Search

This article examines one of the symbolic components of the «objective world» of the novel about the writer – the image of the «book». It is noted that its use in the poetics of «Doctor Zhivago» is multifunctional. In addition to the characteristics of the artistic space, the «book» acts as a «finished object» that implements «universal and all-encompassing semantic segments» in the plot associated with cultural memory, the integrity of life and the world order. Special attention is paid to the content of the genre designation of «final book», which is applied to a number of «polymorphic» novels of the late 19th – 20th centuries and is considered in the context of «genre generalisations» in literature. The meaning of lexical components used within this genre designation is clarified. The occasional meaning «target», contained in the word «final», allows one to see in the intense self-reflection of the writer, which has a significant impact on the creative process, aspiration to cognise the «hidden essence» of things. The appeal to the goals inherent in the «ontological construction» of beings is defined in the philosophical tradition as «phenomenological reduction» (EGA Husserl), «transcending the spirit beyond its limits» (RM Garrigou-Lagrange). These processes are responsible for the retardation of the phase of the formation of the concept of the work – a phenomenon that has not yet been fully explained.

the article will focus on the history of the first publication of the novel “Doctor Zhivago” by Boris Pasternak, on its influence on the formation of opinion about Boris Pasternak as a truly major prose writer, as well as on the potential role in the further receipt of the Nobel Prize by the author in 1958. As one knows, the first publication took place in Italy. It is from Italian cultural figures Giangiacomo Feltrinelli (the first publisher of the novel) and Pietro Antonio Zveteremich (its translator) it depended on how the novel would be received abroad, where Boris Pasternak had not been well-known by the late 1957 – the Swedish Academy initially refused to nominate the writer as a Nobel laureate due to insufficient fame in wide literary circles. After the publication of “Doctor Zhivago”, it was essential to determine what the content of the first reviews of this work would be. The paper reviews the first reviews of the novel in the Italian press, in particular, the discussion that unfolded in the independent monthly magazine “Il Ponte”. Such well-known cultural figures in Italian literary circles as Guglielmo Petroni, Carlo Cassola, and Manlio Cancogni spoke out. Their opinions were not ignored, they were accepted by the general public.

The article attempts to compare the three female characters in the novel Doctor Zhivago to identify their role in the formation of the psychological image of the main character, as well as their main functions as characters in the plot structure of the novel. Distinguishing the terms “character” and “hero” as theoretical concepts, we seek to establish the complementarity of two methods: character analysis as a way of structuring the text, on the one hand, and phenomenological, which allows us to capture the uniqueness of a single hero, as well as its influence on the fate of other participants in the action. Taking into account the long-term work on Doctor Zhivago, the author of the article proceeds from the idea that along with autobiographical material in the characterization of three women – Tonya, Larisa, and Marina, B. Pasternak widely uses plot analogies with masterpieces of Russian and world literature, as well as certain allusions to biblical images. Important here is the principle of inseparability and non-confusion in the depiction of the fates of the three women in their relationship with the main character, associated with the Christian tradition. For the first time, the article introduces the essentiality– existentiality opposition to compare the main female figures. At the same time, it is important that the author, creating female images, uses a different measure of fabulousness associated with the vicissitudes in the life of the main character – the maximum in the relationship of Yuri and Lara and the minimum in relation to the hero with Marina. There is also a different degree of detail of the three images, the use of symbols in their characterization, and the symbolization as the main method of Marina’s characterization is noted. The author concludes that the outstanding Russian poet and novelist B. Pasternak shows a high degree of skill, penetrating the depths of female psychology. At the same time, while maintaining the principles of construction characteristic of the classical narrative, the writer, thanks to the special arrangement of the material, gives the novel features that bring it closer to the best examples of world literature of the twentieth century.

espanolLa adaptacion cinematografica de El doctor Zhivago se vio obligada a respetar la condicion de poeta, muy relevante en la novela, del protagonista. No obstante, las digresiones sobre poesia hubieron de suprimirse para no lastrar el ritmo del relato, por lo que el director David Lean hace algunas alusiones a lo poetico a partir del poder simbolico de la imagen para sugerir que la condicion de poeta de Zhivago tiene un peso real. EnglishThe film adaptation of Doctor Zhivago was forced to respect the poet's status, very relevant in the novel, of the protagonist. However, the digressions on poetry had to be suppressed in order not to weigh down the rhythm of the story, so director David Lean makes some allusions to the poetic based on the symbolic power of the image to suggest that Zhivago's status as a poet has a real weight.

This article presents a linguopoetic analysis of Boris Pasternak’s poem "Wind" ("Veter") from the position of the lingual embodiment of the duality of mythological worlds. This research focuses on the symbol of "the wind as a spirit", upon which the poem’s whole mystical idea relies. The purpose of this article is to reveal which the linguistic means used to translate the duality of mythological worlds, as well as how this cognition merges with the author’s experience and determines the poem’s figurative system and idea. The understanding of the duality of mythological worlds requires the law of participation (L. L vy-Bruhl) – the identification of the mental, emotional, and physical properties of a person and nature. In Pasternak’s poem, the suffering and rushing "I" of the deceased lyrical hero becomes the wind. In this study, the word-symbol "wind" is studied in the semantic and semiotic aspect as a sign. Its signifier is the lexeme wind meaning 'perceptual idea of an air flow'; signified – the symbolic meaning of 'spirit, soul, immortality', due to the etymological meaning of the word and pagan mythology. The results reveal that the symbol "wind" is the carrier of the duality of mythological worlds, and it programs the fictional world of the poem: on the one hand, these are the actual world of the lyrical heroine, the house, and the wind, which swings pine trees; on the other hand – the imaginary world of the spirit of the dead lyrical hero. The lexical resources of the poetic text translate this opposition in the ratio of the words I and wind, personal pronouns I and you, as well as the words ended and alive. At the grammatical level, the duality is expressed by the contrast of the verbal forms of the past and present time, as well as by the passage from the indirect thought (the lyrical hero’s mental monologue) to the 3rd person narrative about the wind and the pine trees and by the return of the poem to the lyrical hero’s indirect thought at the end. This is how Pasternak implements one of the main ideas of his novel "Doctor Zhivago" – the idea of immortality, which is confirmed in the article by referring to the novel’s macro context and biographical materials.

In her interviews and essays, Ulitskaya has often alluded to the great effect that Pasternak’s poetry, and especially Doctor Zhivago, has had on her. In one of the episodes of her novel The Big Green Tent, she describes a first encounter with Pasternak’s novel; the teacher of literature who plays a decisive role in the lives of the main characters reads a manuscript copy of the novel and describes it as a worthy continuation of 19th-century Russian prose.The parallels between the novels The Big Green Tent and Doctor Zhivago have al- ready been the subject of scholarly attention but the connection between Jacob’s Ladder and the Pasternak novel has not been studied so far. In this study, I examine this connec- tion: on the one hand, at the level of macrostructures, the chronotope, the patterns of the heroes’ fates and the principal thematic elements, and on the other hand, at the level of cer- tain microstructures.The latter are linked to the present-day plot of Ulitskaya’s novel and, more specifi- cally, Nora’s life. Nora reads the correspondence and notes that her grandfather left for her as well as the KGB documents about Yakov Osetsky towards the end of her life (and the plot itself). As a result of this, she wishes to write the novel that her grandfather Yakov could not due to the historical situation.The process of Nora’s confrontation with the past and her becoming a writer are coded in Ulitskaya’s text by two of the poems of the Zhivago cycle Winter Night and August and also in the related episodes of Pasternak’s novel. All of these have biographical relevance and present creation as a fundamental element of life, which is closely linked to love and death as well as metaphysical experience. The symbolic parallel of this in Zhivago’s August is the transfiguration of Jesus and “the light without a flame” that blinds the disciples. This symbolism appears in Jacob’s Ladder on two levels: first, in the stage set that Nora creates for King Lear, and second, as a concomitant of her confrontation with the past and her becoming a writer.It is in this way that the fundamental elements of Pasternak’s life and poetry play a crucial role at the level of microstructures: they provide the context and symbolism of the central question of Ulitskaya’s novel, the nature of “the essence” of the human.

The article is addressed to the problem of typological characteristics of a number of novels distinguished by a long-term, large-scale conception and genre "proteism". Conventionally referred to as the "final books", these works represent an attempt to create a "universal text" of cultural memory. Such a text is intended to reveal the "totality of being", to answer the main questions of life. Through the prism of signs of the "final book", this article examines the novel "Doctor Zhivago" by Boris Pasternak. The main attention is focused on the study of the ontological aspect of the objective, material world of the work, in particular, household objects and interior components. In descriptive fragments, the frequency lexemes "thing" and "object" are highlighted, which act as a reduced description. Their "collective" semantics creates conditional, generalised images of material and ideal objects that realize the idea of contact between the existential (sacred) and the ordinary and the idea of restoring unity (integrity). The lexeme “thing” acts as an actualiser of meanings associated with the concept of a way of life, an order of things, harmonious to a greater or lesser extent. The lexeme “object” is most often marked by the state of “ontological uncomfortableness”, “alienation” of objects of the external world from a person, which arose as a result of the disintegration of “living” connections, the absence of “contact” and decline in general. The opposition “thing-object” implements in the narrative “ready-made / code” philosophical generalisations, which are differentiated depending on situations, and it expresses the assessment of reality given by the narrator, whose worldview in many cases is extremely close to the position of the protagonist.

The article deals with the image of the prominent Moscow lawyer Victor Komarovsky, one of the most negative characters in the novel by Boris Pasternak Doctor Zhivago. We study this character in the aspect of his professional activity, within the system of characters-lawyers and characters-doubles, in terms of the textual component. Being the character present throughout the novel, driving the plot, knowing all the subtleties of Russian legislation and entrepreneurship, Komarovsky is shown primarily in relations with Lara and Yuri, whose moral superiority is unbearable for him. Two motifs – the ‘enslavement of the girl’ and the rivalry with Zhivago, which permeate the entire narrative concerning Komarovsky, are framed by episodes where other characters of lawyers reveal dishonesty of the legal adviser.In creating the character of Komarovsky, Pasternak employs a whole range of techniques such as prospection, assimilation, aposiopesis, recognition, changing points of view, the principle of juxtaposition, speech portrait, reminiscences with the character of Fyodor Dostoevsky, and anthroponyms. All these techniques are intended to unmask Komarovsky as a person who uses the image of a human rights defender in achieving personal goals not only in relations with his principals and their relatives but also with colleagues; these devices expose the professional dishonesty of Komarovsky, who was inaccessible even to higher legal bodies. Another technique that contributes to deheroization of the character is a system of duality. It allows the writer not only to demonstrate the lawyer’s conformism, paucity of his interests, non-involvement in the fate of Russia but also to show activity of Kologrivov and Samdevyatov. Scrupulous work on the character of the lawyer exposes the methods he uses: without revealing himself in any transaction, he ruins a number of largest manufacturers, contributes to the death of their families, adapts in search for ways to wield power.

This article is an analysis of the chronotope in I.A. Bunins story Cold Autumn. From the point of view of the spatio-temporal organization, this text is built quite unusually: it is clearly divided into three parts, each of which has its own characteristic. Time in the story is presented non-linearly, it flows at different speeds - the description of one evening of characters is as detailed as possible and takes two-thirds of the story, and the rest of the heroines life is only one-third. In general, the story is built retrospectively and is focused on the memories of the heroine, therefore, many dates are given indirectly. The space in the story is based on the contrast between a detailed description of the estate and the locus of the house and an abstract enumeration of the heroines multiple movements abroad. This detailed description of the events taking place in Russia and the abstraction of space and time abroad may be related to the authors personal experience: Cold Autumn which was created in exile bears the imprint of Bunins longing and nostalgia for the lost Homeland. In this study, the spatio-temporal organization of the story Cold Autumn is fitted into the context of I.A. Bunins works and is also compared with the concept of the chronotope presented by B. Pasternak in the novel Doctor Zhivago.

The article analyzes the structure of B. Pasternak’s novel Doctor Zhivago as a ‘novel about a person’, the composition of the first book is deliberately studied on the level of the parts (seven parts) and chapters (123 chapters), which allows to picture the ‘idea of the whole’ novel more distinctly.

Culture of the 20 th century worked with the opinion of masses. In the Soviet Union, experiments with new forms and styles of art were directed by the state policy in order to spread ideology. After the catastrophe of the Second World War, European intellectuals exposed the way of thinking that inspires fascism. In the Soviet Union, where culture was still closely related to ideology, this critique was maintained by talented writers who turned to the themes of history and the fate of a personality, to the motive of the value of subjective thinking as opposed to mass thinking. Boris Pasternak created Doctor Zhivago between 1945 and 1955 and published it in Europe, despite the threat of persecution, which, unfortunately, came true. On the one hand, the novel is lyrical and full of symbols, on the other hand, it offers a peculiar analysis of the philosophy of history, responding to the ethical question of the time: how to live and act in the situation of impotence of an individual in the face of historical events? The evangelic motive is incomplete, since the life of the protagonist ends with fading rather than resurrection. Victory over death is revealed in Doctor Zhivago as victory over inevitability. The evangelic history is a special space where something “redundant” in relation to the world, something new and therefore changes per se are possible. Art is a natural channel of special “soulfulness,” of the pure closeness of souls that is free of destruction (which anticipates even the most superb forms) and therefore always the opposite of death.

The article discusses the problem of a literary method that was used by B.L. Pasternak in the novel Doctor Zhivago. The author examines the relation of this method with the ideas of symbolism and post-symbolism. In the novel, symbolist motives take new forms. Pasternak establishes a “live” connection between heroes and events, which symbolize “prime causes” of the taking place events and destinies. They belong to two worlds that are not separated from each other by borders between essential levels (from the lowest to the highest). The reality of life stops being a shadow of the highest reality, but the former is penetrated by the latter. Symbols do not indicate “prime causes” and “prime senses,” but become their “live” mediums. In space of the novel there is a “Candlemas” of the reality that shows itself through symbols and the reality of life, with all its secrets and solutions, happiness and grief, absurdity and clear sense. The literary method that make possible such Candlemas can be determined as “symbolist realism.” The Candlemas does not create harmony, it leaves all contradictions not resolved, all questions – without answer, expectation – without hope. His heroes symbolize the highest realities, and at the same time they live and die. It allows the reader simultaneously to be both the contemplator of game of the highest forces (as envisioned by symbolism) and the compassionate participant of vital tragedies of heroes of the novel (as in realism). B.L. Pasternak created a genre of novel-poem that by the means of poetic prose puts and solves deep philosophical problems of the philosophy of history and philosophical anthropology.

A unique feature of Pasternak’s reception and interpretation of Cohen’s philosophical ideas consists in the fact that the poet focused mainly on the conception of ethics posed by the head of the Ma...

This article discusses the evolution of the cultural-civilizational self-identification of Russia’s greatest twentieth-century poet, Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (1890–1960), the 1958 Nobel Prize la...

For many Western readers, the name of Boris Pasternak is associated exclusively with his novel, Doctor Zhivago, which he wrote in 1946-55. This masterpiece earned the writer international recogniti...

In this article, the author examines the work of Boris Pasternak, primarily his novel Doctor Zhivago, in the context of his Marburg experience and Kantian ideas as the basis of his moral-aesthetic ...

The article deals with the intertextual relationships of the novel «Doctor Zhivago» by B. Pasternak and the treatise «Fear and Trembling» by Søren-Kierkegaard. Pasternak mentioned Kierkegaard in his works and noted his great influence on modern culture. While Pasternak was working on the novel, he used the concept of chivalry, which was an allusion to Kierkegaard. In his treatise «the Knight of Faith» is a moral model that has overcome the fetters of rational thought and broken out of the temporary boundaries. S. Kierkegaard gives his description, which is directly related to the themes and motives associated with the image of Yuri Zhivago. Both Kierkegaard and Pasternak emphasize that the heroes of the high spirit merge with the human community, they cannot be distinguished from the general population with their private existences; the authors carefully contemplate the world around them, trying to penetrate into the very essence of each phenomenon, they differ in external carelessness with the utmost tension of the inner spiritual life. In their self-denial they renounce the most beloved, precious, valuable. Their love takes the form of religious veneration, and the beloved combines the temporal and the eternal, the earthly and the divine. They transfer the pain of double existence and the pain of loss into the realm of the spiritual, the creative, and the realm of memory. In the treatment of women's images in «Doctor Zhivago» Pasternak is equally focused on both Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky, between whom, in turn, there are many similarities. The common ground between the two texts proves the presence of purposeful inter-system interaction.

313Андрич и Пастернак: два романа о творчестве...Jasmina VojvodićUniversity of Zagreb (Zagreb, Croatia)Andrić and Pasternak: Two Novels about Creativity (the problems of winter's semantics)This paper compares the poetics of two novels: The Bridge on the Drinaby Ivo Andrić and Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak. Both historical novels are “atypical” (chronicle / vita sacrum), and relate to time (linear time / overcoming of linear time; long period of time / moment) and space (Vishegrad / “throughout Russia”; statics / movement) diff erently. Both novels, however, narrate about an indestructible artistic creation that transcends all ideas of time, and about a work of art, made of stone (the bridge) or of language (poetry), which surpasses the present and creates a sense of being beyond time and in eternity. While winter and the cold in Andrić’s novel mark the end of the work on the bridge, in Pasternak’s novel winter presents a time of inspired creativity. The pa-per off ers an analysis of motifs of winter and the cold not only through climatological and geographical prisms, but also from the perspective of the game and the relationship between the warmth on the inside and the cold on the outside, through the prism of folklore and sacral elements.

The significance of the snowstorm image in B. Pasternak’s novel “Doctor Zhivago” is characterized. A comparative analysis of the positions of B. Pasternak and A. Blok in relation to the revolutionary events of 1917 and their reflection in “Doctor Zhivago” and in the poem “Twelve” is carried out. The image of Yuri Zhivago is investigated from the point of view of the type of cultural hero - the Ascetic. The characteristic is given to the image of Antipov - Strelnikov as a representative of the type of cultural hero - Conquistador.

The article raises the question of the cultural landmarks of the heroes of the novel B.L. Pasternak “Doctor Zhivago”. As is known, the plot of the work takes place at the turn of the eras, and for some heroes this becomes an incentive to think about their cultural self-determination. Their actions and behavior model are directly related to the attitude to cultural reality described in the work, and sometimes even aimed at its transformation by practical, revolutionary methods. A certain catalytic role in relation to culture is one of the criteria of a cultural hero. From this point of view, a comparative analysis of the positions of B.L. Pasternak and A.A. Blok in relation to the revolutionary events of 1917, their reflection in “Doctor Zhivago” and in the poem “Twelve” is carried out. The image of Yuri Zhivago is investigated from the point of view of the type of cultural hero - the Ascetic. The characteristic is given to the image of Antipov (Strelnikov) as a representative of the type of cultural hero - Conquistador. It has been established that Zhivago’s ascetic cultural position is based on loyalty to timeless ideals, an idea of the aesthetic potential of the Personality in relation to reality, while Antipov's (Strelnikov) actions are aimed at suppressing the individual human principle and, therefore, are devoid of a genuine creative component that nourishes the culture of mankind.

This paper analyzes problems involved in the Polish translation of proper names contained in Boris Pasternak’s novel Doctor Zhivago. Empirical material was collected from two Polish translations published in book form: by Jerzy Stempowski (Paris: Instytut Literacki 1959) and by Ewa Rojewska-Olejarczuk (Warsaw: PIW 1990). The study aimed to analyze translatorial equivalents taking into account the following criteria: consistency with the named object, informativeness of the name, and retaining the cultural ambience. The following research methods were applied: descriptive, com-parative analysis as well as functional and stylistic analysis. The comparative analysis focused on the adequacy of the applied translation methods.

Influence of classical music and composers like Scriabin is clearly visible in the syntax and phonology of Pasternak’s poetical language. His “composer’s ear” [cf. in De Mallac, 1981] – profound sense of rhythm, harmony, sound, but also silence – is traceable throughout literary language in his famous novel Doctor Zhivago, one of the greatest novels about the fall of the Imperial Russia, and the end of the monarchy in war and revolution ever written. This paper investigates some aspects of the relationship between art, violence, and revolution, i.e. between imaginary world of revolutionary and postrevolutionary (Soviet) Russia in Doctor Zhivago, and the ways in which the novel captivates those eventsthrough sounds of a crowd and city in turmoil, but even more importantly – through intense moments of silence. Departing from the premises that sounds and silence are physical states, but also aesthetic and cultural devices, the aim of this paper is to answer the following questions. What is the meaning of antithesis of sound and silence as a metaphor of “double” meaning in Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago where silence indicates violence, war, and revolution as well as contains in itself the energy of creation, creative impulse? Especially in relation to “paradoxical materiality” [Miller, 2007] of silence, where this state of complete muteness and stillness represents simultaneously emptiness – but also plentitude, weightlessness – but also heaviness, the paper analyzes the symbolism of silence in Pasternak’s novel. Is Pasternak’s profound uses of silence signifier of an amputation of Doctor Zhivago’s protagonists from the world of violent revolutionary Russia into their own, private, intimate worlds of introspection, or it is rather a signifier of their resistance against popular representation of revolution as universal political and cultural project of emancipation and freedom for all? In other words, can Pasternak’s “rhetoric of silence” in Doctor Zhivago be understood as a state of plentitude and knowing (S. Sontag), i.e. as a method of radical speech of silenced and whispering protagonists rather than of their muteness as aconsequence of their (bourgeois) laid-backness and passivity?

Today it’s hard to imagine a time when a book, an epic Russian novel, could become an artifact in America’s clandestine propaganda campaign against the Soviet Union. The book was Doctor Zhivago, th...

Este artículo pretende reflexionar sobre la fusión de música y literatura con fines docentes, desde una perspectiva puramente radiofónica, es decir, sin imágenes asociadas. A través de un nuevo género, el sono-libro, ofrecemos una nueva perspectiva de la novela de Boris Pasternak, El doctor Zhivago –con el precedente de su soberbia adaptación cinematográfca por David Lean–, desde la contextualización de una selección de textos de la novela, recitados por actores, con la música contemporánea al autor de la novela, ofreciendo así un completo friso estético, inspirado por la novela, pero enriquecido, a su vez, por una selección musical históricamente propicia This article aims to reflect on the fusion of music and literature for teaching purposes, from a purely radiophonic perspective, that is, without associated images. Through a new genre, the sono-book, we offer a new perspective on the novel by Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago –with the precedent of his superb cinematographic adaptation by David Lean–, from the contextualization of a selection of texts from the novel, recited by actors, with contemporary music to the author of the novel, thus offering a complete aesthetic frieze, inspired by the novel, but enriched, in turn, by a historically favorable musical selection.

The features of the organization of artistic time in B. L. Pasternak’s novel “Doctor Zhivago” are considered. It is noted that the time in the novel is presented in the form of three models that are correlated and mutually intersect: historical time, time as grammatical category and sacred, “biblical” time. Special attention is paid to the “biblical” time associated with religion. It is proved that the plot-compositional structure and images of Pasternak’s novel - in its prosaic and especially poetic parts - correlate with Evangelical events and the Orthodox calendar circle, the center of which is the Holy week, where every day reminds of the final events of the earthly ministration and preaching of Jesus Christ. An important element of the study is the identification of the dramatic self-perception of the lyrical “I” in the poetic Chapter of the novel, where it acquires a timeless meaning, is projected on the events of the Evangelical history and, above all, on the mystery of the sacrificial feat of Christ. In the process of analyzing the peculiarities of artistic time in the novel, it becomes obvious why references to historical facts are given in the text, as a rule, without specific dates, but in association with certain periods of the church year. It is concluded that in the novel “Doctor Zhivago” the religious perception of time, typical for the author and a number of characters, presupposes the mutual germination of life and existence, history and eternity.

This article recalls the circumstances of the first edition of the novel by Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago, in Polish translation, which appeared in 1959 in volume XLIV of the Biblioteka ‟Kultury” series, published by the Paris Literary Institute. Reconstruction of the history of this publishing initiative in the context of the political situation is possible thanks to historical sources preserved in the Paris and Warsaw archives, publications in periodicals, memoirs and epistolary culture. The circumstances in which the typescript was imported to Poland and in which the Literary Institute obtained a license for a Polish translation, the choice of translator, and Jerzy Giedroyc and Gustaw Herling-Grudziński’s correspondence are discussed. An important source of information is the lively correspondence between Maria Dąbrowska and Jerzy Stempowski, the son of a publicist and social activist, and Mason Stanisław Stempowski, a longtime life partner of the writer. The fragments of epistolary culture discussed here allow a better understanding of these outstanding individuals of the twentieth century. The content of the correspondence analyzed also allows us to reconstruct many interesting facts from the field of translating Russian literature into Polish, as well as the complex situation of Polish-Russian relations in the post-war period.

Out of the fear of dying, Anna Ivanovona asks Yurii Zhivago about consciousness and the experience of death. He responds, "Your consciousness is you in others; you have always been in others and you will remain in others." Since consciousness does not become extinct, there is no death in this sense and, hence, nothing to fear. Ivanovona is comforted by these remarks, but what do they mean? Can we make sense of them? Possible interpretations are mentioned, and I discuss Zhivago's argument in terms of Buddhist and modern philosophy. I conclude that it is best treated metaphorically rather than literally and that the Buddhist reading is the best interpretation.

When the Soviet State forced Boris Pasternak (1890–1960) to decline the 1958 Nobel Prize for his masterpiece Doctor Zhivago, an international scandal ensued. The poignant moments of anti-Soviet self-reflection on identity within the novel, which can be read as splinters of Pasternak’s own autobiography, had been evolving since the 1930s. Its catalyst can be traced to Pasternak’s friendship with the pianist Heinrich Neuhaus (1888–1964), and their collaborative reimagination of a figure both considered their doppelganger—the composer Fryderyk Chopin. Bonded through their quest to displace Chopin from customary nationalist narratives, and present him as a free spirit embodying true internationalism, this chapter explores how Doctor Zhivago evolved from Pasternak’s literary cycle of 1930–1931, ‘Vtoroe rozhdeniye’ (‘Rebirth’/‘Second Birth’), capturing that friendship.

The article focuses on analyzing such forms of intermediality as theatricality and carnival in the novels of M. Bulgakov The Master and Margarita and B. Pasternak Doctor Zhivago, intermediality being considered as an aspect of interdiscursivity. Theatricality in both novels is realized through the availability of «theatrical» vocabulary, theatric imagery and symbolism, and at the levels of the text structure and chronotope as well. The research shows that theatricality in Pasternak is of intimate, impressionistic character, while that in Bulgakov is explicit and features a carnival component. A common “theatrical” element in both novels is the motif of directing and the image of director. In Pasternak the director is life itself, unlike in Bulgakov, where life is directed by supernatural forces. In both novels the characters are actors and viewers at the same time, the stage and the floor of the house belong in the town. However, in Bulgakov, by contrast with Pasternak, there is no division of the town space. Theater in The Master and Margarita is related to the so called anticarnival, as it is conducted by the carnivalizer (Voland), rather than people. In Pasternak the unity «theatre ̶ life ̶ death» is a natural manifestation of life, unlike in Bulgakov, where the motif combination «theаter ̶ death» has an ominous and violent character. In Doctor Zhivago the final ruination of theatricality is of realistic character, while in The Master and Margarita it is of transcendent one. By and large it is possible to conclude that theatricality in Doctor Zhivago reminds of the theater of experience, when Bulgakov’s buffoonery is similar to the theater of performance.

This article offers a new interpretation of Boris Pasternak’s novel Doctor Zhivago in the cultural and historical context of the first half of the 20th century, with an emphasis on the interrelationship between religion and philosophy of history in the text. Doctor Zhivago is analysed as a condensed representation of a religious conception of Russian history between 1901 and 1953 and as a cyclical repetition of the Easter narrative. This bipartite narrative consists of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ as symbols of violence and renewal (liberation). The novel cycles through this narrative several times, symbolically connecting the ‘Easter’ revolution (March 1917) and the Thaw (the spring of 1953). The sources of Pasternak’s Easter narrative include the Gospels, Leo Tolstoy’s philosophy of history and pre-Christian mythology. The model of cyclical time in the novel brings together the sacred, natural and historical cycles. This concept of a cyclical renewal of life differs from the linear temporality of the Apocalypse as an expectation of the end of history.

The article deals with realization of the canonical spiritual autobiography genre in the novel by B. L. Pasternak Doctor Zhivago. For the first time the classical canon of spiritual autobiography is embodied in the Confession by St. Augustine. The following genre signs of spiritual autobiography are distinguished: the choice from the series of events only those moments that contributed to the spiritual growth of the hero; focusing not on the external course of events, but on the internal spiritual processes; the moment of insight, spiritual awakening as a plot-compositional pointe, the culmination of the narrative and, accordingly, the turning point of the hero's life. According to the establishment of eternal history that leads to the beginning in the human spirit with Christ`s sacrifice, the theme of the path is revealed in the new Gospel light in spiritual autobiography - as a person’s ascension from the carnal to the spiritual level of consciousness and achievement of “eternal life”. The main genre-forming principle, besides the listed ones, is the moment of insight, spiritual awakening as a plot-compositional pointe of a work that gets multi-level realization in the novel by B. L. Pasternak Doctor Zhivago: on an individual and biographical, historical, eternal, sacral levels. Such a multi-level realization of the moment of spiritual awakening determines the polyphonic and tiered hierarchical organization of the subject component of the story. The architectonic center of the subject component includes hero-author, hero-generation and hero-Christ paradigms. The interrelation of the subject components is based on the model of the symbolic-iconic generalization of being. The artistic detachment from specific prototypes makes Yuri Zhivago and his contemporaries symbolic figures, connecting microcosms. They interact and become parts and symbols of each other and the whole world at this level of generalization. Such complex subject organization contributed to the transformation and modernization of the canon of spiritual autobiography in the novel by B. L. Pasternak “Doctor Zhivago”.

Boris Pasternak's relationship with British diplomats and scholars in connection with his translations of Shakespeare is examined along with the role these “Shakespearean forces” may have played in Pasternak's attempts to publish his novel Doctor Zhivago abroad.

Articles on the growing popularity of Orthodox literature in Russia; on the Stalinist Shakespeare industry; and on the role Boris Pasternak's Shakespeare translations may have played in his attempts to publish his novel Doctor Zhivago abroad are summarized and characterized.

The paper explores the tight relation between “art” and “immortality” in Boris Pasternak's author's ideology on the basis of a newly found letter to his second wife Zinaida Nikolaevna Neigauz, written in the beginning of 1931. This letter, preserved only in a copy, sheds new light upon one of the most important points of the author's ideology. In this document, Pasternak explains his views on the unacceptability of suicide. The letter is closely related to his autobiographical work Safe Conduct , the final part of which was written soon after the suicide of Vladimir Maiakovskii. It is possible to draw a line from the letter to the novel Doctor Zhivago . The ends of two protagonists' lives, Iurii Zhivago and his antipode Pavel Antipov-Strelnikov, are compared. The main protagonist dies, leaving behind his poetry. For Pasternak, it is the way of continuation, “life after death”, and the symbol of creative immortality of a poet. On the contrary, Antipov committed suicide, an end consistent with his life position.

The article explores the links to Tsvetaeva in two of Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago poems – ‘Chmel’ (‘Intoxication’/‘Hops’) and ‘Veter’ (‘The Wind’). Earlier analyses have revealed themes and scenes in the novel that may be read as conscious attempts to commemorate Tsvetaeva and the special relation Pasternak had to her. However, little attention has been paid in the context of the Tsvetaeva connection to Zhivago's poems. Joseph Brodsky noted echoes of Tsvetaeva in ‘Magdalina’ (‘Mary Magdalene’), but the multivalent status of Zhivago's poems seems to have made researchers hesitant to follow this lead. However, the poems in the novel deserve to be read as having been written precisely from this position: from within a fiction – but a fiction created for very specific artistic reasons. By presenting the poems in this way, Pasternak managed to contextualize his poetic expression in a way that was congenial to his personal relationship with Tsvetaeva and the artistic worldview which he shared with her, and which both regarded as a common heritage received from Rilke.

The three-part article focuses on the paradoxical similarities and differences between the changing stances taken by the two poets vis-a-vis emerging Stalinism. The first part compares Pasternak's attempt at striking a “collaborationist” deal in his 1931 “I Want To Go Home…” fragment and Mandel'shtam's similar but desperately implausible bid in the same year's “Preserve My Speech…”. The second analyzes Mandel'shtam's post-Voronezh ‘Stanzas’ (1937) as a last-ditch effort to gain official acceptance through an imitation of Pasternak's poetic strategies of the 1930s. The third shows the title protagonist of Doctor Zhivago, Pasternak's fictional alter ego, revising the poet's own earlier “collaborationist” position.