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Doctor Zhivago is a novel written by Russian author Boris Pasternak, published in 1957. The novel follows the life of poet and physician Yuri Zhivago during the Russian Revolution and subsequent Civil War. It explores themes of love, art, and the impact of historical events on individuals.

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16y ago

Doctor Zhivago (Russian: Доктор Живаго) is a 20th century novel by Boris Pasternak. The novel is named after its protagonist, Yuri Zhivago, a medical doctor and poet. The word zhivago shares a root with the Russian word for life (жизнь), one of the major themes of the novel. It tells the story of a man torn between two women, set primarily against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution of 1917. More deeply, the novel discusses the plight of a man as his life is slowly destroyed by the violence of the revolution. The book was made into a film by David Lean in 1965 and has also been adapted numerous times for television, most recently as a miniseries for Russian TV in 2005. Foreground

Although it contains passages written in the 1910s and 1920s, Doctor Zhivago was not completed until 1956. It was submitted for publication to the journal Noviy mir, but was rejected due to Pasternak's difficult relationship with the Soviet government. In 1957 publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli smuggled the manuscript out of the Soviet Union and published the book in Russian in Milan by Feltrinelli edition. The following year, it appeared in Italian and English translations, and these publications were partly responsible for the fact that the author was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958. The book was finally published in the Soviet Union in 1988, ironically in the pages of Noviy mir, although earlier samizdat editions also exist. Plot summary

Yuri Zhivago is sensitive and poetic nearly to the point of mysticism. In medical school, one of his professors reminds him that bacteria may be beautiful under the microscope, but they do ugly things to people. Zhivago's idealism and principles stand in brutal contrast to the horrors of World War I, the Russian Revolution, and the subsequent Russian Civil War. A large theme of the book is how the mysticism of things and idealism is destroyed by both the Bolsheviks, Rebels and the white army. Yuri must witness cannibalism, dismemberment, and other horrors suffered by the innocent civilian population during the turmoil. Even the love of his life, Lara (whose full name is Larissa Feodorovna), is taken from him. He ponders on how the war can turn the whole world senseless, and make a previously reasonable group of people destroy each other with no regard for life. His journey through Russia has an epic feeling because of his travelling through a world which is in such striking contrast to himself, relatively uncorrupted by the violence, and to his desire to find a place away from it all, which drives him across the Arctic Siberia of Russia, and eventually back down to Moscow. Pasternak gives subtle criticism on the soviet ideology: he disagrees with the idea of "building a new man", which is against nature. This fits in the story's theme of life. Pasternak's description of the singer Kubarikha in the chapter "Iced Rowanberries" is almost identical to Sofia Satina's (sister-in-law / cousin of Sergei Rachmaninov) description of gypsy singer Nadezhda Plevitskaya (1884-1940). Since Rachmaninov was a friend of the Pasternak family, and Plevitskaya a friend of Rachmaninov, Plevitskaya was probably Pasternak's "mind image" when he wrote the chapter; something which also shows how Pasternak had roots in music. http://www.answers.com/topic/doctor-zhivago-novel

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11y ago
Dr Zhivago was written by Boris Pasternak in 1957.
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