Classics of Russian Literature | The Poet In and Beyond Society (Lecture 34)

Lecture 34: The title of Doctor Zhivago includes the old form of the genitive case in the word for “alive.” This genitive is also used as the accusative only for animate words attached to living humans or animals. In short, Pasternak is talking about life itself in its oldest, traditional form. Finding himself in a society calling itself socialist, with full value assigned to the collective, the poet - referring both to the title character and the author - wants to establish himself as an individual, separate from the collective. Repeatedly, Soviet society wants to draft the doctor, who creates some of Pasternak’s best poetry, into its over-organized and overarching civitas. The result is a continuous struggle, which cannot be diverted by marriage or love affairs, by political propaganda, by warfare, or even by the full powers of nature herself. When the poet sees the beauty of the snowbound Russian woods, he uses it to separate himself from the world around him. The result leads to isolation, poetry of the first order, and death.

Suggested Reading:
Victor Erlich, ed., Pasternak: A Collection of Critical Essays.
Ronald Hingley, Pasternak: A Biography.
Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago (a novel and series of poems), with prose translated by Max Hayward and Manya Harari and poems translated by Bernard Guerney.