Boris Pasternak’s Followers (1,573)

Boris Pasternak

Born

in Moscow, Russian Federation

February 10, 1890

Died

May 30, 1960

Genre

Poetry, Literature & Fiction, Short Stories

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Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was born in Moscow to talented artists: his father a painter and illustrator of Tolstoy's works, his mother a well-known concert pianist. Though his parents were both Jewish, they became Christianized, first as Russian Orthodox and later as Tolstoyan Christians. Pasternak's education began in a German Gymnasium in Moscow and was continued at the University of Moscow. Under the influence of the composer Scriabin, Pasternak took up the study of musical composition for six years from 1904 to 1910. By 1912 he had renounced music as his calling in life and went to the University of Marburg, Germany, to study philosophy. After four months there and a trip to Italy, he returned to Russia and decided to dedicate himself Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was born in Moscow to talented artists: his father a painter and illustrator of Tolstoy's works, his mother a well-known concert pianist. Though his parents were both Jewish, they became Christianized, first as Russian Orthodox and later as Tolstoyan Christians. Pasternak's education began in a German Gymnasium in Moscow and was continued at the University of Moscow. Under the influence of the composer Scriabin, Pasternak took up the study of musical composition for six years from 1904 to 1910. By 1912 he had renounced music as his calling in life and went to the University of Marburg, Germany, to study philosophy. After four months there and a trip to Italy, he returned to Russia and decided to dedicate himself to literature.

Pasternak's first books of verse went unnoticed. With My Sister Life, 1922, and Themes and Variations, 1923, the latter marked by an extreme, though sober style, Pasternak first gained a place as a leading poet among his Russian contemporaries. In 1924 he published Sublime Malady, which portrayed the 1905 revolt as he saw it, and The Childhood of Luvers, a lyrical and psychological depiction of a young girl on the threshold of womanhood. A collection of four short stories was published the following year under the title Aerial Ways. In 1927 Pasternak again returned to the revolution of 1905 as a subject for two long works: "Lieutenant Schmidt", a poem expressing threnodic sorrow for the fate of the Lieutenant, the leader of the mutiny at Sevastopol, and "The Year 1905", a powerful but diffuse poem which concentrates on the events related to the revolution of 1905. Pasternak's reticent autobiography, Safe Conduct, appeared in 1931, and was followed the next year by a collection of lyrics, Second Birth, 1932. In 1935 he published translations of some Georgian poets and subsequently translated the major dramas of Shakespeare, several of the works of Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, and Ben Jonson, and poems by Petöfi, Verlaine, Swinburne, Shelley, and others. In Early Trains, a collection of poems written since 1936, was published in 1943 and enlarged and reissued in 1945 as Wide Spaces of the Earth. In 1957 Doctor Zhivago, Pasternak's only novel - except for the earlier "novel in verse", Spektorsky (1926) - first appeared in an Italian translation and has been acclaimed by some critics as a successful attempt at combining lyrical-descriptive and epic-dramatic styles.

Pasternak lived in Peredelkino, near Moscow, until his death in 1960. ...more

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Average rating: 4.0 · 107,921 ratings · 5,549 reviews · 574 distinct works • Similar authors

	Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, John Bayley (Introduction), Max Hayward (Translator), Manya Harari (Translator) 4.01 avg rating — 101,639 ratings — published 1957 — 814 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Selected Poems by Boris Pasternak, Борис Пастернак, Peter France (Translator) 4.22 avg rating — 860 ratings — published 1960 — 23 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Poems of Doctor Zhivago. 3.98 avg rating — 418 ratings — published 1965 — 20 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Letters: Summer 1926 by Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetaeva, Rainer Maria Rilke 4.22 avg rating — 356 ratings — published 1926 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Last Summer by Boris Pasternak, George Reavey (Translator), Lydia Slater (Introduction ) 3.05 avg rating — 432 ratings — published 1934 — 41 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	My Sister - Life by Boris Pasternak, Mark Rudman (Translator), Bohdan Boychuk (Translator) 4.13 avg rating — 261 ratings — published 1922 — 25 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Adolescence of Zhenya Luvers by Boris Pasternak, Борис Пастернак 3.40 avg rating — 156 ratings — published 1961 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Onder de paardendeken by Boris Pasternak, Konstantin Paustovsky, Leo Tolstoy 3.79 avg rating — 139 ratings — published 2017 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	February: Selected Poetry by Boris Pasternak, Andrey Kneller (Goodreads Author) (Translator) 4.11 avg rating — 106 ratings — published 2008 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Four of Us: Pasternak, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Mandelstam by Boris Pasternak, Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva 4.14 avg rating — 102 ratings — published 2015 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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ドクトル・ジバゴ [Doctor Zhivago] (2 books)
by

Boris Pasternak

it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 2 ratings

Quotes by Boris Pasternak (?)

“I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and it isn't of much value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them. ”
― Boris Pasternak

tags: life

2858 likes

“I don't think I could love you so much if you had nothing to complain of and nothing to regret. I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and of little value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them.”
― Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago

tags: regret

644 likes

“How wonderful to be alive, he thought. But why does it always hurt?”
― Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago

483 likes

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Polls

January 2018 revisit the Shelf Reread Poll

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, 592 pages, 1951

66 votes, 19.5%

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, 258 pages, 1989

64 votes, 18.9%

Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, 273 pages, 1818

46 votes, 13.6%

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, 212 pages, 1962

37 votes, 10.9%

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, 608 pages, 1838

29 votes, 8.6%

The Princess Bride by William Goldman, 298 pages, 1973

29 votes, 8.6%

The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells, 192 pages, 1897

24 votes, 7.1%

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, 311 pages, 1882

21 votes, 6.2%

The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk, 560 pages, 1951

13 votes, 3.8%

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace, 620 pages, 1880

9 votes, 2.7%

338 total votes

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