. However, there is only for the Academy, and we regret that the Prize presentation will not take place." "I couldn't recognize my father when I saw him that evening," Yevgenii Pasternak said. "Now it doesn't matter, I declined the Prize," a pale, lifeless face, exhausting eyes, and only speaking out about the same subject.'

Despite his decision not to refuse the award, the Soviet Union of Writers continued to demonize Pasternak in the state-owned press. In addition, he was threatened at the very least with formal exile to the West. Pasternak wrote directly to Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev in reaction.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn blasted Pasternak both for withholding the Nobel Prize and delivering such a letter to Khrushchev in The Oak and the Calf. Olga Ivinskaya blames herself for coerce her husband to make both decisions in her own memoirs.

"She pleaded adamantly for persuading Pasternak to decline the award," Yevgenii Pasternak said. After all of that transpired, including open shadowing and friends turning away, Pasternak's suicidal state at the time, one can... understand her: the memories of Stalin's camps was not fresh [and] she tried to shield him."

The Union of Soviet Writers held a trial behind closed doors on October 31, 1958. Pasternak was described as an internal emigré and a Fascist fifth columnist, according to the meeting minutes. The attendees learned that Pasternak had been barred from the Union for a period of time. Pasternak was arrested of his Soviet citizenship and exiled to "his Capitalist paradise," the couple wrote on a petition to the Politburo, insisting that Pasternak be stripped of his Soviet citizenship and exiled to "his Capitalist paradise." However, author Konstantin Paustovsky declined to attend the meeting, according to Yevgenii Pasternak. Yevgeny Yevtushenko attended, but walked out in disgust, but disgust.

According to Yevgenii Pasternak, his father may have been exiled if not for Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who phoned Khrushchev and threatened to establish a committee for Pasternak's protection.

Pasternak's detention could have been postponed due to the Soviet state's fear of international demonstrations. However, Yevgenii Pasternak believes that the resulting persecution has fatally damaged his father's health.

What was your crime?"

The post-Zhivago poetry of Pasternak explores universal questions of love, immortality, and reconciling with God. In 1959, Boris Pasternak wrote When the Weather Clears, his last complete book.

Even during the controversy surrounding Doctor Zhivago, Pasternak maintained his daily writing schedule, according to Ivinskaya. Juliusz Skowacki and Pedro Calderón de la Barca's writings were also translated into Spanish by him. Pasternak's Calderon career received the ostensible support of Nikolai Mikhailovich Liubimov, a senior figure in the party's literary corps. Liubimov is described by Ivinskaya as "a shrewd and enlightened individual who knew full well that all the mudsling and commotion over the book would be forgotten, but that there will always be a Pasternak." Pasternak said to have finished translating one of Calderon's plays in less than a week in a letter sent to his sisters in Oxford, England.

Pasternak began writing The Blind Beauty, a trilogy of stage performances set before and after Alexander II's abolition of serfdom in Russia in the summer of 1959. Pasternak praised the play's plot and characters in an interview with Olga Carlisle of The Paris Review. He told Olga Carlisle that he wanted to illustrate "the beginning of an educated and affluent middle class, open to occidental influences, progressive, intelligent, and artistic." Despite this, Pasternak became ill with terminal lung cancer before he could complete the first play in the trilogy.

Pasternak's last poem, "Unique Days," was the last one he wrote.

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