In 1956 Boris Pasternak distributed the manuscript of Doctor Zhivago to multiple international publishers and, under intense pressure from the Soviet authorities, colluded with them to ensure the publication of his novel overseas. Prior to its release, party authorities initiated a campaign of blackmail against the writer. Olga Ivinskaia, the romantic partner of Pasternak and the inspiration for the character Lara, had lately come back after spending seven years in forced labor camps and in a state of banishment.

Boris Pasternak distributed the manuscript of Doctor Zhivago to multiple international publisher

She pleaded with Pasternak to abandon his perilous endeavor, emphasizing that not only his own life but also her own was in jeopardy. Pasternak opposed. “If the truth that I am aware of must be justified through experiencing pain,” he said to Dmitry Polikarpov, the head of the party department of culture, “I am willing to endure any form of suffering.”

The atheist bureaucracy had no capacity to comprehend Christian parables and sentiments, while the party officials remained indifferent to Pasternak’s plea: “How can one believe that a fervent and concentrated creation can be hidden from the world by merely sealing it like a bottle with a cork?” The writer also asserted that the one method to pacify the turmoil would be to refrain from engaging with him and the subject matter.

Doctor Zhivago was published by Feltrinelli in Milan on November 23, 1957. Within a single night, it achieved global acclaim in the literary world and was subsequently translated into nearly all prominent languages.

The Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Pasternak by the Swedish Academy in October 1958. The translated edition of the book achieved the highest position on the New York Times best-seller list in the United States for a duration of more than six months.

Nikita Khrushchev, who assumed control of the Soviet Union following Stalin’s reign, was infuriated. He and his colleagues acquired knowledge from members of the Union of Soviet Writers that the poem “denigrated” the Bolshevik Revolution and attributed it to the devastation of Russian cultural heritage. Khrushchev and his political aides neglected to peruse the novel, nevertheless they concluded that the uproar surrounding it was a deliberate Western Cold War instigation.

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The party presidium evaluated the novel as “a means employed by international forces opposing the party’s ideology” and mandated the issuance of a joint letter from the most distinguished Soviet writers to denounce Pasternak. Pravda criticized Pasternak as a “literary nuisance working for the benefit of international opposition.”

Vladimir Semichastny, the leader of Komsomol, the communist youth organization, referred to Pasternak as a “internal émigré” and compared him unfavorably to a pig, stating that pigs do not create a mess in their eating and sleeping areas. Pasternak faced immense internal pressure to express remorse, while other intellectuals and public leaders from around the globe demonstrated their support for the embattled writer.

In January 1959, he countered the witch hunt with an additional poem, which was published in a foreign country: What was my mistake? Have I perpetrated a homicide? I have recently composed a description of my exquisite homeland. And elicited universal sympathy. Notable literary figures who supported Pasternak included renowned authors such as John Steinbeck, Graham Greene, Aldous Huxley, Somerset Maugham, Ernest Hemingway, André Maurois, and Alberto Moravia.

Both Eleanor Roosevelt and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India implored Khrushchev to refrain from deporting Pasternak from the Soviet Union. Khrushchev opted to revoke the poet’s exile sentence. On November 1, Pasternak, succumbing under immense pressure, consented to compose a letter to Khrushchev in which he would formally reject the Nobel Prize. According to certain analysts, Olga Ivinskaia, out of fear of being arrested, acted as a collaborator for the government by assisting in the creation of fabricated letters of remorse.

These letters were then published in Pravda and falsely attributed to Pasternak. Nevertheless, the poet’s soul remained undefeated. Confidentially, he declared his judgment on the Soviet regime: “It is destined for failure.” One’s existence is unsustainable in this manner.

In Pasternak’s novel, a multitude of individuals, acknowledging Dr. Zhivago’s exceptional talent and inspiring presence, gather to pay their respects at his funeral after his death. Upon Pasternak’s demise, the media merely made a concise reference to the passing of “B. L. Pasternak,” a member of the Literary Foundation, on May 30, 1960.

However, numerous enthusiasts of the poet had an epiphany when they were informed of his demise. A group of individuals traveled to the town of Peredelkino in order to say goodbye to him. The government explicitly discouraged people from attending the funeral, and KGB agents captured images of individuals present at the graveside.

However, Pasternak’s funeral marked the first significant display of unofficial civic unity in Soviet Russia, making it a landmark event. The funeral procession, subsequently recounted by numerous witnesses, memoirists, and KGB agents, comprised a total of five hundred individuals grieving the loss of the poet. They solemnly proceeded from the poet’s dacha to a church cemetery situated on a neighboring hill. Orations were delivered at the recently excavated burial site.

As per a witness, the public funeral march witnessed the emergence of new civic ideas that were more powerful than the customary dread, evident from the fact that hundreds of people disregarded government disapproval. Despite the absence of numerous friends and admirers of Pasternak, who were apprehensive about jeopardizing their official positions and benefits, several others, including individuals who had previously betrayed Pasternak during his difficult times, attended his funeral, maybe as a means of making amends for their betrayal.