Stalin passed away on March 5, 1953. His passing was lamented by millions. Only a small number of individuals observed the passing of the esteemed Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev on that very day. It was an unfavorable sign for the future of Russian culture. Within the Soviet intelligentsia, there was no opportunity for any degree of creative independence, let alone the ability to distance oneself from the state, whether in public or private settings.

The state and the secret police had complete control over all available avenues for intellectual and artistic pursuits. Furthermore, it is worth noting that academics and artists had been severely corrupted, overwhelmed by their own toxic beliefs, which included extreme ideological extremism and anti-Semitism.

Look at the right hands of these murderers. These are the hands of the Freemasons, the same as the hand of Marx 🙂

Writers and poets appear to have lost the ability to think and express themselves without constraints. Artists were unable to convey their authentic emotions on canvas or during performances. Directors were compelled to film rudimentary propaganda and farcical comedies. The concept of civic unity among academics appeared to be an unattainable and unrealistic aspiration. The objective of enhancing and restructuring Soviet society and its governance appeared irrevocably abandoned. However, the subsequent decade demonstrated that the declaration of the demise of the intelligentsia was premature.

Pasternak’s novel was the initial audacious confrontation to the cultural absence that followed the war. Doctor Zhivago depicts a protagonist who embodies the qualities of a mystical poet, a sensitive idealist, and a life-saving doctor, as he discovers profound significance and a rebirth through the power of love.

Yuri Zhivago, the protagonist of the novel, experienced the loss of both his parents during his childhood and was raised in a household of educated and assimilated Jews, much like the Pasternaks. Zhivago’s social environment also revered traditional Russian culture and embraced the Revolution as a means to overthrow the tsarist government.

Yuri weds Tonia, the offspring of the individuals who provided him with adoption as a child. Nevertheless, a sequence of enigmatic occurrences leads him to encounter Lara, a young woman who becomes his genuine love. Yuri lacks enthusiasm for politics and has no desire to engage in the Revolution. However, the Revolution engulfs him, along with his family and his love, in a whirlpool of extraordinary and sorrowful occurrences. Destiny grants Zhivago a brief period of joy beside Lara, wherein he crafts the “poems of Yuri Zhivago” within a rural abode, to which the pair has sought refuge from the surrounding chaos.

Shortly after, the Civil War causes a separation between him and Lara, and subsequently she endeavors to flee from Russia and vanishes from Zhivago’s existence indefinitely. Yuri has come close to death on multiple occasions, but Providence has intervened to save him each time. In the novel’s poignant final scene, set in NEP Russia in the late 1920s, Yuri, who is ill and not acknowledged, perceives a sighting of Lara through the window of a crowded streetcar. He hastily emerges to welcome her and immediately succumbs to a cardiac arrest.

Doctor Yuri Zhivago is a member of the Russian intelligentsia, a fictional community that was present in Russian society for a period of seventy years. The destiny of Zhivago throughout the tumultuous and violent years that ensue symbolizes the annihilation of the social environment and values of the intellectual elite. Pasternak portrays, from the perspective of this physician, the destructive and irrational nature of the Russian Revolution and Civil War, which resulted in the loss of human life and dignity.

Pasternak discusses the criminal activities carried out by both the Reds and the Whites, which not only mirrored each other but also strengthened each other. Yuri Zhivago, who was unwillingly conscripted into a peasant army, had the opportunity to witness the inflexible ideology of communist extremists as well as the brutal desperation of the leaders of the White Army. According to him, several acts of extreme cruelty were carried out by ordinary peasants and soldiers who harbored an innate and fierce animosity against academics, officers, and the upper class.

Pasternak observed that the fervent left-wing intellectuals held a high regard for individuals of such nature. “Their lack of compassion appeared to be an extraordinary display of awareness of social class, while their cruelty exemplified a steadfast commitment to the working class and a natural inclination towards revolution.” Pasternak contends that the ideas unleashed by the Revolution and the principles and values exploited by Stalinism were dehumanizing dogmas, lacking in value and not justifying the loss of Russia’s cultural and spiritual wealth.

While acknowledging the responsibility of several intellectuals, he expresses strong disapproval towards the vanishing of the cultural environment of the intelligentsia, which he likens to “frozen music.” In the latter chapters of Doctor Zhivago, following the demise of Yuri Zhivago, his acquaintances, who have endured the ravages of war and terror, encounter the sole offspring of Yuri and his cherished Lara. Tania, the child, has matured in the midst of peasants, devoid of any exposure to the realm of refined culture.

She lacks the chance to inherit the heritage of independent thought, spirituality, and artistic expression that her father personified. Pasternak omits the disclosure of Tania’s destiny. The readers are left contemplating if the cultural continuity of the Russian intelligentsia has been permanently disrupted by her brief appearance in the book.