Boris Pasternak

Author profile

born

in Moscow, Russian Federation

February 10, 1890

died

May 30, 1960

gender

male

genre

Poetry, Literature & Fiction, Short Stories

influences

Rachmaninoff, Tolstoy, Rilke, Scriabin, Lermontov, Alexander Blok, Her...more

About this author

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Борис Пастернак
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 d...more Борис Пастернак
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.(less)

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Boris Pasternak's Books

Average rating: 3.99 · 32,740 ratings · 1,153 reviews · 92 distinct works · Similar authors

	Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, Борис Пастернак 3.98 of 5 stars 3.98 avg rating — 31,885 ratings — published 1957 — 188 editions	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) 4.17 of 5 stars 4.17 avg rating — 211 ratings — published 1946 — 6 editions	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 by Boris Pasternak, Борис Пастернак 4.13 of 5 stars 4.13 avg rating — 132 ratings — published 1965 — 4 editions	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 4.33 of 5 stars 4.33 avg rating — 86 ratings — published 1985 — 4 editions	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 4.15 of 5 stars 4.15 avg rating — 84 ratings — published 1922 — 11 editions	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, Борис Пастернак, George Reavey (Translator) 3.31 of 5 stars 3.31 avg rating — 59 ratings — published 1958 — 5 editions	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
	Safe Conduct: An Autobiography and Other Writings by Boris Pasternak, B. Deutsch 3.83 of 5 stars 3.83 avg rating — 46 ratings — published 1958 — 4 editions	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 3.9 of 5 stars 3.90 avg rating — 31 ratings — published 1961	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
	Стихотворения и поэмы в двух томах. Том 2 by Boris Pasternak, Борис Пастернак 4.88 of 5 stars 4.88 avg rating — 24 ratings — published 1990	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
	Борис Пастернак. Проза Поэта by Boris Pasternak, Борис Пастернак, Евгений Пастернак 4.75 of 5 stars 4.75 avg rating — 20 ratings — published 1991 — 2 editions	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

More books by Boris Pasternak…

Quotes by Boris Pasternak

“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 it's beauty to them.”
― Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago

tags: regret

189 people liked it

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

tags: alive

143 people liked it

“When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it. ”
― Boris Pasternak

tags: opportunity

128 people liked it

See all Boris Pasternak's quotes »

Polls

Which book would you like to see as the selection for our Winter 2010-2011 Group Reads category Winter/Holiday?

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

32 votes, 22.9%

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

26 votes, 18.6%

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

16 votes, 11.4%

Wishin' and Hopin': A Christmas Story by Wally Lamb

16 votes, 11.4%

The History of the Snowman: From the Ice Age to the Flea Market by Bob Eckstein

13 votes, 9.3%

Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin

12 votes, 8.6%

The Gift by Nora Roberts

8 votes, 5.7%

The Christmas Shoes by Donna VanLiere

8 votes, 5.7%

Letters from Father Christmas, Revised Edition by J.R.R. Tolkien * edition must be 100 pages

5 votes, 3.6%

Call Me Mrs. Miracle by Debbie Macomber

4 votes, 2.9%

140 total votes

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