The beginning of the twentieth century became a period of severe trials for Russia: the First World War, revolution, civil war destroyed millions of human destinies. The complex relationship between man and new era are described with piercing drama in Boris Leonidovich Pasternak’s novel “Doctor Zhivago”. Analyzing the work according to plan will allow you to better prepare not only for the literature lesson in grade 11, but also for the Unified State Exam.

Brief Analysis

Year of writing– 1945-1955.

History of creation– The novel was written over ten years, and brought the writer Nobel Prize on literature. However, the fate of the work was not at all easy: for a long time it was banned in his homeland, and real persecution unfolded against Pasternak.

Subject– The work fully reveals the problems of many pressing social issues, but central theme is the opposition between man and history.

Composition– The composition of the work is very complex and is based on the interweaving of the destinies of the main characters. All characters central characters examined through the prism of the personality of Yuri Zhivago.

Genre– Multi-genre novel.

Direction– Realism.

History of creation

The novel was created over the course of a whole decade (1945-1955). And this is not surprising, since the work describes the most important era in the history of Russia and raises global problems society.

The idea of ​​writing such a grandiose novel first came to Boris Leonidovich in 17-18, but at that time he was not yet ready for such work. The writer began to implement his plan only in 1945, having spent 10 years of hard work on it.

In 1956, attempts were made to publish the novel in the Soviet Union, but they were unsuccessful. Pasternak was subjected to severe criticism for the anti-Soviet content of the novel, while the entire Western world literally applauded the Russian genius for his brilliant work. World recognition Doctor Zhivago led to Boris Leonidovich being awarded the Nobel Prize, which he was forced to refuse at home. The novel was first published in the Soviet Union only in 1988, revealing Pasternak’s incredible literary gift to the general public.

It is interesting that Boris Leonidovich was not immediately able to decide on the name of his brainchild. One option was followed by another (“There will be no death”, “The candle was burning”, “Innokenty Dudorov”, “Boys and Girls”), until finally he settled on the final version - “Doctor Zhivago”.

Meaning of the name The novel consists in comparing the main character with the merciful and all-forgiving Christ - “You are the son of the living God.” It was no coincidence that the writer chose the Old Slavonic form of the adjective “living” - this is how the theme of sacrifice and resurrection runs like a red thread in the work.

Subject

Carrying out an analysis of the work in Doctor Zhivago, it is worth noting that the author revealed in it many important topics: life and death, finding oneself in a renewed society, loyalty to one’s ideals, choice life path, the fate of the Russian intelligentsia, honor and duty, love and mercy, resistance to the blows of fate.

However central theme The novel can be called the relationship between personality and era. The author is sure that a person should not sacrifice own life for the sake of struggling with external circumstances, just as he should not adapt to them, losing his true self. Main thought What Pasternak wants to convey in his work is the ability to remain oneself under any life conditions, no matter how difficult they may be.

Yuri Zhivago does not strive for luxury or satisfying his own ambitions - he simply lives and steadfastly endures all the difficulties that fate presents to him. No external circumstances can break his spirit, lose his self-esteem, or change his life principles, which were formed in his youth.

The author attaches no less importance theme of love, which literally permeates the entire novel. Pasternak shows this strong feeling in all possible manifestations - love for a man or woman, for his family, profession, homeland.

Composition

The main feature of the novel’s composition is the accumulation of random, but at the same time fateful meetings, all sorts of coincidences, coincidences, unexpected turns of fate.

Already in the first chapters, the author skillfully weaves a complex plot knot in which the fates of the main characters are connected by invisible threads: Yuri Zhivago, Lara, Misha Gordon, Komarovsky and many others. At first it may seem that all the plot intricacies are overly far-fetched and complex, but over the course of the novel their true meaning and purpose becomes clear.

The composition of the novel is based on acquaintance acting characters and the subsequent development of their relationships, but at the intersection of independently developing human destinies. The main characters, as if with an x-ray, are illuminated by the author, and all of them, one way or another, are focused on Yuri Zhivago.

An interesting compositional move by Pasternak can be called Zhivago’s notebook with his poems. It symbolizes a window into the infinity of existence. Having lost genuine interest in life and morally sunk to the very bottom, main character dies, but his soul remains to live in beautiful poems.

Main characters

Genre

It is extremely difficult to accurately determine the genre of a novel, since it is a rich amalgamation of various genres. This work can safely be called autobiographical, since it reflects the main life milestones of Pasternak, who endowed the main character with many personal qualities.

The novel is also philosophical, as it pays a lot of attention to reflections on serious topics. The work is also of great interest from a historical point of view - it describes in detail, without embellishment, an entire historical layer in the history of a large country.

There is no denying the fact that Doctor Zhivago is a deeply lyrical novel in verse and prose, in which symbols, images, and metaphors occupy a lot of space.

The genre originality of the work is amazing: it surprisingly harmoniously intertwines many literary genres. This gives grounds to conclude that Doctor Zhivago belongs to a multi-genre novel.

It is also difficult to say which direction the novel belongs to, but, for the most part, it is a realistic work.

Work test

Rating analysis

Average rating: 3.9. Total ratings received: 132.

Pasternak's novels show the problems of life at that time.

"Doctor Zhivago" main characters

• Yuri Andreevich Zhivago - doctor, the main character of the novel
• Antonina Aleksandrovna Zhivago (Gromeko) - Yuri's wife
• Larisa Fedorovna Antipova (Guichard) - Antipov's wife
• Pavel Pavlovich Antipov (Strelnikov) - Lara's husband, revolutionary commissar
• Alexander Alexandrovich and Anna Ivanovna Gromeko - Antonina's parents
• Evgraf Andreevich Zhivago - Major General, half-brother of Yuri
• Nikolai Nikolaevich Vedenyapin - uncle of Yuri Andreevich
• Viktor Ippolitovich Komarovsky - Moscow lawyer
• Katenka Antipova - Larisa's daughter
• Mikhail Gordon and Innokenty Dudorov - Yuri's classmates at the gymnasium
• Osip Gimazetdinovich Galiullin - white general
• Anfim Efimovich Samdevyatov - lawyer, Bolshevik
• Liveriy Averkievich Mikulitsyn (Comrade Lesnykh) - leader of the Forest Brothers
• Marina - Yuri's third common-law wife
• Kipriyan Savelyevich Tiverzin and Pavel Ferapontovich Antipov - Brestskaya workers railway, political prisoners
• Maria Nikolaevna Zhivago (Vedenyapina) - Yuri's mother
• Prov Afanasyevich Sokolov - acolyte
• Shura Shlesinger - friend of Antonina Alexandrovna
• Marfa Gavrilovna Tiverzina - mother of Kipriyan Savelyevich Tiverzin
• Sofia Malakhova - friend Savelia
• Markel - janitor in the old house of the Zhivago family, Marina's father

Yuri Zhivago is a little boy who is experiencing the death of his mother: “They walked and walked and sang “Eternal Memory” ....” Yura is a descendant of a wealthy family that made its fortune in industrial, commercial and banking transactions. The parents' marriage was not happy: the father abandoned the family before the death of the mother.

Orphaned Yura will be sheltered for a while by his uncle living in the south of Russia. Then numerous relatives and friends will send him to Moscow, where he will be accepted into the family of Alexander and Anna Gromeko as if he were his own.

Yuri's exceptionalism becomes obvious quite early - even as a young man, he shows himself as a talented poet. But at the same time, he decides to follow in the footsteps of his adoptive father, Alexander Gromeko, and enters the medical department of the university, where he also proves himself to be a talented doctor. The first love, and subsequently the wife of Yuri Zhivago, becomes the daughter of his benefactors, Tonya Gromeko.

Yuri and Tony had two children, but then fate separated them forever, and youngest daughter The doctor never saw the child born after the separation.

At the beginning of the novel, new faces constantly appear before the reader. All of them will be tied into a single ball by the further course of the story. One of them is Larisa, the slave of the elderly lawyer Komarovsky, who tries with all her might and cannot escape the captivity of his “patronage.” Lara has a childhood friend, Pavel Antipov, who will later become her husband, and Lara will see her salvation in him. Having gotten married, he and Antipov cannot find their happiness; Pavel leaves his family and goes to the front of the First World War. Subsequently, he would become a formidable revolutionary commissar, changing his surname to Strelnikov. At the end Civil War he plans to reunite with his family, but this desire will never come true.

Fate brings Yuri Zhivago and Lara together in different ways during the First World War in the front-line settlement of Melyuzeyevo, where the main character of the work is called to war as a military doctor, and Antipova volunteers as a sister of mercy, trying to find her missing husband Pavel. Subsequently, the lives of Zhivago and Lara intersect again in the provincial Yuryatin-on-Rynva (a fictional Ural city, the prototype of which was Perm), where they vainly seek refuge from the revolution that destroys everything. Yuri and Larisa will meet and fall in love. But soon poverty, hunger and repression will separate both Doctor Zhivago’s family and Larina’s family. For a year and a half, Zhivago will disappear in Siberia, serving as a military doctor in captivity of the Red partisans. Having escaped, he will return on foot back to the Urals - to Yuryatin, where he will again meet with Lara. His wife Tonya, together with Yuri's children and father-in-law, while in Moscow, writes about imminent forced deportation abroad. Hoping to wait out the winter and the horrors of the Yuryatinsky Revolutionary Military Council, Yuri and Lara take refuge in the abandoned Varykino estate. Soon an unexpected guest comes to them - Komarovsky, who received an invitation to head the Ministry of Justice in the Far Eastern Republic, proclaimed on the territory of Transbaikalia and the Russian Far East. He persuades Yuri Andreevich to let Lara and her daughter go with him to the east, promising to transport them abroad. Yuri Andreevich agrees, realizing that he will never see them again.

Gradually he begins to go crazy from loneliness. Soon Lara's husband, Pavel Antipov (Strelnikov), comes to Varykino. Demoted and wandering across the expanses of Siberia, he tells Yuri Andreevich about his participation in the revolution, about Lenin, about the ideals of Soviet power, but, having learned from Yuri Andreevich that Lara has loved and loves him all this time, he understands how bitterly he was mistaken. Strelnikov commits suicide with a rifle shot. After Strelnikov's suicide, the doctor returns to Moscow in the hope of fighting for his later life. There he meets his last woman - Marina, the daughter of his ex (back when Tsarist Russia) Zhivag's janitor Markel. In a civil marriage with Marina, they have two girls. Yuri gradually descends, abandons scientific and literary activity and, even realizing his fall, he cannot do anything about it. One morning, on the way to work, he becomes ill on the tram and dies of a heart attack in the center of Moscow. His half-brother Evgraf and Lara, who will soon go missing soon after, come to say goodbye to him at his coffin.

There will be both World War II and Kursk Bulge, and the laundress Tanya, who will tell the gray-haired childhood friends of Yuri Andreevich - Innokenty Dudorov and Mikhail Gordon, who survived the Gulag, arrests and repressions of the late 30s, the story of their lives; It turns out that this is the illegitimate daughter of Yuri and Lara, and Yuri’s brother, Major General Evgraf Zhivago, will take her under his wing. He will also compile a collection of Yuri's works - a notebook that Dudorov and Gordon read in last scene novel. The novel ends with 25 poems by Yuri Zhivago.

Boris Leonidovich Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago has become one of the most controversial works of our time. The West admired them and categorically did not recognize the Soviet Union. It was published in all European languages, while the official publication in the original language came out only three decades after it was written. Abroad, it brought the author fame and the Nobel Prize, but at home - persecution, bullying, exclusion from the Union Soviet writers.

Years passed, the system collapsed, the whole country fell. The Motherland is finally talking about its unrecognized genius and his work. Textbooks were rewritten, old newspapers were thrown into the firebox, good name Pasternak was restored and even the Nobel Prize was returned (as an exception!) to the laureate’s son. Doctor Zhivago sold millions of copies all over the world new country.

Yura Zhivago, Lara, the scoundrel Komarovsky, Yuryatin, the house in Varykino, “It’s shallow, it’s shallow all over the earth...” - any of these verbal nominations is for modern man an easily recognizable allusion to Pasternak's novel. The work boldly stepped beyond the tradition that existed in the twentieth century, turning into a literary myth about a bygone era, its inhabitants and the forces that controlled them.

History of creation: recognized by the world, rejected by the homeland

The novel Doctor Zhivago was created over ten years, from 1945 to 1955. The idea of ​​writing great prose about the destinies of his generation appeared in Boris Pasternak back in 1918. However, for various reasons, it was not possible to bring it to life.

In the 30s, “Zhivult's Notes” appeared - such a test of the pen before the birth of the future masterpiece. In the surviving fragments of the Notes, a thematic, ideological and figurative similarity with the novel Doctor Zhivago can be traced. Thus, Patriky Zhivult became the prototype of Yuri Zhivago, Evgeny Istomin (Lyuvers) - Larisa Fedorovna (Lara).

In 1956, Pasternak sent the manuscript of Doctor Zhivago to leading literary publications – « New world", "Banner", " Fiction" They all refused to publish the novel, while for " iron curtain"The book was published in November 1957. It saw the light of day thanks to the interest of an Italian radio employee in Moscow, Sergio D’Angelo, and his compatriot, publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli.

In 1958, Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize “For significant achievements in modern lyric poetry, as well as the continuation of the traditions of the great Russian epic novel." Pasternak became the second Russian writer, after Ivan Bunin, to receive this honorary prize. European recognition had the effect of a bomb exploding in the domestic literary environment. From then on, large-scale persecution of the writer began, which did not subside until the end of his days.

Parsnip was called a “Judas,” “an anti-conscience bait on a rusty hook,” a “literary weed,” and a “black sheep” that got into a good herd. He was forced to refuse the prize, expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers, showered with caustic epigrams, and Pasternak’s “minutes of hatred” were organized at plants, factories and other government institutions. It is paradoxical that there was no talk of publishing the novel in the USSR, so most of the detractors did not even see the work. Subsequently, the persecution of Pasternak included literary history entitled “I haven’t read it, but I condemn it!”

Ideological meat grinder

Only in the late 60s, after the death of Boris Leonidovich, the persecution began to subside. In 1987, Pasternak was reinstated in the Union of Soviet Writers, and in 1988, the novel “Doctor Zhivago” was published on the pages of the magazine “New World”, which thirty years ago not only did not agree to publish Pasternak, but also published an accusatory letter addressed to him with a demand deprive Boris Leonidovich of Soviet citizenship.

Today, Doctor Zhivago remains one of the most readable novels in the world. It spawned a number of others works of art- dramatizations and films. The novel has been filmed four times. The most famous version was filmed by a creative trio - USA, UK, Germany. The project was directed by Giacomo Campiotti, starring Hans Matheson (Yuri Zhivago), Keira Knightley (Lara), Sam Neill (Komarovsky). There is also a domestic version of Doctor Zhivago. It appeared on TV screens in 2005. The role of Zhivago was played by Oleg Menshikov, Lara by Chulpan Khamatova, Komarovsky was played by Oleg Yankovsky. The film project was led by director Alexander Proshkin.

The novel begins with a funeral. They say goodbye to Natalya Nikolaevna Vedepyanina, the mother of little Yura Zhivago. Now Yura is left an orphan. Their father left them with their mother long ago, happily squandering the family's million-dollar fortune somewhere in the vastness of Siberia. During one of these trips, having gotten drunk on the train, he jumped out of the train at full speed and fell to his death.

Little Yura was sheltered by relatives - the Gromeko professorial family. Alexander Alexandrovich and Anna Ivanovna accepted young Zhivago as their own. He grew up with their daughter Tonya, his main friend since childhood.

At the time when Yura Zhivago lost his old one and found new family, the widow Amalia Karlovna Guichard came to Moscow with her children Rodion and Larisa. A friend of her late husband, respected Moscow lawyer Viktor Ippolitovich Komarovsky, helped organize the move for Madame (the widow was a Russified Frenchwoman). The benefactor helped the family settle in big city, arranged for Rodka to cadet corps and continued from time to time to visit Amalia Karlovna, a narrow-minded and amorous woman.

However, interest in her mother quickly faded when Lara grew up. The girl developed quickly. At 16 she already looked like a young woman beautiful woman. A graying womanizer bewitched an inexperienced girl - before she knew it, the young victim found herself in his net. Komarovsky lay at the feet of his young lover, swore his love and blasphemed himself, begged him to open up to his mother and have a wedding, as if Lara was arguing and did not agree. And he continued and continued to shamefully take her under a long veil to special rooms in expensive restaurants. “Is it possible that when people love, they humiliate?” – Lara wondered and could not find an answer, hating her tormentor with all her soul.

Several years after the vicious affair, Lara shoots Komarovsky. This happened during a Christmas celebration at the venerable Moscow Sventitsky family. Lara didn’t hit Komarovsky, and, by and large, she didn’t want to. But without suspecting it, she landed right in the heart of a young man named Zhivago, who was also among those invited.

Thanks to Komarovsky’s connections, the shooting incident was hushed up. Lara hastily married her childhood friend Patulya (Pasha) Antipov, very modest and selflessly in love with her young man. After the wedding, the newlyweds leave for the Urals, to the small town of Yuryatin. There their daughter Katenka is born. Lara, now Larisa Fedorovna Antipova, teaches at the gymnasium, and Patulya, Pavel Pavlovich, reads history and Latin.

At this time, changes also occur in the life of Yuri Andreevich. His named mother Anna Ivanovna dies. Soon Yura marries Tonya Gromeko, whose tender friendship has long turned into adult love.

The measured life of these two families was shaken by the outbreak of war. Yuri Andreevich is mobilized to the front as a military doctor. He has to leave Tonya with his newborn son. In turn, Pavel Antipov leaves his family of his own free will. He's been burdened for a long time family life. Realizing that Lara is too good for him, that she does not love him, Patulya considers any options, including suicide. The war came in very handy - an ideal way to prove yourself as a hero, or to find a quick death.

Book two: the greatest love on earth

Having sipped on the sorrows of war, Yuri Andreevich returns to Moscow and finds his beloved city in terrible ruin. The reunited Zhivago family decides to leave the capital and go to the Urals, to Varykino, where the factories of Kruger, Antonina Alexandrovna’s grandfather, used to be located. Here, by coincidence, Zhivago meets Larisa Fedorovna. She works as a nurse in a hospital where Yuri Andreevich gets a job as a doctor.

Soon a connection begins between Yura and Lara. Tormented by remorse, Zhivago returns to Lara’s house again and again, unable to resist the feeling that this beautiful woman evokes in him. He admires Lara every minute: “She doesn’t want to be liked, to be beautiful, to be captivating. She despises this side of the feminine essence and, as it were, punishes herself for being so good... How good everything she does is. She reads it like it's not higher activity human, but something simpler, accessible to animals. It’s like she’s carrying water or peeling potatoes.”

The love dilemma is again solved by war. One day, on the road from Yuryatin to Varykino, Yuri Andreevich will be captured by the Red partisans. Only after a year and a half of wandering through the Siberian forests will Doctor Zhivago be able to escape. Yuryatin was captured by the Reds. Tonya, father-in-law, son and daughter, who was born after the doctor’s forced absence, left for Moscow. They manage to secure the opportunity to emigrate abroad. Antonina Pavlovna writes about this to her husband in a farewell letter. This letter is a cry into the void, when the writer does not know whether his message will reach the addressee. Tonya says that she knows about Lara, but does not condemn the still beloved Yura. “Let me cross you,” the letters scream hysterically, “For all the endless separation, trials, uncertainty, for all your long, long dark path.”

Having lost forever the hope of reuniting with his family, Yuri Andreevich again begins to live with Lara and Katenka. In order not to appear once again in a city that has raised red banners, Lara and Yura retire to the forest house of the deserted Varykino. Here they spend the most happy Days their quiet family happiness.

Oh, how good they were together. They loved to talk in low voices for a long time, with a candle burning comfortably on the table. They were united by a community of souls and a gulf between them and the rest of the world. “I am jealous of you for the items of your toilet,” Yura confessed to Lara, “for the drops of sweat on your skin, for the infectious diseases in the air... I love you madly, without memory, endlessly.” “They definitely taught us how to kiss in heaven,” Lara whispered, “And then they sent us as children to live at the same time, so that we could test this ability on each other.”

Komarovsky bursts into the Varykin happiness of Lara and Yura. He reports that all of them are in danger of reprisals and implores them to save themselves. Yuri Andreevich is a deserter, and the former revolutionary commissar Strelnikov (aka the supposedly deceased Pavel Antipov) has fallen out of favor. His loved ones will face inevitable death. Fortunately, one of these days a train will pass by. Komarovsky can arrange a safe departure. This is the last chance.

Zhivago flatly refuses to go, but in order to save Lara and Katenka he resorts to deception. At the instigation of Komarovsky, he says that he will follow them. He himself remains at the forest house, without really saying goodbye to his beloved.

Poems by Yuri Zhivago

Loneliness drives Yuri Andreevich crazy. He loses track of the days, and drowns out his frenzied, bestial longing for Lara with memories of her. During the days of Varykin's seclusion, Yura creates a cycle of twenty-five poems. They are appended at the end of the novel as “Poems by Yuri Zhivago”:

“Hamlet” (“The noise died down. I stepped onto the stage”);
"March";
“On Strastnaya”;
« White Night»;
"Spring minx";
"Explanation";
"Summer in the City";
“Autumn” (“I let my family leave…”);
“Winter Night” (“The candle was burning on the table...”);
"Magdalene";
"Garden of Gethsemane" and others.

One day a stranger appears on the doorstep of the house. This is Pavel Pavlovich Antipov, aka Revolutionary Committee Strelnikov. The men talk all night. About life, about revolution, about disappointment, and a woman who was loved and continues to be loved. In the morning, when Zhivago fell asleep, Antipov put a bullet in his forehead.

What happened next to the doctor is not clear; we only know that he returned to Moscow on foot in the spring of 1922. Yuri Andreevich settles with Markel (the former janitor of the Zhivago family) and becomes friends with his daughter Marina. Yuri and Marina have two daughters. But Yuri Andreevich no longer lives, he seems to be living out his life. Gives up literary activity, lives in poverty, accepts submissive love faithful Marina.

One day Zhivago disappears. He sends his common-law wife a short letter in which he says that he wants to be alone for some time, to think about his future fate and life. However, he never returned to his family. Death overtook Yuri Andreevich unexpectedly - in a Moscow tram car. He died of a heart attack.

In addition to people from the immediate environment recent years, an unknown man and woman came to Zhivago’s funeral. This is Evgraf (Yuri's half-brother and his patron) and Lara. “Here we are together again, Yurochka. How God brought us to see each other again... - Lara quietly whispers at the coffin, - Goodbye, my great and dear one, goodbye my pride, goodbye my fast little river, how I loved your all-day splash, how I loved to rush into your cold waves... Your departure, mine end".

We invite you to get acquainted with the poet, writer, translator, publicist - one of the most prominent representatives Russian literature of the twentieth century. The novel “Doctor Zhivago” brought the writer the greatest fame.

Washerwoman Tanya

Years later, during the Second World War, Gordon and Dudorov meet the washerwoman Tanya, a narrow-minded, simple woman. She shamelessly tells the story of her life and her recent meeting with Major General Zhivago himself, who for some reason found her and invited her on a date. Gordon and Dudorov soon realize that Tanya is the illegitimate daughter of Yuri Andreevich and Larisa Fedorovna, born after leaving Varykino. Lara was forced to leave the girl at a railway crossing. So Tanya lived in the care of Aunt Marfusha’s caretaker, not knowing affection, care, not hearing the book word.

There is nothing left of her parents in her - majestic beauty Lara, her natural intelligence, sharp mind Yura, his poetry. It’s bittersweet to look at a fruit mercilessly beaten by life. great love. “This has happened several times in history. What was conceived ideally, sublimely, became crude and materialized.” So Greece became Rome, Russian enlightenment became the Russian revolution, Tatiana Zhivago turned into the laundress Tanya.

In 1957, the Italian publishing house Feltrinelli published the first copies of Doctor Zhivago. In 1958, Boris Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for this novel, which he was forced to publicly refuse. In Russia, the work was published only in 1988 (in the magazine “New World”), more than thirty years from the date of the first publication of “Doctor Zhivago”. The action of the novel takes place in that difficult time when Russia faced all the trials at once: the First World War and the Civil Wars, the abdication of the Tsar, the revolution. Boris Pasternak's novel about the fate of his generation, which became a witness, participant and victim of this madness. Reviews in the press Famous novel Nobel laureate It has been republished several times and has long become a programmatic work of Russian literature. Here is an audio performance of the work performed by Honored Artist of Russia Alexei Borzunov. The text is reproduced without abbreviations: both parts of the masterpiece and the poem by Yuri Zhivago. Your leisure time Listening to a novel performed by an artist is not as easy as it might seem at first glance, because the listener will be required to fully participate, and this is affected by the specificity of the novel as a whole and Borzunov’s intonation features: he reads as if he were telling a story about himself, very trusting and very sincere, so you begin to listen, empathize, follow the course of history and in the end you become part of it. Those who are familiar with the plot of the novel should listen to the audio version, at least to compare their own attitude to certain events occurring in the novel with the emphasis placed by Alexey Borzunov. AIF “I want to know everything” © B. Pasternak (heirs) ©&? IP Vorobiev V.A. ©&? ID UNION

"Doctor Zhivago" - plot

The main character of the novel, Yuri Zhivago, appears before the reader as a little boy on the first pages of the work, describing the funeral of his mother: “They walked and walked and sang “Eternal Memory” ....” Yura is a descendant of a wealthy family that made a fortune in industrial, commercial and banking operations. The parents' marriage was not happy: the father abandoned the family before the death of the mother.

Orphaned Yura will be sheltered for a while by his uncle living in the south of Russia. Then numerous relatives and friends will send him to Moscow, where he will be accepted into the family of Alexander and Anna Gromeko as if he were his own.

Yuri's exceptionalism becomes obvious quite early - even as a young man, he shows himself as a talented poet. But at the same time, he decides to follow in the footsteps of his adoptive father, Alexander Gromeko, and enters the medical department of the university, where he also proves himself to be a talented doctor. The first love, and subsequently the wife of Yuri Zhivago, becomes the daughter of his benefactors, Tonya Gromeko.

Yuri and Tony had two children, but then fate separated them forever, and the doctor never saw his youngest daughter, who was born after the separation.

At the beginning of the novel, new faces constantly appear before the reader. All of them will be tied into a single ball by the further course of the story. One of them is Larisa, the slave of the elderly lawyer Komarovsky, who tries with all her might and cannot escape the captivity of his “patronage.” Lara has a childhood friend, Pavel Antipov, who will later become her husband, and Lara will see her salvation in him. Having gotten married, he and Antipov cannot find their happiness; Pavel leaves his family and goes to the front of the First World War. Subsequently, he would become a formidable revolutionary commissar, changing his surname to Strelnikov. At the end of the Civil War, he plans to reunite with his family, but this desire will never come true.

Fate brings Yuri Zhivago and Lara together in different ways during the First World War in the front-line settlement of Melyuzeyevo, where the main character of the work is called to war as a military doctor, and Antipova volunteers as a sister of mercy, trying to find her missing husband Pavel. Subsequently, the lives of Zhivago and Lara intersect again in the provincial Yuryatin-on-Rynva (a fictional Ural city, the prototype of which was Perm), where they vainly seek refuge from the revolution that destroys everything. Yuri and Larisa will meet and fall in love. But soon poverty, hunger and repression will separate both Doctor Zhivago’s family and Larina’s family. For a year and a half, Zhivago will disappear in Siberia, serving as a military doctor in captivity of the Red partisans. Having escaped, he will return on foot back to the Urals - to Yuryatin, where he will again meet with Lara. His wife Tonya, together with Yuri's children and father-in-law, while in Moscow, writes about imminent forced deportation abroad. Hoping to wait out the winter and the horrors of the Yuryatinsky Revolutionary Military Council, Yuri and Lara take refuge in the abandoned Varykino estate. Soon an unexpected guest comes to them - Komarovsky, who received an invitation to head the Ministry of Justice in the Far Eastern Republic, proclaimed on the territory of Transbaikalia and the Russian Far East. He persuades Yuri Andreevich to let Lara and her daughter go with him to the east, promising to transport them abroad. Yuri Andreevich agrees, realizing that he will never see them again.

Gradually he begins to go crazy from loneliness. Soon Lara's husband, Pavel Antipov (Strelnikov), comes to Varykino. Demoted and wandering across the expanses of Siberia, he tells Yuri Andreevich about his participation in the revolution, about Lenin, about the ideals of Soviet power, but, having learned from Yuri Andreevich that Lara has loved and loves him all this time, he understands how bitterly he was mistaken. Strelnikov commits suicide with a rifle shot. After Strelnikov's suicide, the doctor returns to Moscow in the hope of fighting for his future life. There he meets his last woman - Marina, the daughter of the former (back in Tsarist Russia) Zhivag janitor Markel. In a civil marriage with Marina, they have two girls. Yuri gradually sinks, abandons scientific and literary activities and, even realizing his fall, cannot do anything about it. One morning, on the way to work, he becomes ill on the tram and dies of a heart attack in the center of Moscow. His half-brother Evgraf and Lara, who will soon go missing soon after, come to say goodbye to him at his coffin.

Ahead will be the Second World War, and the Kursk Bulge, and the washerwoman Tanya, who will tell Yuri Andreevich’s gray-haired childhood friends - Innokenty Dudorov and Mikhail Gordon, who survived the Gulag, arrests and repressions of the late 30s, the story of their lives; It turns out that this is the illegitimate daughter of Yuri and Lara, and Yuri’s brother, Major General Evgraf Zhivago, will take her under his wing. He will also compile a collection of Yuri's works - a notebook that Dudorov and Gordon read in the last scene of the novel. The novel ends with 25 poems by Yuri Zhivago.

Story

In November 1957, the novel was first published Italian in Milan at the Feltrinelli publishing house, “despite all the efforts of the Kremlin and the Italian Communist Party” (for this Feltrinelli was later expelled from the Communist Party).

On August 24, 1958, a “pirated” (without the consent of Feltrinelli) edition in Russian was released in Holland with a circulation of 500 copies.

The Russian edition, based on a manuscript not corrected by the author, was published in Milan in January 1959.

Awards

On October 23, 1958, Boris Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize with the wording “for significant achievements in modern lyric poetry, as well as for continuing the traditions of the great Russian epic novel.” The USSR authorities, led by N. S. Khrushchev, perceived this event with indignation, since they considered the novel anti-Soviet. Due to the persecution that unfolded in the USSR, Pasternak was forced to refuse to receive the prize. Only on December 9, 1989, the Nobel diploma and medal were awarded to the writer’s son, Evgeniy Pasternak, in Stockholm.

Criticism

V.V. Nabokov gave a negative assessment to the novel, which replaced “Lolita” in the list of bestsellers: “Doctor Zhivago - pathetic thing", clumsy, banal and melodramatic, with hackneyed situations, voluptuous lawyers, improbable girls, romantic robbers and banal coincidences"

Ivan Tolstoy, author of the book “The Laundered Novel”: Because this man overcame what all other writers in the Soviet Union could not overcome. For example, Andrei Sinyavsky sent his manuscripts to the West under the pseudonym Abram Tertz. In the USSR in 1958 there was only one person who, raising his visor, said: “I am Boris Pasternak, I am the author of the novel Doctor Zhivago. And I want it to come out in the form in which it was created." And this man was awarded the Nobel Prize. I believe that this highest award was awarded to the most correct person on Earth at that time.

Reviews

Reviews of the book "Doctor Zhivago"

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Yulia Olegina

The Great Russian Epic Novel

I really enjoyed this novel! Moreover, Doctor Zhivago has become my favorite Russian novel!

Everyone knows that it was for this work that Pasternak was given the Nobel Prize with the wording “... for continuing the traditions of the great Russian epic novel.” And it is true. "Doctor Zhivago" is a new "War and Peace", only a century later. Shown here different destinies, the impact of the First World War on the lives of people from different social classes. There is love that breaks through walls and love that is locked.

At first I didn't really like it. The description of the life of Yura Zhivago, Gordon, Lara in childhood is not very interesting and even a little “intrusive”. The plot jumps from one character to another, you don’t even have time to remember everyone, who, to whom and by whom. But from the moment Yura and Tonya’s promise to Tonya’s dying mother to love each other, the novel seems to get a “second wind.” Now the action unfolds rapidly, excitingly and most importantly - powerfully. You read avidly and can’t stop. Pasternak put a lot of effort into his narration style, every word of his is precise, you can neither delete nor add. Just the way it should be.

1. For everyone who loves classic Russian novels, such as "War and Peace", "Anna Karenina", " The captain's daughter" etc.

Episode 1
1905 On the train, attorney at law Grigory Osipovich Gordon and his son Mikhail met millionaire and philanthropist Andrei Zhivago and his companion Viktor Komarovsky, a famous lawyer. And in the restaurant of the train, Komarovsky drew attention to Larisa Guichard, who was accompanied by her brother, Rodion. A tragedy occurred on the train: Andrei Zhivago committed suicide... The Gordons settled in the house of Alexander Gromeko. His daughter Tonya is susceptible fashionable hobbies of its time. Life in revolutionary Moscow seems strange. And the appearance of the outrageous journalist Shurochka Zhelezina sometimes turns Gromeko’s house almost into a madhouse. Yuri Zhivago, a medical student, Andrei Zhivago’s son from his first marriage, also lives in Gromeko’s house...

Episode 2
Larisa found Pavel, her savior, and came with him to a restaurant for dinner, arranged by Komarovsky for the Guichard family. Larisa wanted to “wipe the nose” of Komarovsky, who began to show “heartfelt interest” in Larisa.... Three years passed... Yuri met Komarovsky, accidentally catching him alone with Larisa.... Misha told Yura about his suspicions regarding Komarovsky's role in the death of Yura's father...

Episode 3
Christmas Eve. Yuri was tormented by the question of the right to revenge and looked for the answer in the Bible. Lara decided to break up with Komarovsky due to her mother's well-founded suspicions about their relationship. But Rodion, Lara’s brother, a cadet at a military school, lost public money, and he had to ask Komarovsky for the necessary amount. He gave me the money. Lara gave the money to her brother in exchange for a revolver... She shot at Komarovsky, but missed... The year 1914 came. Russia entered the war. Yura became a real doctor, married Tonya... He witnesses how a crowd of “patriots” destroyed Madame Guichard’s salon. Yura was sent to the front, while his wife was expecting a child... Lara left her mother to live with the Antipovs.

Episode 4
Komarovsky, already a Duma deputy, came to the Antipovs to return Lara. But Lara chose her path: she and Pavel got married. Yuri was wounded. In the hospital, he again met Lara, who was now working as a nurse... Meanwhile, revolutionary events were approaching...

Episode 5
Lara said goodbye to Yuri and left to visit her little daughter... An authorized representative of the Provisional Government, Commissar Ginze, arrived in the army to put an end to defeatist sentiments, anarchy and desertion. The commissar, the chairman of the regimental committee and Yuri went to the local “Zybushenskaya republic”, led by a certain Blazheiko, to negotiate voluntary disarmament. But the mood of the masses, who had tasted the “freedom,” convinced the commissar of the need for decisive action. The attempt to disarm the “Zybushenskaya Republic” ended with the Cossacks sent for this purpose shooting the commissar... The chairman of the regimental committee shot himself...

Episode 6
Autumn 1917. Yuri returned home and saw his son for the first time. Disagreements began with his wife, who was jealous of Lara... Thaddeus Kazimirovich, the chief doctor of the Holy Cross Hospital, hired Yuri, but urgently asked him to think about leaving for America... Yuri met Komarovsky, he found him, robbed and beaten, on street and gave him medical care. The conversation led them to memories of Lara... Komarovsky learned from Yura his last name - Zhivago... Meanwhile, the Bolsheviks came to power...

Episode 7
Revolutionary times dictated new life. Yuri learned what special rations were, having received special coupons from Komarovsky in gratitude. The year 1918 arrived. Yuri's family left on a train away from Moscow with a simple goal - to survive. During the forced stop of the train, Yuri, detained as a “spy,” first came to the Cheka.

Episode 8
Yuri met Lara, love was hampered by heavy thoughts about his duty to their families. Whites entered the town, among them was Rodion, Lara’s brother... And the war again separated Yuri from his family and from Lara: he was “mobilized” into the partisan detachment as a medical worker. The year 1919 has arrived...

Episode 9
The partisan detachment that Yuri ended up in spent the winter in the forest. Cold and hunger, cruelty and death accompanied people every day. The detachment was commanded by Liveriy, the son of the former manager, he maintained discipline with an “iron hand”... Yuri asked to be given free rein and released from the detachment... The year 1921 came. Yuri deserted from the detachment and came to Lara... From her he learned that Tonya had given birth to a daughter, and that the family had moved to Moscow...

Episode 10
The revolutionary court sentenced Pavel Antipov-Strelnikov to death. The special commissioner of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Pavel Neverov, Antipov’s father, himself asked for to the highest degree... Yuri and Lara moved to an abandoned estate, where some food supplies were preserved... Here they were found by Komarovsky, who came for Lara and her daughter Katya to take them with him to Far East, where he was heading as Minister of Justice. Yuri had to agree and accept Komarovsky’s conditions for the sake of the future of the woman he loved... At night, Pavel Antipov, who had escaped from arrest, came to Yuri. He no longer found Lara... Seeing no way out, being in a clouded consciousness, Pavel shot himself.

Episode 11
1929 Yuri Zhivago worked as an orderly in the same Oktyabrskaya hospital - they could not give the “former” any other job. One day, a responsible OGPU official gave Yuri a letter from Toni, who now lived with her children in Paris... And Yuri lived with Marina, Markel’s daughter. One day, Yuri was summoned to the OGPU, where he was offered to travel abroad in exchange for cooperation with the authorities and was given time to think. He never saw his children...