"for his important achievement both in contemporary lyrical poetry and in the field of the great Russian epic tradition"
Born
:
February 10 [O.S. January 29] 1890
Place of birth
:
Moscow, Russian Empire
Died
:
May 30, 1960
Place of death
:
Peredelkino, USSR
Occupation
:
Poet, Writer
Notable award(s)
:
Nobel Prize in Literature 1958
Biography:
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (Moscow Feb 10 1890 - May 30 1960). [1] Russian poet and novelist. The Swedish Academy awarded him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958.
In west Pasternak is known for his monumental tragic novel set in Soviet Russia, Doctor Zhivago, first published in Italy in 1957. Also, My Sister Life (1917) is one of his great works of poetry, literature in the area which was also highlighted. It is one of four poets that emerged in the years of Stalin's government. The other three members of this quartet are Ajmátova Anna, Marina Tsvetáyeva and Ósip Mandelstam. He was the son of the famous painter Jew, Leonid Pasternak, a professor in the School of Painting in Moscow. His father became Orthodox Judaism to Christianity. Boris's mother, Rosa Kaufman, was a famous concert pianist. Pasternak grew up in a cosmopolitan atmosphere in your home desfilaban artists of the stature of Sergei Rajmáninov, Leo Tolstoy and Rainer Maria Rilke.
The conversion of your father had a big impact on the young Boris. Many of his poems have Christian themes. He studied philosophy at the University of Marburg in Germany, along with Hermann Cohen and Nicolai Hartmann. However, he decided to renounce the philosophy as a profession. He returned to Moscow in 1914 and published his first collection of poems that year.
During World War worked at a chemical factory in the Urals; surely find material here that later would use in his novel Doctor Zhivago. The 1917 revolution marked the beginning of fame as a poet Pasternak.
He lost the protection of the Soviet authorities in the mid-30 (Great Purge); He is accused of subjectivity but managed to escape from the gulags. Since then, he earned a living by translating the classics.
The publication of Doctor Zhivago, very critical of the communist regime, led him to be persecuted by the authorities until the day of his death. The novel was not published in the Soviet Union until the year 1988.
Childhood / translation by Robert Payne – Singapura : Straits Times Press, 1941
Doctor Zhivago / translated by Max Hayward and Manya Harari – London : Pantheon, 1958
Safe Conduct : An Autobiography and Other Writings / translated by George Reavey – New York : New Directions, 1958
An Essay in Autobiography / translated by Manya Harari – London : Collins & Harvill, 1959
I Remember : Sketch for an Autobiography / translated by David Magarshack – New York : Pantheon, 1959
The Last Summer / translated by George Reavey – London : Peter Owen, 1959
Poems, 1955-1959 / translated by Michael Harari – London : Collins & Harvill, 1960
The Adolescence of Zhenya Luvers / translation by I. Langnas – New York : Philosophical Library, 1961
Sister My Life : Summer, 1917 / translation by Philip C. Flayderman – New York : Washington Square Press, 1967
Letters to Georgian Friends / translation with notes and introduction by David Magarshack – New York : Harcourt, 1968
The Blind Beauty / translated by Max Hayward and Manya Harari – New York : Harcourt, 1969
My Sister Life and Other Poems / translated by Olga Andreyev Carlisle – New York : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976
The Correspondence of Boris Pasternak and Olga Freidenberg, 1910-1954 / translated by Elliott Mossman and Margaret Wettlin – New York : Harcourt, 1982
The Zhivago Poems / translated by Barbara Everest – Huntington, W. Va. : Aegina Press, 1988
Second Nature : Forty-six Poems – London : Owen, 1990
Literature (selection):
Rowland, Mary F., Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago – Carbondale, 1967
Troickij, Nikolaj A., Boris Leonidovich Pasternak, 1890-1960 : a Bibliography of the Works of B. Pasternak and Literature About Him Printed in Russian – Ithaca, N.Y., 1969
Hingley, Ronald. Pasternak : a Biography – New York : Knopf, 1983
O'Connor, Katherine Tiernan, Boris Pasternak's My sister - Life : the Iillusion of Narrative – Ann Arbor : Ardis, 1988
Barnes, Christopher, Boris Pasternak : a literary biography Vol. 1, 1890-1928 – Cambridge : Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989
Flejšman, Lazar ’, Boris Pasternak : the Poet and His Politics – Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1990
Rudova, Larissa, Understanding Boris Pasternak – Columbia : University of South Carolina Press, 1997
Barnes, Christopher, Boris Pasternak : a Literary Biography Vol. 2, 1928-1960 – Cambridge : Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998
Witt, Susanna, Creating Creation : Readings of Pasternak's Doktor Živago – Stockholm : Almqvist och Wiksell International, 2000
Awards:
1958: Nobel Prize in Literature.
Presentation Speech:
Announcement by Anders Österling, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy.
Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen:
This year's Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded by the Swedish Academy to the Soviet-Russian writer Boris Pasternak for his notable achievement in both contemporary poetry and the field of the great Russian narrative tradition.
As is well known, Pasternak has sent word that he does not wish to accept the distinction. This refusal, of course, in no way alters the validity of the award. There remains only for the Academy, however, to announce with regret that the presentation of the Prize cannot take place.
On October 25, 1958, two days after the official communication from the Swedish Academy that Boris Pasternak had been selected as the Nobel Prize winner in literature, the Russian writer sent the following telegram to the Swedish Academy: "Immensely thankful, touched, proud, astonished, abashed." This telegram was followed, on October 29, by another one with this content: "Considering the meaning this award has been given in the society to which I belong, I must reject this undeserved prize which has been presented to me. Please do not receive my voluntary rejection with displeasure."
