He lived a quiet life and, on the outside, looked just like anyone else. He never brawled or challenged anyone for a duel, never emigrated to the West or perished in the GULAG. And still, his inner life was all about music, bristling with lively metaphors and an ability to see what other people didn't - a very special spiritual world all his own: bright and uplifting, never hopeless.

Boris Pasternak was born in Moscow on January 29, 1890, the eldest son of the painter Leonid Pasternak and the famous pianist Rosa Kaufman. He spent his early years amid music and watercolors, which predetermined the optimism of his poetry. A graduate of the History and Philosophy Department of Moscow University, Pasternak was a highly educated man.

His poetic debut came in 1914 when he was 24 years old. The 1917 Bolshevik revolution and the events that surrounded it found their way into Pasternak's poems which quickly propelled him to the forefront of       Russia's poetic elite. Laudations soon gave way to sharp criticism, though, over the poet's desire to go beyond the revolutionary theme in his work. Unable to publish a single book but still spared exile, Pasternak subsisted on translations of English, German and French classics, many of which are still considered the very best around. 

But it was not the poems and translations that made Boris Pasternak famous the world over, though, but his epic novel “Doctor Zhivago.” It is the life story of a doctor and a poet who bears witness to the trials and tribulations that befell Russia during the first quarter of the 20th century.

Pasternak sent out two copies of the novel to the Soviet literary magazines and gave the third one to an Italian Communist friend to read. The latter copy then found its way to the very adventurous    Italian publisher Feltrinelli who started looking for someone to translate it and informed Pasternak of his intentions. The author warned Feltrinelli that if the novel came out in Italy before it did in the Soviet Union, he would find himself in a real predicament. While “Doctor Zhivago” was  being translated, the Soviet magazines kept mum  and    seemed in no hurry to publish the novel. Realizing this, Pasternak immediately contacted the Milan-based publisher asking him to send back the manuscript.

Feltrinelly was too involved now to back off and he was not the one to lose money either. In the fall of 1957 the Italian translation came out and, shortly after, “Doctor Zhivago” was already available in 18 languages.

Back in those days, any unauthorized publication abroad was almost tantamount to high treason. Still, the publication did little to irreparably hurt the collective pride of Pasternak's Soviet colleagues. However, when a year later, on October 23, 1958, the Swedish Academy awarded Pasternak the Nobel Prize “for his important achievement both in contemporary lyrical poetry and in the field of the great Russian epic tradition” hell broke loose with the Soviet newspapers unleashing a vicious smear campaign against Pasternak who was expelled from the Soviet Writers' Union and forced to decline the award or face expulsion from the country. 

To Pasternak, leaving Russia was tantamount to death, which, unfortunately, didn't take long coming... In January I960 he celebrated his 70th birthday and on Easter day he was already in hospital fighting a losing battle with lung cancer...

Shortly before his death, Pasternak described his life as a struggle against
vulgarity ruling supreme for the freely playing human talent. “I spent my   whole life on this,” he said sadly. In May I960 Boris Pasternak passed away…

When the winds of democracy started blowing in mid-1980s, the official attitude towards Pasternak's literary legacy started changing too. In 1987 the Soviet Writers' Union reinstated Pasternak's membership, “Doctor Zhivago” finally appeared in one of those thick literary magazines and Pasternak's son received the Nobel Prize diploma on behalf of his father...