The author of the Soviet literary classic "Doctor Zhivago" and the Nobel Prize winner Bao Lie Pasternak, is a master of twentieth-century literature, he writes novels and writes poetry, and in the latest book "Years with Pasternak" published by Guangxi Normal University Press, he also reveals that he is a brave and beautiful person.
Written by New World editor Olga Evanskaya and her daughter Irina Yemelyanova, this classic memoir, which includes two parts, "The Prisoner of Time" and "The Legend of Potapov Lane", is an important testimony to Pasternak's later years.
Pasternak remained true to his moral convictions in the difficult twentieth century—to be loyal to his friends and to support and help those who were in a difficult situation, "insulted and damaged." It was because of his help that many people who were imprisoned by the injustices of the times survived.
Evanskaya & Pasternak
The love affair between Pasternak and Ivinskaya also became a legend. "Years with Pasternak" tells how their love was born from a chance encounter, how many trials the couple went through together, and how heroically they resisted the harsh years.
On the eve of their encounter, Pasternak's work was banned from publication and could not be communicated with readers. He needs to burst out new feelings, needs (as he puts it) that "clear and happy" personal imprint. In 1946, he met Ivinskaya in the editorial board of New World, "engraved on the heart" of the new world. And Evanskaya recalls that meeting, using Pasternak's verse: "Ah, without the footsteps of my God, where should I go!" ”
Ivinskaya was Pasternak's life companion, a valuable reader, a muse, "Ergriya" (Greek for "motivator"). She is the prototype of the heroine "Lala" of "Doctor Zhivago", like Lala, beautiful, fond of poetry, wearing messy blond hair braids, opening her heart to people and destiny. For Ivinskaya, poetry is both a footnote to life and the content of life. At that time, life was almost extremely poor, "in danger", and she looked for examples, soil and support in her poems.
Ivinskaya was also the subject of Pasternak's late lyric poems. Many of Pasternak's late poems, such as "Parting", "Meeting", "Autumn", "August", "Fairy Tale", "Untitled", etc., are triggered by this love. This is Pasternak's last love, with the color of autumn twilight. There is a sense of imminent death and the need for a difference, and there is also the awareness that this "illegal" love is doomed to failure. Pasternak wrote the poem Candlelight, Winter Night (1946). The emotion contained in it is that in the blizzard of the severe world, the flame of love is suddenly bright and dark, must be extinguished, and can only be hidden.
Candlelight is also one of the original titles of the novel Doctor Zhivago, which Pasternak began writing before his encounter with Ivinskaya. In 1956, when the novel was about to be completed, their relationship went through a series of difficult tests, and the two achieved a solid union of both heart and life. And the heroine of the novel, Lara, resembles Evanskaya in appearance, fate (especially in the ending). Doctor Zhivago, first published in Italy and later won the Nobel Prize in Literature, triggered the sensitive nerves of the situation, and the two were also involved in endless turmoil.
Ivinskaya was arrested twice, the first time all interrogations revolved around Pasternak, around his "feelings of betrayal", Pasternak worked like a hard laborer to translate and earn money, funding Ivinskaya's two children, including Irina, the book's other author, to save them from being sent to an orphanage; and after Pasternak's death, Ivinskaya and her daughter Irina were arrested again, and were not released until 1964. Later, the two wrote their memoirs about Pasternak, "The Prisoner of Time" and "The Legend of Potapov Lane".
"Years with Pasternak" is the 39th book in the "Literary Monument" book series, which together with the earlier publication of the book series, restores Pasternak's career as a writer. The book is a mesmerizing style, well-written, and well-translated, which is the first complete introduction and contains letters written by Irina to Chinese readers. Yangzi Evening News/Purple Cow News reporter Huang Yanwen
Proofread by Xu Heng
Source: Purple Cow News