Born February 10, 1890 in Moscow. Father - Leonid Osipovich (Isaak Iosifovich) Pasternak, artist. Mother - Rosalia Isidorovna Kaufman (1868-1939). He graduated with honors from the Moscow Conservatory at the rate of the Faculty of Composition. In 1912 he graduated from Moscow University. In 1922 he married the artist Evgenia Lurie. Divorced, he married Zinaida Neuhaus in 1932. Since 1948 he lived with Olga Ivinskaya. Had two sons. In 1958 he received the Nobel Prize. He was repeatedly harassed by the authorities. He died on May 30, 1960 in Peredelkino, Moscow Region, at the age of 70. He was buried at the Peredelkino cemetery. Main works: "Doctor Zhivago", "Childhood Luvers", "It's snowing", "Learn to forgive", "On early trains", " Golden autumn" other.

Brief biography (detailed)

Boris Leonidovich Pasternak is one of the most famous poets of the 20th century, an outstanding Russian writer and Nobel Prize winner in literature. The writer was born on February 10, 1890 in Moscow into a creative Jewish family. The writer's father was an artist, and his mother was a pianist. The Pasternak family made friends with such famous artists as I. Levitan, S. Ivanov, N. Ge. Musicians and writers also visited their house, among them L. Tolstoy, S. Rachmaninov, A. Scriabin and others.

Boris Pasternak received his education at the 5th Moscow gymnasium, and then, having graduated from it with a gold medal, he entered the law faculty of Moscow University. While studying philosophy, he went to lectures at European universities. In addition to philosophy, he was strongly fascinated by music. Under the influence of the composer Scriabin, he studied it for several years. Pasternak's first poems were published in 1913 in the collection Lyrics. Then his first collection "Twin in the Clouds" appeared. The writer became widely known only after the revolution, when the book “My Sister Life” was published.

In the 1920s, the writer was a member of the LEF literary circle, which included Mayakovsky, Brik, Aseev. During these years, he published the collection Themes and Variations, and also created the poems Year 905 and Lieutenant Schmidt. In 1931 the poet went to Georgia. His impressions of the Caucasus were expressed in the poems of the "Waves" cycle. In the 1930s, the writer paid much attention to translations of the works of Shakespeare, Goethe, Rilke and other prominent writers. On the eve of the war, he wrote a cycle of poems "Peredelkino". During the war years, the poet wrote mainly patriotic lyrics.

The famous novel "Doctor Zhivago" Pasternak wrote over the years and completed in the late 1950s. For this work, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1958. At home, the novel caused sharp criticism and was banned for publication, and the author himself was expelled from the Writers' Union. In Russia, the novel was published only in 1988 in the journal New world". The last book of Pasternak's poems was published in the late 1950s and was called "When it clears up." The writer died of a serious illness on May 30, 1960 in the Moscow region.

One of the most outstanding, talented writers Silver Age, Russian poet and writer, Nobel Prize winner. And although by modern standards he wrote not so many works, and they all fit into one large volume, but this in no way diminishes his contribution to the treasury of twentieth-century literature.
The future outstanding poet and writer B. O. Pasternak was born on January 29 (February 10), 1890 in Moscow, in an intelligent Jewish family. His parents were gifted creative people. His father was a famous impressionist painter, his mother was a talented pianist. Parents often hosted prominent figures of art and Russian culture at their homes. Famous musicians, writers, artists were frequent guests in their house. Therefore, the future poet Boris Pasternak from early childhood lived in an atmosphere of creativity and accepted reality through the prism of culture, communicating with sophisticated and educated people. It was in the family circle that he met a close friend of his parents, composer A.N. Scriabin. Yielding to the influence of such a famous musician, the young man became interested in music, trying to compose works. The future poet devoted six years to this occupation. But over time, he realizes that music is less interesting to him than poetry. And the young man devotes all his strength and free time to literary pursuits.
B. Pasternak received his first education at the Fifth Moscow Gymnasium, where he entered in 1905. After graduating from the gymnasium with a gold medal, in 1908 he continued his studies already at Moscow University, I plan to continue to engage in jurisprudence. But a year later, in 1909, he was transferred to the philosophical department of the Faculty of History and Philology. It was at this time that his first timid poetic experiments, published in the collection "Lyrics" in 1913, fall. It is followed by the collection "Twin in the Clouds". A year before graduation, Pasternak went to Marburg to listen to a course of lectures by the famous German philosopher G. Kogan. Returning to Moscow, he realizes that philosophy no longer attracts him as before. Therefore, after graduating from the university, the young man devotes himself entirely to creativity, which becomes the work of his entire subsequent life.

Despite early creative experiences, published poems, real fame came to B. Pasternak after the 1917 revolution. In 1922, the book "My Sister - Life" was published, which the author himself considered his first real poetic success. In the period from 1916 to 1927, the poet was in various creative unions: the poetic group Lyrica, the futuristic group Centrifuge, and the literary association LEF. But due to his character and outlook on life, Pasternak was independent of the influence of various literary movements and groups, and subsequently did not join any circles. In 1923, a collection of poems "Themes and Variations" was published, and in 1925 work began on a partially autobiographical collection "Spektorsky".
In 1931, Boris Pasternak left for Georgia, where, under the influence of the majestic nature of the Caucasus, the poetic cycle "Waves" was born. At the same time, the poet is engaged in translations of works by famous foreign authors, which is what he earns mainly for his living. It was in the 1930s that the poet received public recognition and enjoyed the favor of the Soviet authorities. At this time, his book "The Second Birth" appears, written in the spirit of the era. However, already closer to the 40s, the authorities were changing their attitude towards Pasternak. He is accused of insufficient compliance with the spirit of the times, propaganda of a decadent mood.
In the period from 1945 to 1955, the famous novel by B. Pasternak "Doctor Zhivago" was created. However, at home, he was not understood and accepted, and Pasternak had to publish his work in Italy, in 1957. The author was expelled from the Union of Writers of the USSR, was harassed and ridiculed in every possible way, even accused of betrayal. The peak of discontent and condemnation came in 1957, when B. Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for this novel. It was persecution and misunderstanding that caused a nervous breakdown, and in 1960 the death of the writer.

“I was born in Moscow on January 29, according to the old style of 1890. He owes much, if not all, to his father, academician of painting Leonid Osipovich Pasternak, and to his mother, an excellent pianist, ”this is how Boris Pasternak’s brief autobiographical note of 1922 begins.

Artists, musicians, writers - Pasternak (years of life - 1890-1960) got used to such an environment from childhood. Russian and world culture was a home for his soul, it saved him from despair in the most terrible years. He had to go through a lot, but, according to the memoirs of many contemporaries, he was a happy and free man.

The future writer and poet did not immediately find his calling. According to L. O. Pasternak, dissatisfied with his throwing and the final choice of profession, Boris had the talent of a painter and "could become an artist if he worked." The famous composer A. N. Scriabin highly appreciated his musical abilities, especially his talent as a composer and improviser. In a letter to his friend K. Locks, Pasternak called the break with music and the rejection of the musician's fate "an amputation, the taking away of the most vital part of existence."

In the summer of 1912, while a student at the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University, Pasternak went to Marburg to study with the famous philosopher G. Cohen. However, despite the fact that, according to teachers, he showed extraordinary abilities, the future poet left "philosophy". In his autobiographical essay "Protective Letter", he explained this decision by rejected love and wrote that "all love is a transition to a new faith." Pasternak became a poet.

This most important moment of his spiritual biography is captured in the poem " marburg ” and called the “second birth”. The lyrical hero, experiencing the rejection of his beloved, learns to live again, gains new vision through suffering. He looks at the world as if in a mirror, and everywhere he sees reflections, “likenesses” of his state of mind, and love becomes the “precursor” of creativity.

Admired by the scale of Mayakovsky's talent and personality, and noticing some similarities between his poems and his own, Pasternak dramatically changes his style. Trying to find your style and your place in fiction the poet briefly became a member of the futuristic group "Centrifuga" and at one time "played group discipline", "sacrificed her taste and conscience", as stated in the "Certificate of Conduct". The unwillingness to "sacrifice face for the sake of position" in 1927 led B. Pasternak to break with the LEF.

Big changes take place in his poetic world in 1940, dividing his "early" and "late" work. The first period includes books of poems " twin in the clouds"(1914)," Over the barriers"(1917)," My sister is life"(1922)," Themes and variations"(1923)," Second birth"(1932); original prose (" Childhood Lover s”, 1922; " Certificate of protection", 1931, etc.), poems" high sickness"(1924)," year nine hundred and five"(1927)," Lieutenant Schmidt" (1927), a novel in verse " Spektorsky» (1924 - 1930) - most of created by him, the fruits of twenty-five years of labor.

Dissatisfaction with himself often prompted the poet to edit and even rewrite his early works. Such a radical revision was subjected, in particular, to his first, "immature" book " twin in the clouds". From it, Pasternak selected and substantially revised only eleven poems for the cycle “ Start time”, opening many of his collections and collected works. Among them are the famous (precisely in the later edition) poems “February. Get ink and cry...”, “Like a bronze brazier...”, “Venice”, “Feasts”, “I grew up. Me, like Ganymede..." and others. The myth of Ganymede, ascended to heaven by Zeus the Eagle, symbolizes the transition from childhood to youth, spiritual and creative growth.

Each of Pasternak's subsequent poetic books is new stage his creativity. In itself, the poem in his eyes was of no value and acquired the right to exist only in the context. In this, Pasternak consciously followed the tradition of the Symbolists. Among his collections, one should especially highlight the books of poems " My sister is life" (1922) and " Second birth"(1932).

"My sister is life"

“My sister is life” testified to the creative maturity of the poet and brought him fame. Pasternak retained a special relationship to this book for the rest of his life. The book is dedicated to Lermontov. Composed for the most part of poems from 1917, it is subtitled "Summer 1917"; in a letter to M. Tsvetaeva, Pasternak called this time "the summer of freedom." For Pasternak himself, it was a summer of love and unfulfilled hopes for happiness. The feeling of universal spirituality and anxious expectations fills the book.

The pathos of "My sister - life" - in unity with the world, harmony with the Universe - both in happiness and in suffering. In this sense, the love plot, which reflected the poet's trips to his beloved in the south of Russia, and even more so the political vicissitudes fade into the background. Plants: willows, willows, celandine symbolize the kinship of man with the entire universe, aphoristically expressed by the title of the entire book. Poetic creativity is interpreted by Pasternak as "the voice of life that sounds in us."

The book still strikes with the freshness and novelty of the vision of the world, with an unprecedented expansion of the poetic vocabulary: the poet “nothing is small”, creating his poetic universe, he admiringly imitates the one “Who is immersed in the decoration of a maple leaf”, about whom he writes: “The almighty god of details , / The almighty god of love, ”- unusual syntax, rhythmic looseness, fresh rhymes, sudden transparent aphorisms in a chaotic stream of images.

"Second birth"

The book of poems "The Second Birth" appeared after a rather long break. In the 1920s, the feeling of "uselessness", the untimeliness of the lyrics prompted Boris Pasternak to create lyrical epic genres: he writes poems and a novel in verse.

In The Second Birth, his poetry takes on a new breath. It was connected both with the desire to see the creation of a new harmonious world order in the construction of socialism, and with an inspiring trip to Georgia, where he met the Georgian poets T. Tabidze, P. Yashvili, S. Chikovani, and with love for Zinaida Neuhaus, who dramatically changed his life. As in "My Sister - Life", all this is experienced in unity. The collection organically coexists with masterpieces of love lyrics ("There will be no one in the house ...", "To love others - heavy cross...", the second "Ballad", etc.) - and the imitation of Pushkin's "Stans" - "More than a century - not yesterday ...", a response to Mayakovsky's suicide "Death of a Poet", tragically enthusiastic "Summer", from which follows that only a high communion of souls gives a breath of air in the suffocating atmosphere of the epoch. The poem "The Waves" with which "The Second Birth" opens is a kind of poetic prospectus for the book.

Early creativity, which certainly had the right to exist, was assessed by the poet himself as "immature", not "resting", and for this reason less perfect. Although in other letters the poet made an exception for the best early poems (“February. Get ink and cry ...”, “There was a matinee, jaw cramped ...”), recognized “fresh notes” in “My Sister - Life”, compared work on the novel "Doctor Zhivago" with the "days around" this book of poems and the time of writing "Childhood Luvers" and "Certificate of Conduct".

1940-50s

Under the sign of the search for "unheard of simplicity" passed the second half of the creative path of Boris Pasternak - 1940-1950s. During this period, books of poems were written On early trains" (1943) and " When it roams"(1956-1959, not published during the life of the poet), the second autobiographical essay -" People and positions» (1956). For the sake of daily bread, Pasternak had to do a lot of translations, in particular, he translated Goethe's Faust, several Shakespeare's plays, including the tragedy Hamlet. But the main work of this period, and according to the poet, and of his whole life was the novel " Doctor Zhivago».
One of the first examples of the new style, Pasternak considered the pre-war cycle " Peredelkino included in the book On early trains". The source of images and inspiration in it was simple life on earth, harmoniously built in accordance with natural rhythms, ordinary people, to whom a person of an “artistic fold” is always drawn, everyday conversations, the “prose” of language and life.

The researchers pointed to the spiritual reasons for the dramatic change in the style of an already mature artist. In one of the articles about Pasternak, V. Veidl noted the far from accidental opposition of simplicity to complexity, realism to romanticism, modesty to the spectacularity of a biography, “inconspicuous” style to a brilliant and pretentious style. “Only religion heals art from the religion of art that cripples art,” the critic wrote aphoristically. Actually, Pasternak frankly wrote about this spiritual and creative revolution in the poem "Dawn".

"War Poems"

All this manifested itself even before the start of work on Doctor Zhivago. In Pasternak's cycle War Poems”, placed in the book “On Early Trains” (1943), the national color, the feeling of Russia is enhanced, Christian motives sound, a philosophical and religious approach to the assessment of historical events is developed, which is so consistently carried out in the novel. At the end of the poem "The Death of a Sapper" the gospel idea of ​​life as a sacrifice sounds. In one of best poems cycle - "Winter is approaching" - Russia is called a "magic book", on its provincial houses "it is written:" Conquer this".
The deepest meaning of the Great Patriotic War in the understanding of Pasternak is that it restored the broken connection of times, gave a sense of the continuity of the historical path of Russia.

"Doctor Zhivago"

Work on the novel Doctor Zhivago"began immediately after the war, on a wave of enthusiasm and lasted about ten years (1946-1955). She brought the poet a sense of happiness and the fullness of existence. Having finally decided in the novel "to negotiate everything to the end", he was ready to sacrifice a lot for the sake of his main book. Pasternak's correspondence of these years can be read as the history of the creation of the novel, as an exciting commentary on it.

Great prose becomes a "justification" not only for the 17th part of the second book of the novel - the cycle "Poems of Yuri Zhivago", but for all of Pasternak's poetry. A letter to D. Maksimov (October 25, 1957) contains a striking admission that “by chance, without premeditated intent” the poet managed to convey in the novel the spirit of all his poetic books, as well as (we will add) prose, poems and even translations. “Doctor Zhivago” sums up his path and puts everything in its place: “Everything is unraveled, everything is named, simply, transparently, sadly” (from a letter from B. Pasternak to N. Tabidze).

In the text of the novel, one can find echoes of various books by Pasternak: the chronicle poem “The Nine Hundred and Fifth Year”, which so delighted V. Shalamov, the poem “Lieutenant Schmidt”, the hero of which is a Russian intellectual, guided in his actions and decisions by the gospel idea of ​​“life as a victim ".

In "Doctor Zhivago" Ancient Rome opposed to a new era in the history of mankind - Christianity. Pagan Rome is described by one of the heroes of the novel, Nikolai Nikolayevich Vedenyapin, as a kingdom of complete depersonalization, painful for a person and requiring human sacrifice. The poetic spirit of "My sister - life" reigns on the pages of the novel dedicated to the summer of 1917 and the acquaintance of Yuri Zhivago and Lara. Stars, night sounds and summer smells of flowering plants involuntarily evoke the poems “Stars in Summer”, “Sample”, “Balashov”, “Summer”, etc. "Thunderstorm, instant forever." Looking for her husband at the front, Lara becomes a sister of mercy and, like the heroine of My Sister - Life, organizes zemstvos in volosts.

The connection between the novel and Pasternak's translations is undeniable. At one time he even thought of naming his novel The Experience of Russian Faust. The first of the "Poems of Yuri Zhivago" is called "Hamlet". Pasternak's hero - a "thinking hero", according to V. Shalamov's definition - is a rarity in modern Doctor Zhivago literature. His “Hamletism” is in the desire to comprehend the events of history and his life on a spiritual level, to guess and fulfill his destiny, and not at all in “passivity”, as they wrote in Soviet time. Hamlet's monologue "To be or not to be", according to Pasternak, "by the power of feeling rises to the bitterness of the Gethsemane note."

The lyrical hero of the poem "Hamlet", such a many-sided hero of Shakespeare's tragedy - an actor on the stage in the role of Hamlet - Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane - the fictional author of the poem Yuri Zhivago - its real author Boris Pasternak - is the hero of the "drama of duty and self-denial", ready to "create the will of him who sent him.

And finally, the last book of poems " When it roams”, written mainly after the end of the novel, is undoubtedly associated with him. In it, Pasternak sums up his life, he is happy to state that he fulfilled his destiny.

Poems "Nobel Prize" and " God's world» are directly related to scandalous story publication of the novel, which was given to the Italian publisher Feltrinelli, was published abroad in 1958 and instantly became a world bestseller. Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize. This caused a fierce persecution of the poet at home. However, the success of the main work, extensive correspondence, as if opening the doors to huge world, outweighed the flurry of offensive publications, the betrayal of friends and acquaintances. The publication of the novel "Doctor Zhivago" was, according to Pasternak, a strong-willed conclusion to fate, from his point of view, too prosperous for that time.

Russian Literature of the Silver Age

Boris Leonidovich Pasternak

Biography

PASTERNAK, BORIS LEONIDOVICH (1890−1960), Russian poet, prose writer, translator. Born February 10, 1890 in Moscow.

It all started with music. And painting. The mother of the future poet, Rosalia Isidorovna Kaufman, was a wonderful pianist, a student of Anton Rubinstein. Father - Leonid Osipovich Pasternak, a famous artist who illustrated the works of Leo Tolstoy, with whom he was close friends.

The spirit of creativity lived in the Pasternak apartment as the main, idolized member of the family. Home concerts were often held here with the participation of Alexander Scriabin, whom Boris adored. “More than anything in the world I loved music, most of all in it - Scriabin,” he later recalled. The boy was predicted a career as a musician. Even at the time of studying at the gymnasium, he took a 6-year course in the composition department of the conservatory, but ... In 1908, Boris left music - for the sake of philosophy. He could not forgive himself for the lack of an absolute ear for music.

The young man entered the philosophical department of the historical and philological faculty of Moscow University. In the spring of 1912, with the money saved up by his mother, he went to continue his studies in german city Marburg is the center of contemporary philosophical thought. “This is some kind of dull tension of the archaic. And this tension creates everything: twilight, fragrant gardens, tidy solitude of noon, foggy evenings. History becomes land here, ”Pasternak described the city he loved forever in one of his letters to his homeland.

The head of the Marburg school of neo-Kantian philosophers, Hermann Cohen, invited Pasternak to stay in Germany to receive his doctorate. The career of the philosopher was as successful as possible. However, this beginning was not destined to materialize. For the first time, a young man seriously falls in love with his former student Ida Vysotskaya, who came with her sister to Marburg to visit Pasternak. Poetry takes over his whole being.

I winced. I lit up and went out.

I'm shaking. I made an offer now -

But it's too late, I dreil, and here I am - a refusal.

What a pity for her tears! I am a blessed saint.

I went out to the square. I could be counted

Secondary born. Every little

She lived and, without putting me in anything,

In her parting meaning she rose.

(Marburg)

Poems came before, but only now their airy element surged so powerfully, irresistibly, avidly, that it became impossible to resist it. Later, in the autobiographical story The Letter of Protection (1930), the poet tried to justify his choice, and at the same time to define this element that had taken possession of him - through the prism of philosophy: “We cease to recognize reality. She appears in some new category. This category seems to us its own, and not our condition. In addition to this state, everything in the world is named. It is not named and only it is new. We are trying to name it. It's art."

Upon his return to Moscow, Pasternak enters literary circles; in the almanac Lyric, for the first time, several poems that were not republished by him were published for the first time. Together with Nikolai Aseev and Sergei Bobrov, the poet organizes a group of new or "moderate" futurists - "Centrifuge".

In 1914, Pasternak's first book of poems, Twin in the Clouds, was published. The title was, in the words of the author, "foolishly pretentious" and chosen "out of imitation of the cosmological sophistication that distinguished the book titles of the Symbolists and the names of their publishing houses." Many of the poems of this book, as well as the next (Over the Barriers, 1917) books, the poet subsequently significantly revised, others he never republished.

In the same year, 1914, he met Vladimir Mayakovsky, who was destined to play a huge role in the fate and work of the early Pasternak: “Art was called a tragedy,” he wrote in the Safeguard. - The tragedy was called Vladimir Mayakovsky. The title concealed the ingeniously simple discovery that the poet is not the author, but is the subject of a lyric, addressing the world in the first person.

"Time and community of influences" - that's what determined the relationship of the two poets. It was the similarity of tastes and predilections, growing into dependence, that inevitably pushed Pasternak to search for his own intonation, his own view of the world.

Marina Tsvetaeva, who dedicated an article to Pasternak and Mayakovsky Epos and lyrics modern Russia(1933), defined the difference between their poetics with a line from Tyutchev: "Everything is in me and I am in everything." If Vladimir Mayakovsky, she wrote, is “I am in everything,” then Boris Pasternak is certainly “everything in me.”

The real "face of a non-general expression" was found in the third book in a row - My Sister - Life (1922). It is no coincidence that Pasternak counted his poetic work from her. The book included poems and cycles of 1917 and was, like the year of their creation, truly revolutionary - but in a different, poetic sense of the word:

This is a cool pouring whistle,

This is the clicking of crushed ice floes,

This is the night chilling the leaf

This is a duel between two nightingales.

(Definition of poetry)

Everything in these verses was new. Attitude to nature - as if from within, on behalf of nature. Attitude to metaphor, pushing the boundaries of the described subject - sometimes to the immensity. Attitude towards the beloved woman who… came in with a chair, / Like from a shelf, my life got out / And blew the dust.

Like the “dusty life” in these lines, all natural phenomena are endowed in Pasternak’s work with qualities that are not characteristic of them: thunderstorm, dawn, wind are humanized; dressing table, mirror, washstand come to life - the world is ruled by the "almighty god of details":

A huge garden is hovering in the hall,

Raises a fist to the dressing table,

Runs on a swing, catches, salit,

Shakes - and does not break glass!

(Mirror)

“The action of Pasternak is equal to the action of sleep,” wrote Tsvetaeva. We don't understand him. We get into it. We fall under it. We fall into it ... We understand Pasternak the way animals understand us. Any little thing is communicated with a powerful poetic charge, every third-party object experiences the attraction of Pasternak's orbit. This is "everything in me".

The emotional stream of My Sister - Life, a lyrical novel unique in Russian literature, was picked up by Pasternak's next book Themes and Variations (1923). Picked up and multiplied:

I do not hold. Go do good.

Go to others. Already written Werther,

And today the air smells of death:

Open a window that open the veins.

(Break)

Meanwhile, the era made its cruel demands on literature - Pasternak's "abstruse", "obscure" lyrics were not honored. Trying to comprehend the course of history from the point of view of the socialist revolution, Pasternak turns to the epic - in the 20s he creates poems High Illness (1923-1928), Nine Hundred and Fifth Year (1925-1926), Lieutenant Schmidt (1926-1927), a novel in poetry Spektorsky (1925−1931). “I believe that the epic is inspired by time, and therefore ... I turn from lyrical thinking to epic, although this is very difficult,” the poet wrote in 1927.

Along with Mayakovsky, Aseev, Kamensky, during these years Pasternak was a member of the LEF (“Left Front of the Arts”), which proclaimed the creation of a new revolutionary art, “life-building art”, which should fulfill the “social order”, bring literature to the masses. Hence the appeal to the theme of the first Russian revolution in the poems of Lieutenant Schmidt, Nine Hundred and Fifth Year, hence the appeal to the figure of a contemporary, an ordinary "man without merit", who involuntarily became a witness to the last Russian revolution, a participant in great Stories- in the novel Spektorsky. However, even where the poet assumes the role of narrator, one can feel the free, unrestricted by any forms breathing of the lyricist:

That was the twenty-fourth year. December

Hardened, ground to the display window.

And went cold, like an imprint of a copper

On the tumor, warm and unsteady.

(Spektorsky)

Accustomed to be guided by the rightness of feelings, Pasternak hardly succeeds in the role of a "modern" and "timely" poet. In 1927 he leaves the LEF. He is disgusted by the society of "people of fictitious reputations and false unjustified claims" (and there were enough such figures among Mayakovsky's inner circle); in addition, Pasternak is less and less satisfied with the installation of the Lefites "art is for the topic of the day."

In the early 1930s, his poetry experienced a “second birth”. A book with this title was published in 1932. Pasternak again sings of simple and earthly things: “the vastness of the apartment, which brings sadness”, “a winter day in a through opening of uncurtained curtains”, “a shrill and ivory cry”, “our daily immortality” ... However, his language becomes different: the syntax is simplified, the thought crystallizes, finding support in simple and capacious formulas, as a rule, coinciding with the boundaries of a poetic line. The poet radically reconsiders early work, considering it "a strange mixture of obsolete metaphysics and fledgling enlightenment." At the end of his life, he divided everything that he had done into the period “before 1940” and after. Describing the first in the essay People and Situations (1956-1957), Pasternak wrote: “My hearing was then spoiled by the tricks and breaking of everything familiar that reigned around. Everything normally said bounced off me. I forgot that the words themselves can conclude and mean something, in addition to the trinkets with which they were hung ... I was looking for not essence, but extraneous sharpness in everything. However, already in 1931, Pasternak understands that: There are in the experience of great poets Features of the naturalness of that What is impossible, having experienced them, Do not end up with complete dumbness. In kinship with everything that exists, being sure, And knowing the future in everyday life, It is impossible not to fall by the end, as into heresy, In unheard-of simplicity. (Waves) “The features of the naturalness of that one” in the Second Birth are so obvious that they become synonymous with absolute independence, which takes the poet beyond the framework of any establishments and rules. And the rules of the game in the 30s were such that it became impossible to work normally and at the same time stay away from the “great construction site”. Pasternak was hardly printed during these years. Having settled in 1936 at a dacha in Peredelkino, in order to feed his family, he was forced to translate. Shakespeare's tragedies, Goethe's Faust, Schiller's Maria Stuart, poems by Verlaine, Byron, Keats, Rilke, Georgian poets... These works entered literature on an equal footing with his original work. During the war years, in addition to translations, Pasternak created the War Poems cycle, included in the book On Early Trains (1943). After the war, he published two more books of poetry: Terrestrial Space (1945) and Selected Poems and Poems (1945). In the years 1930-1940, Pasternak did not get tired of dreaming about real great prose, about a book that "is a cubic piece of a hot, smoking conscience." Back in the late 10s, he began to write a novel, which, without being completed, became the story of Childhood Luvers - the story of the growing up of a teenage girl. The story received critical acclaim. The poet Mikhail Kuzmin even put it above Pasternak's poetry, and Marina Tsvetaeva called the story "genius". And now, from 1945 to 1955, in agony, not being written - the novel Doctor Zhivago is born, in many respects an autobiographical narrative about the fate of the Russian intelligentsia in the first half of the 20th century, especially in the years civil war. The main character - Yuri Zhivago - is the lyrical hero of the poet Boris Pasternak; he is a doctor, but after his death, a thin book of poems remains, which constituted the final part of the novel. Poems by Yuri Zhivago, along with later poems from the cycle When it clears up (1956-1959) - the crown of Pasternak's work, his testament. Their style is simple and transparent, but this is not at all poorer than the language early books: The snow on the eyelashes is wet, There is longing in your eyes, And your whole appearance is harmonious From one piece. As if with iron, Soaked in antimony, You were led with a cut Through my heart. (Date) The poet strove for this chiselled clarity all his life. His hero, Yuri Zhivago, is also preoccupied with the same search in art: “All his life he dreamed of originality, smoothed and muffled, outwardly unrecognizable and hidden under the cover of a commonly used and familiar form, all his life he strove to develop that restrained, unpretentious style, in which the reader and listeners master the content without noticing how they learn it. All his life he cared about an inconspicuous style that did not attract anyone's attention, and was horrified at how far he was from this ideal. In 1956, Pasternak submitted the novel to several magazines and to Goslitizdat. In the same year, Doctor Zhivago found himself in the West and a year later was released in Italian. A year later, the novel was published in Holland - this time in Russian. At home, the atmosphere around the author was heating up. On August 20, 1957, Pasternak wrote to the then party ideologist D. Polikarpov: “If the truth that I know must be redeemed by suffering, this is not new, and I am ready to accept anyone.” In 1958, Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize - "for outstanding services in modern lyric poetry and in the traditional field of great Russian prose." From that moment, the persecution of the writer at the state level began. The verdict of the party leadership read: "Awarding an award for an artistically miserable, vicious work filled with hatred of socialism is a hostile political act directed against the Soviet state." Pasternak was expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers, which meant literary and social death. The poet was forced to refuse the honorary award. Doctor Zhivago was published in Russia only in 1988, almost 30 years after the author's death on May 30, 1960 in Peredelkino. Putting an end to the novel, Pasternak summed up his life: “Everything is unraveled, everything is named, simple, transparent, sad. Once again... definitions are given to the dearest and most important, earth and sky, a great hot feeling, the spirit of creativity, life and death...”.

Pasternak Boris Leonidovich was born on February 10, 1890 in Moscow. Father, L. O. Pasternak, was a famous artist, and his mother, R. I. Kaufman, played the piano professionally. Boris's father closely communicated and collaborated with Leo Tolstoy, illustrating the works of the writer. Concerts by Alexander Scriabin were often held in the family. In parallel with his studies at the gymnasium, he studied the craft of composition at the 6-year course of the conservatory.

Knowing that he did not have an absolute ear for music, in 1908 he decided to receive a philosophical education at the Faculty of History and Philology at Moscow University. He left for Germany in 1912 to continue his studies in the city of Marburg, where later Hermann Cohen, the head of the school of neo-Kantian philosophers, invited Pasternak to receive the title of Doctor of Science. But he falls in love with Ida Vysotskaya, his former student, and returns to Moscow.

The first publications of Pasternak's poems took place in the almanac "Lyric". He takes part in the creation of the group of neo-futurists "Centrifuga". The first collection of poetry "Twin in the Clouds" was presented to readers in 1914. But Pasternak considered the beginning of his creative career only the third book, My Sister is Life (1922). In the 1920s trying to write poetry. In 1927 he joined the "Left Front of the Arts" (LEF), which was engaged in the distribution of literature among the common people, but before the end of the year refuses membership.

In the 30s. it was necessary to write necessarily about communism, so Pasternak practically did not publish. In 1936 he went to his dacha in Peredelkino and began translating works of foreign writers into Russian for money. During the Second World War, he wrote a collection of poems "On Early Trains" (1943), and at the end of it - "Earthly Space" and "Selected Poems and Poems". Since 1945, for 10 years, Pasternak has been writing the novel Doctor Zhivago. In 1956, the novel was published in several magazines and in the Goslitizdat publishing house. This novel is also published in the West, and a year later it is translated into Italian language. In 1957, the Russian version of Doctor Zhivago was published in Holland. In the Soviet Union, Doctor Zhivago was published in 1988, 30 years after the poet's death.

Artworks

Childhood Luvers Doctor Zhivago

Boris Pasternak was born in a Jewish family in Moscow in 1890. The family of the future poet has been attached to art for more than one generation. Boris's parents were creative people and instilled a love for art in their children. Famous and gifted artists and writers who were close friends with each other were frequent guests at the Pasternak estate. The first choice of the life path for the writer was music. For more than six years, the young composer and musician has been enthusiastically studying and composing musical works. In 1900, he was refused admission to the 5th Moscow Gymnasium due to the large enrollment of students. This incident was resolved by the directorate itself, which, having seen a gifted young man, came to the decision to enroll him in a senior course in a year. In 1903, the poet suffered a serious leg injury, which left him with a limp for life. In 1908, Pasternak graduated from the gymnasium with honors with excellent marks in all areas.

Youth

Next item on the agenda young man became the Moscow Conservatory. He managed to enter the faculty of training composers he chose the first time. Despite the fact that everything turned out for the best, Boris was not satisfied with the current state of affairs, and after consulting with the professor, he changed the faculty to philology. Pasternak was a gifted man in everything he undertook, so he had no difficulty in reaching philological heights. During this period, he actively composes poetry and practices writing short stories. Shortly before graduation, Pasternak visited Venice with his family. This beautiful city inspired him to write poetry and to declare his love to Ida Vysotskaya. If everything went well with poetry, then in love affairs the young man suffered a crushing fiasco. In 1912, after graduating from the university, Pasternak did not even take his diploma, considering it a waste of time.

First steps into the world of literature

From that moment in his life, Pasternak began to be active in literary circles. Entering various literary communities and maintaining good relations with young and long-established authors, he gradually merges into the general atmosphere. In 1913, an important event took place for Boris' writing career, some of the poems he wrote were published in the collection "Lyrics". Gradually, beginning to realize himself as a writer, the young man publishes more and more of his works, gaining the respect and attention of the public. In 1916, having visited the Urals, he published "Above the Barriers". Two years later, the entire poet's family, for personal reasons, was forced to go to live in Berlin. Maintaining an active correspondence with his relatives, the writer meets many emigrants, including writers. In 1922, the poet's loneliness ended, and he married Evgenia Lurie. A year later, the couple had a son, Eugene, and the couple went to visit Pasternak's parents in Berlin.

Golden period in creativity

With the beginning of the 20s, the work of Boris Leonidovich began to be actively supported by the highest circles of Soviet society. "Safety" autobiographical notes that were in development for a long period of the poet's life were finally completed. In the early 1930s, Pasternak was recognized as the best poet of the USSR, but unfortunately no official documents on this subject were issued. In 1931, the writer dissolves his marriage and releases The Second Birth. In the same period, he met Z.N. Neuhaus, whom he instantly fell in love with. A year later, the couple legalized their relationship and went on a trip to Georgia. Seven years later, the couple had their first joint child, a son named Leonid. In 1935, the poet attended a congress of writers in defense of peace, which was held in Paris. The tense atmosphere and frequent stressful situations led to a nervous breakdown.

Rigid censorship in the USSR

Not a small contribution to the development of insomnia in the writer was made unsuccessful attempts longtime girlfriend of Pasternak, Anna Akhmatova, to rescue her son and husband from prison. During the difficult period after the war, many husbands and sons were unjustly imprisoned by the Soviet authorities. In an attempt to help his girlfriend, Pasternak writes a petition for the release of innocent people. Such active behavior that denied Soviet power led to the fact that Boris Leonidovich and all those who spoke with Anna Karenina were subjected to severe criticism and censorship and for some time were completely excluded from the press. Due to the strict limits set by the ruling power of the USSR, the poet had to spend more than one year on translations. In an attempt to provide for his family, he periodically abandoned poetry and methodically worked on difficult translations.

The beginning of the war

Since the beginning new war Pasternak, although he himself was in a rather precarious financial situation, did his best to help evacuate people from Chistopol. In 1943, the collection “On Early Trains” was released to the world, vividly describing war time and conveying the whole palette of emotions experienced by heartbroken people. In 1946, the poet met with Olga Ivinskaya, who sunk into the soul of Pasternak's loving heart. However, love for his wife did not allow a divorce, and therefore Ivinskaya became the eternal "muse" for the writer. In 1952, Boris Leonidovich had his first heart attack, the long days spent in a medical institution inspired him to write the poem "In the Hospital". Three years after this gloomy incident, the writer, after ten years of work, completes the novel Doctor Zhivago. It was an unconditional breakthrough both in the work of the writer himself and in the development of literature in the USSR. It was a worldwide success, many countries published Doctor Zhivago in several editions.

Nobel Prize and aftermath

In 1958 the poet was awarded Nobel Prize, it was a huge honor, which, however, he was forced to refuse. The Soviet authorities were against such awards among the writers of the USSR, plus everything still strained relations after the help of Akhmatova, the situation did not improve. In 1959, having no other choice, Pasternak went with his missus to Georgia, which he loved dearly. In Georgia, he was always received cordially, and many friends supported his views on life. Not wanting to put up with an unfair attitude, the poet composed a very provocative verse "Nobel Prize". For such a bold attempt to defend his rights, he was brought to trial under the article “Treason to the Motherland”. However, the success and popularity that Boris Leonidovich had, very quickly reduced the litigation to zero.

Sunset of life

In 1959, the writer began work on another major novel, The Blind Beauty. His plans were ruined by the news of lung cancer, which was discovered during a simple examination by a doctor. Realizing that life was gradually leaving him, the writer confessed to his close friend E. A. Krasheninnikova. In 1960, Boris Leonidovich died in his home, many people attended his funeral, who respected his bold and unique writing work.

• Pasternak had an outstanding but strict father. He believed that the grown-up son himself should take care of his daily bread, so he practically did not help him. Mom is another matter: in 1911 she gave Boris 200 rubles so that his son could go abroad to study. The money was from lessons and years of savings on the farm. With these funds, Pasternak studied philosophy for a year at the University of Marburg.
• The novel "Doctor Zhivago" was written for ten years. In 1958, the writer was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, after which he was subjected to harassment and persecution by the Soviet government. In the USSR, until 1989, in the school curriculum on literature about the work of Boris Pasternak and in general about his existence, there was no mention.
• The writer's surname could not be Pasternak, but Posternak. This is exactly what is written in the documents of Boris's father, Leonid. By the way, by birth he is not Leonid at all. He has two names: Abram and Isaac. The latter was entered in the parish registers, the first fell into the papers of the petty-bourgeois council, and from there into the gymnasium documents.
• Back in the early 20s, the family and parents of Boris Pasternak emigrated from the USSR and settled in Berlin. Since then, he has been in correspondence with them. For the poet himself, the 20-30s were successful, poems were published and collections were produced. They even wanted to declare him "the best Soviet poet."

Awards:

• Nobel Prize in Literature (1958)
• Medal "For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic war 1941-1945"
• Medal "For the Defense of Moscow"