10 - Boris Pasternak

Summary

HINSEY: In 1958, Doctor Zhivago was published in Italy. How did it come to pass that you and a few fellow students wrote Boris Pasternak a letter of congratulations regarding his nomination for the Nobel Prize? How did you first hear this news?

VENCLOVA: Everyone in our small group loved Pasternak's poetry. His nomination for the prize was a joyous occasion (I believe we learned about it on the radio, which in 1958 was less jammed than before). During one of our meetings, quite spontaneously, we composed a short letter that Juozas Tumelis, Pranas Morkus, Romas Katilius, and I signed. In it, we expressed our faith that Pasternak would receive the well-deserved prize, and wished him good health and productive work.

HINSEY: How was this letter of congratulations transmitted to Pasternak?

VENCLOVA: While attending Moscow University, Pranas Morkus had established contact with some people close to Pasternak. As far as I know, the letter was transmitted via Irina Emelyanova, the daughter of Pasternak's last love, Olga Ivinskaya, who was the prototype for Lara. After the poet's death, Irina and her mother spent time in prison camps. I became acquainted with Irina after she was released.

HINSEY: On October 23, 1958, the Nobel Committee awarded Pasternak the Nobel Prize. After first accepting the award, he came under intense pressure from the Soviet leadership and was forced to renounce it. How did you learn about these events?

VENCLOVA: Again, by Western radio. Then, the Soviet media informed us of “the reactionary uproar raised in the imperialist press” because of the prize. In my diary, I noted that I had eagerly joined the reactionary uproar. As it turned out, it was the Soviet response that soon developed into a sort of pandemonium. Several years earlier, Pasternak had attempted to publish the novel in the USSR. A group of highly placed writers wrote him a letter explaining that the novel was unfit for print because of its counterrevolutionary tendencies. Now the letter was made public. The phrase “an apology for treason” was among its milder invectives. Dozens of letters soon appeared in the press, condemning Pasternak in the harshest imaginable terms.