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Moscow as City and Symbol in Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Ian K. Lilly
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Extract

The final subchapter of the prose text of Doctor Zhivago takes the narrative, at least by implication, beyond the Stalin era. In these last four brief paragraphs of the epilogue,1 lurii Zhivago’s surviving childhood friends, Misha Gordon and Nika Dudorov, now at the twilight of their lives, are reflecting on Zhivago’s literary legacy and on what lies ahead for Russia in the 1950s. In the first paragraph they are shown sitting at a window overlooking Moscow as a summer dusk slowly settles. They are reading from an album of Zhivago’s writings that his half brother Evgraf had compiled some years previously.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , Summer 1981 , pp. 241 - 250
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1981

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References

1. The edition of the work used here is Pasternak, Boris, Doktor Zhivago, S poslednimipopravkami avtorom (sic), revised and corrected by Jacqueline de Proyart (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1967, 1976Google Scholar). Chapters (chasti) and subchapters are indicated by Roman and Arabic numerals respectively. English paraphrases in this article are my own. See ibid., XVI, 5.

2. Ibid., p. 530.

3. For a well-nigh exhaustive list of writings about the work through 1977, see Munir Sendich, “Pasternak's Doktor Živago: An International Bibliography of Criticism (1957-1974),” Russian Language Journal, 30, no. 105 (1976): 109-52 and the “Supplementary Bibliography to M. Sendich's International Bibliography of Criticism of Doktor Živago: 1957-1977,” ibid., 32, no. 113 (1978): 193-205. Among more recent publications focusing on Doctor Zhivago are Jakobson, A, “'Vakkhanaliia’ v kontekste pozdnego Pasternaka” Slavica Hierosolymitana, 3 (1978): 302–79Google Scholar; David L.Jones, “History and Chronology in Pasternak's Doctor Živago,'” Slavic and East European Journal, 23, no. 1 (1979): 160-63; Perelmuter, Joanna, “Reflection of Urban Speech in the Language of Doktor Živago,” Russian Language Journal , 32, no. 113 (1978): 13–20Google Scholar; Segal, D, “Pro domo sua: The Case of Boris Pasternak” Slavica Hierosolymitana, 1 (1977): 199–250Google Scholar; and HélèneZamoyska, “L'actualitéduDortezW/Vago,” in Boris Pasternak 1890-1960: Colloque de Cerisy-la-Salle (11-14 seplembre 1975) (Bibliothèque russe de l'lnstitut d'Études Slaves, no. 47; Paris: Institut d'Études Slaves, 1979), pp. 411-25. Note also Ivinskaia, Ol'ga, V plenu vremeni: Gody s Borisom Pasternakom (Paris: Fayard, 1978), pp. 193–308 Google Scholar and passim.

4. Pasternak, Doktor Zhivago, XV, 11.

5. Segal, “Pro domo sua,” p. 234.

6. On the city theme in Pasternak's work at large, see, among others, Hughes, Olga R., The Poetic World of Boris Pasternak (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), especially pp. 62–65 Google Scholar and Elena Pasternak, “Iz pervykh prozaicheskikh opytov Borisa Pasternaka: Publikatsiia II,” in Nilsson, Nils Åke, ed., Boris Pasternak: Essays (Stockholm Studies in Russian Literature, no. 7; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1976), pp. 26-51, especially pp. 26–29 Google Scholar.

7. Pasternak, Doktor Zhivago, II, 9.

8. Ibid., II, 20.

9. Ibid., II, 5-8.

10. Ibid., IV, 6.

11. Ibid., V, 3.

12. Ibid., XI, 8-9.

13. Ibid., Ill, 10. On Zhivago and Blok, see Gifford, Henry, “Pasternak and the'Realism'of Blok” Oxford Slavonic Papers, 13 (1967): 96–106, especially p. 106Google Scholar.

14. Pasternak, Doklor Zhivago, XVII.

15. Ibid., XV, 11.

16. Ibid., IX, 1.

17. The importance of Muscovite speech to Doctor Zhivago, already treated briefly by Perelmuter ( “Reflection of Urban Speech” ), does not need to be reemphasized here. For critical works on Moscow in Russian literature of earlier periods, see in particular Paul Gregory, “The Theme of Moscow in Russian Literature of the 19th Century,” (in Russian; Ph.D. diss., Vanderbilt University, 1973) and Ziegler, Gudrun, Moskau und Petersburg in der russisehen Literatur (ca. 1700-1850): Zur Gestaltung eines literahschen Stoffes (Slavistische Beitrage, no. 80; Munich: Otto Sagner, 1974Google Scholar).

18. Pasternak, Doktor Zhivago, I, 4-8.

19. Ibid., XV.

20. Ibid., XVI.

21. In a letter to Jacqueline de Proyart of May 20,1959, Pasternak wrote that at the heart of Doctor Zhivago is “la réalité russe des cinquante ans derniers” (see Proyart, Jacqueline de, Pasternak [Paris Gallimard, 1964], p. 235Google Scholar). It would seem that the timing of Zhivago's death and the career development of Antipov-Strel'nikov in particular are hard to comprehend outside their historical context.

22. Pasternak, Doktor Zhivago, VII, 3.

23. Ibid., VII, 11.

24. Ibid., IV, 12.

25. On this matter, see Jones, “History and Chronology.”

26. Pasternak, Doktor Zhivago, II, 5-8.

27. Ibid., VI, 4.

28. Ibid., XV, 5.

29. Ibid., XVI, 2.

30. Ibid., XVI, 5.

31. Ibid., VI, 8.

32. Ibid., II, 9-10.

33. Ibid., II, 11.

34. Although customarily referred to as Meliuzeevo in English translations of and writings about Doctor Zhivago, this town is actually Meliuzeev, as its only mention in the book in either the nominative or accusative cases—in the phrase “Vy pro takoi gorodishko Meliuzeev ne slykhali?” —makes clear (Pasternak, Doktor Zhivago, p. 146).

35. See Baedeker, Karl, Russia, with Teheran, Port Arthur, and Peking (Leipzig: Karl Baedeker, 1914; New York: Arno Press and Random House, 1971)Google Scholar, especially the maps of Moscow I and II. The authenticity of Pasternak's Moscow provides a strong contrast to the lack of realism and the geographical distortions in the Petersburg of such writers as Gogol', Dostoevskii, and Belyi. For a selection of articles, see respectively Nils Åke Nilsson, “Gogol's The Overcoat and the Topography of Petersburg,” Scando- Slavica, 21 (1975): 25-18; K. A.|Kumpan and Konechnyi, A. M., “Nabliudeniia nad topografiei'Prestupleniia i nakazaniia,'” Izvestiia Akademii Nauk SSSR, Seriia literatury i iazyka, 35, no. 2 (1976): 180-90Google Scholar; and L. K. Dolgopolov, “Obraz goroda v romane A. Belogo ‘Peterburg,'” ibid., 34, no. 1 (1975): 46-59.

36. Pasternak, Boris, “Okhrannaia gramota” (1931) and “Avtobiograficheskii ocherk” (1957), in his Proza 1915-1958: Povesti, rasskazy, avtobiograficheskie proizvedeniia, ed. G. P. Struve and B. A. Filippov (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1961), pp. 203–93Google Scholar and 1-52, passim.

37. Pasternak, Doktor Zhivago, II, 1.

38. In their efforts to identify the “meaning” of this and other Moscow toponyms, Rowland, Mary F. and Rowland, Paul, Pasternak's “Doctor ZWvago” (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1967 Google Scholar)—and others before them—seem to have overlooked the possibility that these names are not symbolic but merely realistic.

39. Pasternak, Doktor Zhivago, II, 9.

40. Ibid., Ill, 14.

41. Ibid., XV, 5-6.

42. This valuable information about Flour Town was kindly provided by E. B. Pasternak of Moscow.

43. Pasternak, Doktor Zhivago, II, 20.

44. Ibid., XV, 5.

45. In medieval times Sivtsev Vrazhek formed part of the so-called Ikonnaia sloboda or icon painting district of Moscow, according to, among others, Tikhomirov, M. N., Srednevekovaia Moskva v XIV-XV vekakh (Moscow, 1957), p. 78 Google Scholar.

46. Pasternak, Doktor Zhivago, III, 7.

47. Ibid., Ill, 10.

48. Ibid., XV, 9.

49. Ibid., XV, 14.

50. Koriakov, Mikhail, “Zametki na poliakh romana ‘Doktor Zhivago,'” Mosty, 2 (1959): 210-23, especially pp. 216-20Google Scholar.

51. On Trubetskoi and the Eurasian movement, see Ishboldin, Boris, “The Eurasian Movement” Russian Review, 5, no. 1 (1946): 64-73, especially p. 66CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This is the same Trubetskoi who, as a leading figure in the Prague Linguistic Circle, established phonology as a major current in twentieth-century linguistics.

52. Pasternak, Doktor Zhivago, II, 21.

53. Ibid., XV, 12.

54. Ibid., I, 3.

55. Ibid., II, 9.

56. Ibid., Ill, 2.

57. Ibid., Ill, 17.

58. Ibid., II, 21.

59. Ibid., IV, 5.

60. Ibid., VII, 1.

61. Ibid., VII, 5-6.

62. Ibid., IX, 16.

63. Ibid., XIV, 1.

64. Ibid., XIV, 11-13.

65. This loyalty finds some parallel in the life of Zhivago's creator, who forsook the chance to go to the West with his parents and sisters in 1921 and who also decided against requesting a one-way visa to Stockholm in 1958 to accept the Nobel Prize for Literature.

66. Pasternak, Doktor Zhivago, p. 173. Pasternak uses the Russian term rodnoikrai in this context not in a national sense (Russia versus the West) but in the narrower meaning of one's native region or city (Moscow versus the south, the Caucasus).

67. Ibid., XV, 5.

68. Cf. ibid., Ill, 1.

69. Ibid., XV, 5.

70. See. for instance, Gifford, Henry, Pasternak: A Critical Study (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), especially p. 188Google Scholar.

71. Pasternak, Doktor Zhivago, p. 531.

72. On Evgraf and the Eurasian movement, see Steussy, R. E., “The Myth Behind ‘Dr. Zhivago,'” Russian Review, 18, no. 3 (1959): 184-98, especially pp. 190-91Google Scholar.

73. Segal, “Pro domo sua.”

74. For example, Kudrinskaia Street was renamed Barrikadnaia as early as 1919 to mark an important location of the 1905 and 1917 street fighting, but it is still referred to at the time of Zhivago's death (August 1929) by its former name (Pasternak, Doktor Zhivago, XV, 12). Information on the history of Moscow streets is taken from Pegov, A. M., ed., Imena moskovskikh ulits, rev. and enl. ed. (Moscow, 1979Google Scholar).

75. Pasternak, Doktor Zhivago, XV, 6. On Vkhutemas, see Bol'shaia Sovetskaia Entsiklopediia, 3rd ed., s.v. “Vkhutemas” and Gray, Camilla, The Great Experiment: Russian Art, 1863-1922 (London: Thames & Hudson, 1962), pp. 221–22Google Scholar and passim.

76. For a description of the Church of Christ the Savior (or the Redeemer, as it is also known in English), see Baedeker, Russia, pp. 304-306.

77. Pasternak, Doktor Zhivago, V, 16.

78. Ibid., XV, 5.

79. On metonomy as an important device in the prose of Pasternak, see Jakobson, Roman, “Randbemerkungen zur Prosa des Dichters Pasternak” Slavische Rundschau, 7 (1935): 357-74Google Scholar, reprinted in his Selected Writings, vol. 5: On Verse, Its Masters and Explorers (The Hague: Mouton, 1979), pp. 416-32.

80. See lu. P. Annenkov, “Moskovskii Khram Khrista Spasitelia (K vos'midesiatiletiiu ego osnovaniia),” Vozrozhdenie, 146 (1964): 134-37, especially p. 137 and Vladimirov, Leonid, The Russians (New York: Praeger, 1968), p. 123Google Scholar. Pasternak was of course living close to the cathedral, on Volkhonka. around the time of its destruction.

81. Pasternak, Doktor Zhivago, XVI, 3.

82. Ibid., XVI, 4. This note is a revised version of a paper given at the annual convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, New Haven, Connecticut, 1979.