Nobel Prize for Boris Pasternak.
Memories of a son
Among the events associated with the centenary of Boris Pasternak, a special place is occupied by the decision of the Nobel Committee to restore historical truth, recognizing as forced and invalid Pasternak's refusal to Nobel Prize, and present a diploma and a medal to the family of the late laureate. The awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Pasternak in the autumn of 1958 received notoriety. This painted with deep tragedy, shortened and poisoned the rest of his days with bitterness. For the next thirty years, this topic remained taboo and mysterious.
Talk about Pasternak's Nobel Prize began in the early post-war years. According to information provided by the current head of the Nobel Committee, Lars Gillensten, his candidacy was discussed annually from 1946 to 1950, reappeared in 1957, and the prize was awarded in 1958. Pasternak found out about this indirectly - by intensifying the attacks of domestic criticism. Sometimes he was forced to make excuses in order to avert direct threats associated with European fame: “According to the Writers' Union, in some literary circles in the West they attach unusual importance to my activity, because of its modesty and unproductiveness - incongruous ... "
To justify close attention to him, he concentrated and passionately wrote his novel Doctor Zhivago, his artistic testament to Russian spiritual life.
In the autumn of 1954, Olga Freidenberg asked him from Leningrad: “We have a rumor that you have received the Nobel Prize. Is it true? Otherwise, where does such a rumor come from?” “Such rumors are circulating here, too,” Pasternak answered her. - I'm the last one they reach. I learn about them after all - from third hands ... I was more afraid that this gossip would not become true than I wished it, although this award entails a mandatory trip to receive an award, a flight to wide world, an exchange of thoughts - but, again, I would not have been able to make this journey as an ordinary wind-up doll, as is usual, but I have an unfinished novel of my life, and how everything would become aggravated. This is the Babylonian captivity. Apparently, God had mercy - this danger has passed. Apparently, a candidate was proposed, definitely and widely supported. This was written about in Belgian, French and West German newspapers. They saw it, they read it, they say it. Then people heard on the Air Force that (for what I bought - I'm selling) they nominated me, but, knowing the customs, they asked for the consent of the representative office, which petitioned for me to be replaced by Sholokhov's candidacy, upon the rejection of which the commission nominated Hemingway, who, probably, will be awarded the prize .. But I was also happy in the assumption of falling into the category in which Hamsun and Bunin had been, and, at least through a misunderstanding, to be next to Hemingway.
The novel "Doctor Zhivago" was completed a year later. His French translation was sympathetically followed Albert Camus, Nobel laureate in 1957. In his Swedish lecture, he spoke with admiration of Pasternak. The Nobel Prize in 1958 was awarded to Pasternak "for outstanding services in modern lyric poetry and in the field of great Russian prose." Having received a telegram from the Secretary of the Nobel Committee, Anders Esterling, Pasternak answered him on October 29, 1958: “Grateful, glad, proud, embarrassed.” He was congratulated by neighbors - Ivanovs, Chukovskys, telegrams came, correspondents besieged. Zinaida Nikolaevna discussed what kind of dress she should sew for a trip to Stockholm. It seemed that all the hardships and harassment with the publication of the novel, the challenges to the Central Committee and the Writers' Union were over. The Nobel Prize is a complete and absolute victory and recognition, an honor given to all Russian literature.
But the next morning, K. Fedin suddenly came, who, past the hostess fussing in the kitchen, went straight up to Pasternak's office. Fedin demanded from Pasternak an immediate, defiant refusal of the prize, while threatening to be persecuted tomorrow in the newspapers. Pasternak replied that nothing would force him to refuse the honor shown to him, that he had already answered the Nobel Committee and could not look like an ungrateful deceiver in their eyes. He also flatly refused to go with Fedin to his dacha, where D. A. Polikarpov, head of the department of culture of the Central Committee, sat and waited for him to explain.
These days we traveled daily to Peredelkino. Father, without changing his usual rhythm, continued to work, he then translated "Mary Stuart" by Slovak, was bright, did not read newspapers, said that he was ready to accept any hardships for the honor of being a Nobel laureate. It was in this tone that he wrote a letter to the presidium of the Writers' Union, but did not go to the meeting, and where, according to G. Markov's report, he was expelled from the membership of the Union. We have repeatedly tried to find this letter in the archives of the Writers' Union, but without success, probably, it has been destroyed. Father cheerfully talked about him when he stopped by to see us before returning to Peredelkino. It consisted of twenty-two points, among which I remember:
“I believe that one can write Doctor Zhivago while remaining a Soviet person, especially since it was finished at the time when Dudintsev’s novel Not By Bread Alone was published, which created the impression of a thaw. I gave the novel to an Italian communist publishing house and waited for the censored edition to come out in Moscow. I agreed to correct all unacceptable places. The possibilities of the Soviet writer seemed to me wider than they are. Having handed over the novel as it is, I expected that the friendly hand of the critic would touch it.
When I sent the telegram of thanks to the Nobel Committee, I did not consider that the prize was awarded to me for the novel, but for the totality of what was done, as indicated in its wording. I could think so, because my candidacy was nominated for the award back in those days when the novel did not exist and no one knew about it.
Nothing will make me refuse the honor shown to me, a modern writer living in Russia, and, therefore, a Soviet one. But I am ready to transfer the money of the Nobel Prize to the Peace Committee.
I know that under public pressure the question of my expulsion from the Writers' Union will be raised. I don't expect justice from you. You can shoot me, send me out, do whatever you want. I forgive you in advance. But take your time. It will not add to your happiness or glory. And remember, anyway, in a few years you will have to rehabilitate me. This is not the first time in your practice.”
A proud and independent position helped Pasternak during the first week to withstand all the insults, threats and anathematizations of the press. He was worried if I was in trouble at work or Leni at the university. We tried our best to calm him down. From Ehrenburg, I learned and told my father about the wave of support for his defense that arose these days in the Western press.
But all this ceased to interest him on October 29, when, having arrived in Moscow and talked on the phone with O. Ivinskaya, he went to the telegraph office and sent a telegram to Stockholm: “Due to the significance that the award awarded to me received in the society to which I I belong, I must refuse it, do not take my voluntary refusal as an insult. Another telegram was sent to the Central Committee: "Return the work to Ivinskaya, I refused the prize."
Arriving in Peredelkino in the evening, I did not recognize my father. A gray, bloodless face, exhausted, unhappy eyes, and for all the stories - one thing: “Now it doesn’t matter, I refused the prize.”
But this sacrifice was no longer needed. She did nothing to ease his situation. This was not noticed at the all-Moscow meeting of writers, which took place two days later. Moscow writers turned to the government with a request to deprive Pasternak of citizenship and send him abroad. My father was very painfully upset by the refusal of Zinaida Nikolaevna, who said that she could not leave her homeland, and Leni, who decided to stay with her mother, and was vividly delighted at my consent to accompany him wherever he was sent. The expulsion would have followed immediately if not for a telephone conversation with Khrushchev by Jawaharlal Nehru, who agreed to head the Pasternak defense committee. In order to put everything on the brakes, Pasternak had to sign the text of appeals to Pravda and Khrushchev agreed by the authorities. The point is not whether the text of these letters is good or bad and what is more in them - repentance or self-affirmation, the important thing is that they were not written by Pasternak and signed by force. And this humiliation, violence against his will was especially painful in the consciousness of the fact that no one needed it.
Years have passed. I am now almost the same age as my father was in 1958. In the museum fine arts, in close proximity with which his father lived from 1914 to 1938, on December 1, 1989, the exhibition "The World of Pasternak" was opened. Swedish Ambassador Mr. Werner brought a Nobel Prize diploma to the exhibition. It was decided to solemnly present the medal at a reception hosted by the Swedish Academy and the Nobel Committee for the 1989 laureates. According to Mr. Werner, I should have come to Stockholm and accepted this award. I replied that I had absolutely no idea how this could be arranged. He received the consent of the Nobel Committee, the embassy and the Ministry of Culture completed the necessary paperwork in a few days, and on the 7th my wife and I flew in a plane decorated with Christmas bells to Stockholm.
We were met by Professor Lars Kleberg, known for his works on the Russian avant-garde of the 1920s, and took us to the best hotel in the city, the Grand Hotel, where the 1989 Nobel laureates were staying with their relatives and friends these days. After a light supper brought to our room, we went to bed.
A ray of the morning sun, breaking through the curtains, woke me up, I jumped up and saw an arm of the sea lagoon, bridges, steamers ready to sail to the islands of the archipelago on which Stockholm is located. On the other side, the island of the old city circled like a hill with the royal palace, the cathedral and the stock exchange building, where the Swedish Academy occupies the second floor, narrow streets, a Christmas market, shops and restaurants for every taste. Nearby on a separate island stood the parliament building, on the other - the town hall, Opera theatre, and above the garden a new commercial and business city was going uphill.
We spent that day in the company of Professor Niels Oke Nilsson, whom we met thirty years ago in Peredelkino, when he visited Pasternak in the summer of 1959, and Per Arne Budil, who wrote a book about the Gospel cycle of poems by Yuri Zhivago. Walked, dined, watched a magnificent meeting National Museum. The employees of the newspaper asked about the meaning of our visit.
The next day, December 9, at a reception at the Swedish Academy in the presence of Nobel laureates, ambassadors of Sweden and the USSR, as well as numerous guests, Professor Store Allen, indispensable secretary of the Academy, handed me the Nobel medal of Boris Pasternak. He read both telegrams sent by his father on October 23 and 29, 1958, and said that the Swedish Academy recognized Pasternak's refusal of the prize as forced and, after thirty-one years, gives his son a medal, regretting that the laureate is no longer alive. He said it was a historic moment.
The answer was given to me. I expressed my gratitude to the Swedish Academy and the Nobel Committee for their decision and said that I accept the honorary part of the award with a feeling of tragic joy. For Boris Pasternak, the Nobel Prize, which was supposed to free him from the position of a lonely and persecuted person, caused new suffering that colored the last year and a half of his life with bitterness. The fact that he was forced to refuse the award and sign the appeals offered to him to the government was open violence, the severity of which he felt until the end of his days. He was unmercenary and indifferent to money, the main thing for him was the honor that he is now awarded posthumously. I would like to believe that those beneficial changes that are now taking place in the world, which made today's event possible, will really lead humanity to that peaceful and free existence for which my father so hoped and for which he worked. I convey the content of my words very approximately, since I did not prepare the text and was too worried to now accurately reproduce it.
The solemn ceremonies on December 10, dedicated to the presentation of the prizes in 1989, unconsciously connected in my perception with Shakespeare and his Hamlet. It seemed to me that I understood why Shakespeare needed the Scandinavian setting for this drama. The alternation of short solemn words and orchestra, cannon salutes and hymns, vintage costumes, tailcoats and neckline dresses. The official part was held at the Philharmonic, a banquet for thousands of participants and a ball at the town hall. Longing for the Middle Ages was felt in the very architecture of the town hall, in the galleries surrounding the hall, but the living spirit of the national spirit and the centuries-old tradition sounded in student songs, trumpets and processions of mummers, who descended through the galleries into the hall, carried us food and accompanied the exit of the king and queen, Nobel laureates and honored guests.
But in the midst of this feast of the eye and ear, a touching and soul-grabbing note was the appearance on the platform of the wide staircase of Mstislav Rostropovich. He prefaced his speech with the words: “Your Majesties, honorable Nobel laureates, ladies and gentlemen! On this magnificent holiday, I would like to remind you of the great Russian poet Boris Pasternak, who during his lifetime was deprived of the right to receive the award awarded to him and take advantage of the happiness and honor of being a Nobel Prize winner. Allow me, as his compatriot and envoy of Russian music, to play you the Sarabande from Bach's suite in d-mole for solo cello.
The hum is quiet. I went out to the stage.
Leaning against the doorframe,
I catch in a distant echo
What will happen in my lifetime.
After the banquet, Rostropovich and Galina Vishnevskaya led us into the living room, where the king and queen received guests of honor. We were introduced to him and exchanged a few friendly words. The next morning we flew to Moscow.
On October 31, 1958, Boris Pasternak wrote a letter to Nikita Khrushchev, where he explained that life outside his homeland was unthinkable for him. The week before, he had become a Nobel laureate. But persecution by the Soviet authorities forced the writer, thanks to whose translations in Russian Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and Goethe's Faust spoke to us, to refuse the prize.
For ten years - from 1945 to 1955 - Pasternak worked on the novel "Doctor Zhivago", which became the pinnacle of his work, and at the same time because of which the writer was attacked by the government. The work was banned from publication due to Pasternak's critical attitude to October revolution. A negative attitude towards the novel has also developed in the official literary environment. Chief Editor magazine " New world"Konstantin Simonov, when refusing to publish Doctor Zhivago, declared: "Pasternak must not be given a tribune!"
But Pasternak's new novel became known in the West, and the young Italian publisher Feltrinelli became interested in it. By the autumn of 1957, the writer realized that he could not wait for the publication of the novel in Russia, and secretly granted the publisher the right to print an Italian translation. Already on November 23 bookshelves The novel "Doctor Zhivago" appeared in Italy, followed by the book being published in France.
The Soviet government did not know what to do: the novel had already been published in 23 languages, among which was even the language of the Indian people. Therefore, it was decided not to take any action against Pasternak for the time being.
In the USSR, such a trick of the writer was considered outrageous, but they gave him a chance to improve. In December 1957, foreign correspondents were invited to Pasternak's dacha in Peredelkino at the insistence of the Department of Culture of the Central Committee of the CPSU and demanded that the author of the sensational novel renounce the publisher and lie that he had stolen the unfinished manuscript. But unexpectedly for everyone during an interview, Pasternak said: "My book was criticized, but no one even read it," and added that he regrets the lack of a publication in Russian.
October 23, 1958 Boris Pasternak became the second Russian writer after Bunin, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "For outstanding achievements in modern lyric poetry and the development of the traditions of classical Russian prose." Secretary of the Nobel Foundation Anders Oesterling sent a telegram to Pasternak with congratulations and invited him to the award ceremony on December 10 in Stockholm. Pasternak answered briefly: "Infinitely grateful, touched, proud, surprised, embarrassed."
“On the evening of that day, when it became known in Moscow that my father had been awarded the Nobel Prize, we were glad that all the troubles were over, that receiving the prize meant a trip to Stockholm and a speech. How beautiful and meaningful it would be said! Victory seemed to us so full and beautiful. But our dreams were put to shame and trampled by the newspapers that came out the next morning, "- the son of the writer Yevgeny Pasternak.
At the same time, the Central Committee of the CPSU adopted a resolution "On B. Pasternak's slanderous novel."
1. Recognize that the award of the Nobel Prize to Pasternak's novel, which slanderously portrays Oktyabrskaya socialist revolution, Soviet people who made this revolution, and the construction of socialism in the USSR, is an act hostile to our country and an instrument of international reaction aimed at fomenting a cold war.
2. Prepare and publish in Pravda a feuilleton in which to give a sharp assessment of Pasternak's novel itself, as well as to reveal the meaning of the hostile campaign that the bourgeois press is conducting in connection with the award of the Nobel Prize to Pasternak.
Pasternak did not know this yet; on October 24, he celebrated with family friends the name day of his wife Zinaida Nikolaevna and the news of the Nobel Prize. At the insistence of the head of the department of culture of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Dmitry Polikarpov, a friend of Pasternak, writer Konstantin Fedin, came to Peredelkino. He was instructed to persuade the laureate to refuse the prize. During a conversation in raised tones, Fedin said that if Pasternak did not refuse the award, then the consequences would be unpredictable. But the writer firmly stood his ground: he would not refuse the Nobel Prize.
After this conversation, Pasternak lost consciousness and did not read newspapers for the next days. It was the right decision.
David Zaslavsky, who had long disliked Pasternak, wrote an article entitled "The Hype of Reactionary Propaganda Around the Literary Weed" published in Pravda on October 26: Nobel Prize".
At the same time, student volunteers from the Literary Institute went to a demonstration with a poster "Judas, get out of the USSR": they drew a caricature of Pasternak, next to it they depicted a bag of dollars, to which the writer reached out.
On October 28, in the department of culture of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the question "About the actions of a member of the Union of Writers of the USSR B.L. Pasternak, incompatible with the title of a Soviet writer" was discussed. The author of "Doctor Zhivago" could not come to the meeting due to poor health. The writers present unanimously decided to expel Pasternak from the membership of the Union of Soviet Writers. Did not change their verdict and a telegram from British writers who stood up for the laureate: "We are deeply alarmed by the fate of one of the greatest poets and writers of the world Boris Pasternak ... In the name of that great Russian literary tradition behind you, we urge you not to dishonor this tradition by persecuting a writer revered by the entire civilized world."
The exclusion of Pasternak from the Union of Soviet Writers was not enough - Colonel-General Vladimir Semichastny suggested that the writer emigrate at one of the reports of the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League: “A pig ... never shits where it eats, never shits where it sleeps. Therefore, if you compare Pasternak with a pig , then the pig will not do what he did. He shat where he ate, he shat those by whose labors he lives and breathes... he spoke in his work.
Pasternak understood that he had no other choice but to refuse the prize. He wrote to the Swedish Academy: "Due to the importance that the award awarded to me has received in the society to which I belong, I must refuse it. Do not take my voluntary refusal as an insult."
Also, on the advice of lawyers from the All-Union Copyright Agency, on October 31, Pasternak wrote a letter to Khrushchev.
"Dear Nikita Sergeevich,
I am addressing you personally, the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Soviet government.
From Comrade Semichastny's report, I learned that the government "would not put up any obstacles to my leaving the USSR."
For me it's impossible. I am connected with Russia by birth, life, work.
I do not think of my destiny separately and outside of it. Whatever my mistakes and delusions, I could not imagine that I would be in the center of such political campaign, which began to inflate around my name in the West.
Realizing this, I informed the Swedish Academy of my voluntary refusal of the Nobel Prize.
Traveling outside my homeland is tantamount to death for me, and therefore I ask you not to take this extreme measure against me.
Hand on heart, I have done something for Soviet literature and can still be of use to it.
B. Pasternak".
Soon Pasternak was summoned to the Kremlin, he was delighted - he hoped for a personal meeting with Khrushchev. But Polikarpov was waiting for him, who said that the writer could stay at home.
A couple of days later, TASS was authorized to declare that "from the side government agencies there will be no obstacles if B.L. Pasternak will express a desire to go abroad to receive the prize awarded to him ... In the event that B.L. Pasternak wants to completely leave the Soviet Union, social order and whose people he slandered in his anti-Soviet essay "Doctor Zhivago", then the official bodies will not put any obstacles in this regard.
Pravda" Pasternak's letter. "There is no hopelessness in my situation. Let us live on, actively believing in the power of beauty, goodness and truth. The Soviet government offered me free travel abroad, but I did not take advantage of it, because my occupations are too connected with my native land and do not tolerate a transfer to another.
It was a temporary reprieve. The persecution of Pasternak began again in March 1959, after the publication in the West of his poem "Nobel Prize".
I disappeared like an animal in a pen.
Somewhere people, will, light,
And after me the noise of the chase,
I have no way out.
Dark forest and the shore of the pond,
They ate a fallen log.
The path is cut off from everywhere.
Whatever happens, it doesn't matter.
What did I do for a dirty trick,
Am I a killer and a villain?
I made the whole world cry
Above the beauty of my land.
But even so, almost at the coffin,
I believe the time will come
The power of meanness and malice
The spirit of good will prevail.
One day, when Pasternak was walking alone along Peredelkino, a car drove up, into which he was pushed by force and brought to the prosecutor's office. He was interrogated personally by Prosecutor General Rudenko. The writer was accused under the 64th article - "Treason to the Motherland". For two hours, Pasternak was intimidated by the initiation of a criminal case: if his work was published in the West again, he would be arrested.
Rejection of the Nobel Prize, government attacks, criticism from other writers - all these unrest greatly undermined the health of the 69-year-old Pasternak. In April 1960, for the first time, he felt that he was ill: due to pain in his left shoulder blade, he could not write while sitting. On May 30, he died of lung cancer.
Pasternak's novel "Doctor Zhivago" formed the basis of the Oscar-winning Hollywood film adaptation. But for the first time in Russian, the work was published only in 1989, 29 years after the death of the author. At the same time, the Nobel Laureate medal was awarded to members of the Pasternak family.
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak
I disappeared like an animal in a pen.
Somewhere people, will, light,
And after me the noise of the chase,
I have no way out.
Dark forest and the shore of the pond,
They ate a fallen log.
The path is cut off from everywhere.
Whatever happens, it doesn't matter.
What did I do for a dirty trick,
Am I a killer and a villain?
I made the whole world cry
Above the beauty of my land.
But even so, almost at the coffin,
I believe the time will come
The power of meanness and malice
The spirit of good will prevail.
In 1958, Boris Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for his outstanding contribution to the development of world literature. This significant event, however, did not bring the expected joy to the poet and, even more so, did not affect his material well-being. The thing is that the news of the award of such a prestigious award was received with hostility in the USSR. As a result, the poet was expelled from the Writers' Union and ceased to be published in Soviet publications. Some literary figures even insisted on expelling Pasternak from the country as a spy and anti-Soviet figure. Nevertheless, the government of the country did not dare to take such a step, but from now on the real persecution began on the poet, friends and colleagues in the writer's workshop turned away from him, who had previously openly admired Pasternak's work.
It was during this difficult period that he wrote the poem "Nobel Prize", in which he admitted that he "disappeared like an animal in a pen." Indeed, the author felt himself in a kind of trap and did not see a way out of it, since all the ways of retreat were blocked by ardent guardians of state interests. “And the noise of the chase is behind me, there is no way out for me,” Boris Pasternak notes bitterly and wonders why he ended up in such an absurd and rather dangerous situation.
He tried various options solution of the problem and even sent a telegram to Switzerland in which he refused the award awarded to him. However, even this act did not soften those who began the real persecution of Pasternak because of their own envy, pettiness and desire to curry favor with the authorities. The list of those who publicly accused the poet of all mortal sins included quite a large number of famous names in the world of art and literature. Among the accusers were yesterday's friends of Pasternak, which especially hurt the poet. He did not expect that his success would cause such an inadequate reaction from those whom he considered quite decent and honest people. Therefore, the poet fell into despair, which is confirmed by the following lines of his poem: "Whatever happens, it doesn't matter."
Nevertheless, Pasternak is trying to figure out why he fell into such disfavor and disgrace. “What did I do for dirty tricks, am I a murderer and a villain?” the author asks. He sees his guilt only in the fact that he managed to awaken sincere and pure feelings in the hearts of many people, made them admire the beauty of their homeland, which he loved immensely. But just this turned out to be quite enough for streams of dirt and slander to fall upon the author. Someone demanded that Pasternak publicly admit that he was a spy. Others insisted on arrest and imprisonment poet, who, for incomprehensible merits, was recognized as one of the best authors abroad. There were those who accused Pasternak of conjuncture and attempts to curry favor with the enemies of the Soviet Union in exchange for prestigious award. In parallel, the poet periodically received offers to leave the country, to which he invariably replied that for him this was tantamount to death. As a result, Pasternak found himself isolated from the whole society and soon found out that he had lung cancer. Therefore, such a final quatrain appears in the poem: “But even so, almost at the grave, I believe, the time will come - the spirit of goodness will overcome the force of meanness and malice.”
The poet understood that this poem would never be published in the USSR, as it was a direct accusation of those involved in his persecution. So he smuggled the poems abroad, where they were published in 1959. After that, Pasternak was accused of espionage and treason. However, the trial of the poet never took place, because in 1960 he died at his dacha in Peredelkino.
It is not entirely true to believe that Pasternak was a writer objectionable to the Soviet authorities all his life. Until mid 1930s large volume his poems are actively published, and Pasternak himself participates in the activities of the Union of Writers of the USSR, while trying not to bow to those in power. So, in 1934, at the first congress of Soviet writers, Boris Leonidovich said that the loss of his face threatens to turn into a "socialist dignitary." At the same congress, Nikolai Bukharin (who has already lost his former power, but still has weight in the party) calls Pasternak the best poet of the Soviet Union. But two years later, at the beginning of 1936, the situation began to change: the government of the USSR was dissatisfied with the too personal and tragic tone of the poet's works. Soviet Union what is needed is not decadents, but activist writers. But then Pasternak does not fall into complete disgrace.
Talking about the writer's relationship with Soviet power, usually recall two episodes associated with Joseph Stalin. The first (and most famous) took place on June 13, 1934. Boris Leonidovich Pasternak will remember the events of that day all his life, especially in the midst of the unfolding persecution. About half past four in the afternoon, the bell rang in the writer's apartment. Young male voice told Pasternak that Stalin would now speak to him, which the poet did not believe, but nevertheless dialed the dictated number. Really picked up the phone General Secretary parties. Witness accounts of how this conversation actually went differ. It is known for sure that Stalin and Pasternak spoke about Osip Mandelstam, who was sent into exile because of a mocking epigram directed against the Stalinist regime and Joseph Vissarionovich himself. The “Father of Nations” asked if Mandelstam was Pasternak’s friend, if he was a good poet ... What exactly Pasternak answered is unknown, but, apparently, the writer was trying to get away from uncomfortable questions indulging in lengthy philosophical discussions. Stalin said that this is no way to protect comrades and hung up. Annoyed, Pasternak tried to call the General Secretary again, to persuade him to let Mandelstam go, but no one picked up the phone. Pasternak believed that he acted unworthily, because of which for a long time couldn't work.
A year later, in the autumn of 1935, the poet had a chance to stand up for other writers. He sent a personal message to Stalin, where he simply and sincerely asked to release Anna Akhmatova's husband and son, Nikolai Punin and Lev Gumilyov. Both were released exactly two days later. Pasternak will remember these episodes in early 1959, when, driven to despair by harassment and lack of earnings, he will be forced to write a letter to Dmitry Polikarpov, one of the main culprits of his troubles: “Really terrible and cruel Stalin considered it not below his dignity to fulfill my requests for prisoners and on his own initiative to call me on this occasion to the phone.
- Boris Pasternak with his wife Zinaida at the dacha, 1958
Poetry is raw prose
The main reason for bullying was the only novel writer - "Doctor Zhivago". Pasternak, who worked with poetry before the publication of this work, considered prose to be a more perfect form of conveying the thoughts and feelings of the writer. "Poems are raw, unrealized prose," he said. Time after the Great Patriotic War was marked for Pasternak by the expectation of change: “If God wills and I’m not mistaken, in Russia there will soon be bright life, exciting new Age and even earlier, before the onset of this well-being in privacy and everyday life - amazingly huge, as under Tolstoy and Gogol, art. For such a country, he began to write "Doctor Zhivago" - symbolic romance, imbued Christian motives and tells about the root causes of the revolution. And his heroes are symbols: Zhivago - Russian Christianity, and the main female character Lara is Russia itself. Behind every character, behind every event in the novel, there is something much larger, more comprehensive. But the first readers could not (or did not want to) understand this: they praised the poems that were included in the book under the guise of Yuri Zhivago's work, spoke about the beauty of landscapes, but main idea not appreciated. Oddly enough, the meaning of the work was caught in the West. Writers' letters about Doctor Zhivago often say that this novel allows western man better understand Russia. But these words of support almost did not reach Pasternak due to the extensive persecution by the authorities and even the literary community. He hardly received news from other countries and was forced to take care, first of all, how to feed his family.
An official and full-scale campaign against Boris Leonidovich Pasternak unfolded after he received the Nobel Prize in 1958. The party leadership insisted that the award was given to Pasternak for the novel Doctor Zhivago, which denigrates the Soviet system and supposedly has no artistic value. But it should be remembered that Pasternak was then nominated for the prize not for the first time: the Nobel Committee considered his candidacy since 1946, and the novel did not even exist then even in drafts. And the justification for the award first refers to Pasternak's achievements as a poet, and then to his successes in prose: "For significant achievements in modern lyric poetry, as well as for continuing the traditions of the great Russian epic novel."
But it is also wrong to say that Doctor Zhivago had no influence on the decision of the Nobel Committee. The novel, published in Italy in 1957, was a significant success. It was read in Holland, Great Britain and the USA. “So what if you alone accomplish your invisible feat in Peredelkino - somewhere compositors in aprons get paid and feed their families for typing your name in all languages of the world. You contribute to the elimination of unemployment in Belgium and in Paris, ”cousin Olga Freidenberg wrote to Pasternak. The CIA, which shared the Soviet government's point of view about the anti-revolutionary orientation of the novel, arranged a free distribution of "Doctor Zhivago" to Russian tourists in Belgium and planned to deliver the "propaganda" book to the countries of the socialist bloc.
All this, even before the award of the prize, provided Boris Leonidovich Pasternak with disgrace. Initially, the writer gave the manuscript not to foreigners, but to the Russian magazine Novy Mir. Pasternak did not receive a response from the editors for a long time, so he eventually decided to transfer the rights to publish the novel to the Italian publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. By the end of 1956, a copy of the novel was already in the editorial offices of the largest Western European states. The Soviet Union, which refused to publish, forced Pasternak to withdraw the book, but it was no longer possible to stop the process.
Pasternak was well aware of the problems that receiving the Nobel Prize could turn out for him, and yet on October 23, 1958, on the day of his triumph, he sent words of sincere gratitude to the Swedish Academy. The Soviet leadership was furious: the USSR insisted that Sholokhov receive the award, but the Nobel Committee did not heed their requests. The campaign against Pasternak began immediately: colleagues came to him, in fact, demanding to refuse the prize, but the writer was adamant. And on October 25, persecution began in the media. Radio Moscow reported that "the award of the Nobel Prize for the only mediocre work, which is Doctor Zhivago, is a political act directed against Soviet state". On the same day, Literaturnaya Gazeta published an article in which it called Pasternak "bait on the hook of anti-Soviet propaganda." Two days later, on October 27, at a special meeting of the Union of Writers of the USSR, it was decided to expel Pasternak from the organization and ask Khrushchev to expel the guilty poet from the country. Critical, if not offensive, publications appeared in the press with enviable constancy. The main problem with all these attacks was that practically none of the accusers had read the novel. At best, they were familiar with a few pieces taken out of context. Pasternak tried to draw attention to this in those rare letters that he sent to his accusers, but everything was in vain: the order to "hunt" Nobel laureate and force him to refuse the award came from above. Khrushchev himself, without hesitation, called Pasternak a pig, which other persecutors readily picked up.
But it was not these attacks that forced Pasternak to refuse the prize: the writer stopped reading the press to maintain his health. The last straw in the patience of an already deeply unhappy person was the words of his muse, Olga Ivinskaya. She, fearing for her freedom, accused the writer of selfishness: “You won’t get anything, but you won’t collect bones from me.” After that, Pasternak sent a telegram to Sweden stating what to accept honorary award he can't.
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"The exclusion of Pasternak is a shame for the civilized world"
But the calculation of the Soviet government did not materialize: Pasternak's refusal of the prize went almost unnoticed, but the persecution of the writer received a wide public response in everything Western world. The largest writers of that time, including Aldous Huxley, Albert Camus, André Maurois, Ernest Hemingway, supported the Soviet writer, sent letters to the USSR government with an urgent request to stop the persecution of Pasternak.
“The exception of Pasternak is something incredible, making the hair on the head stand on end. Firstly, because the awarding of the prize by the Swedish Academy is usually considered an honor, secondly, because Pasternak cannot be held responsible for the fact that the choice fell on him, and finally, because the arbitrariness that Soviet writers allowed was only widens the gap between Western culture and Russian literature. There was a time when great writers like Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dostoyevsky were rightly proud of the prestige they had in the West.
André Maurois
“The only thing that Russia would have to understand is that the Nobel Prize has rewarded a great Russian writer who lives and works in Soviet society. Moreover, Pasternak's genius, his personal nobility and kindness are far from insulting Russia. On the contrary, they enlighten her and make her love her more than any propaganda. Russia will suffer from this in the eyes of the whole world only from the moment a person is condemned, who now causes universal admiration and special love.
Albert Camus
"The exclusion of Pasternak is a shame for civilized world. This means he is in danger. He needs to be protected."
London newspaper News Chronicle
The campaign to defend Boris Pasternak has acquired unprecedented proportions. Foreign colleagues and readers wrote him many letters offering help. The writer was even supported by the Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, who personally called Khrushchev. After that, the First Secretary of the USSR realized that things were very serious, and sent letters to the embassies of several countries, where he officially assured that Pasternak's life, freedom and property were out of danger.
A terrible scandal erupted in Sweden: here the Lenin Prize laureate Arthur Lundqvist announced his refusal of the award in support of Pasternak. Facilities mass media all over the world they talked about the Soviet writer, which sometimes led to rather curious cases. For example, one farmer complained that the Pasternak story could ruin him because the radio stations discussing the Nobel Prize in Literature stopped broadcasting information about grain prices and weather forecasts.
But Pasternak's life did not change for the better from this. At first, he feared one thing - expulsion. The writer could not imagine life without Russia, so sometimes he made concessions to the authorities in order to stay at home. Then another problem arose before the Nobel triumphant - he stopped receiving fees. He, no longer young at all and besides family man deprived of their means of livelihood. At the same time, the fees for Doctor Zhivago were waiting for their owner abroad. The writer had no way to get them.
But even in such an atmosphere, Pasternak did not stop creating: work helped to maintain the remnants of moral strength. The writer conceived a play about a serf actor who develops his talent despite the humiliating slave position. Gradually, the idea became more and more ambitious, turning into a play about all of Russia. It was called The Sleeping Beauty, but it was never completed: Pasternak, who conceived a new work in the summer of 1959, passed away on May 30, 1960.
27 years after Pasternak's death, on February 19, 1987, the Union of Writers of the USSR finally canceled its decree on the expulsion of Boris Leonidovich. All these years, a slow process of rehabilitation of the writer was going on in the country. At first, his existence was no longer completely hushed up, then they began to talk about him in a neutral way. The period of silence and distortion ended in the late 1980s: first, the Writers' Union repented, then the terminally ill Viktor Nekrasov published a piercing article in memory of Pasternak (albeit in a New York newspaper) and finally in 1988, with a delay of 30 years, magazine "New World" published full text Doctor Zhivago. The following year, Pasternak's relatives received the Nobel Prize for him. On December 10, 1989, in Stockholm, in honor of the great Russian writer, who had lost his legal right to be a triumphant, a charmingly tragic melody from Bach's suite in d-moll for cello solo sounded.
According to the rules of the Nobel Committee, all materials related to the award of the prize are kept secret for 50 years. In early January 2009, the archive for 1958, when Boris Pasternak became the laureate of the Literature Prize, became public. The opportunity to visit the archive has already been used by Swedish newspapers, who found out who else claimed the 1958 prize.
The decision on who will win the Nobel Prize in Literature is traditionally made by a special board of the Swedish Academy. Every year it considers dozens and even hundreds of candidates who are nominated by members of the Academy, university literature professors, national writers' unions, and previous laureates.
The rules for awarding the Nobel Prizes provide that the same candidate can be proposed to the Swedish Academy an unlimited number of times. For example, the Danish writer Johannes Jensen was nominated 18 times for the award and finally won it in 1944. The Italian Grazia Deledda (Prize 1926) was included in the lists of contenders 12 times, and the Frenchman Anatole France (Prize 1921) nine times.
It is known from previously opened archives that Boris Pasternak has been considered as one of the potential contenders for the Nobel Prize since 1946, that is, 11 years before the Milan publication of Doctor Zhivago, which was banned in the Soviet Union. According to the official wording of the Swedish Academy, the Nobel Prize was awarded to Pasternak "for significant achievements in modern lyric poetry, as well as for continuing the traditions of the great Russian epic novel."
Despite this, in the Soviet Union it was believed that Pasternak won the Nobel Prize solely because of the publication of an "anti-Soviet" novel. Anger at the Swedish Academy was added to the literary officials by the fact that, according to unofficial information, Mikhail Sholokhov was on the list of contenders for the 1958 award. According to the already published Soviet documents, it was in 1958 that the USSR especially tried to win the Nobel Prize for Sholokhov.
In this regard, the decision of the Swedish Academy, in the opinion of Soviet officials, looked like a conscious preference for an anti-Soviet writer over a Soviet one. Additional argument For this version, the fact that before Pasternak, among Russian writers, only the emigrant Ivan Bunin was awarded the Nobel Prize.
The history of the persecution of Pasternak is well known, and its retelling could take more than a dozen pages. In the very compressed form it looks like this. On October 23, the writer sends a telegram to the Nobel Committee: "Grateful, glad, proud, embarrassed." However, already on October 29, Pasternak, under the influence of the authorities, was forced to give a second telegram: “Due to the importance that the award awarded to me in the society to which I belong, I must refuse it. Do not take my voluntary refusal as an insult.”
Until the end of his life, Pasternak never received the prize. This was done by the poet's son Eugene in 1989, when the Nobel Committee decided to restore historical justice.
The rejection of the Nobel Prize did not save Pasternak from attacks that deprived him of any earnings and, it is believed, aggravated his illness. Boris Pasternak died in May 1960.
Discussions about awarding the Nobel Prize to Pasternak did not stop after his death. During recent decades now and then there were publications devoted to the decision of the Swedish Academy. Some believe that Sweden deliberately made an unfriendly gesture towards the Soviet Union by presenting an award for an "anti-Soviet novel." Others argue that academics could not have imagined that their decision would cause such a big scandal.
Besides, in Lately the discussion intensified about how the "lobby" of the American intelligence services influenced the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Boris Pasternak. In particular, the possibility of pressure on the Swedish Academy is considered in Ivan Tolstoy's recently published book Pasternak's laundered novel: 'Doctor Zhivago' between the KGB and the CIA. In early January, several newspapers also devoted their notes to this topic, in particular, the Spanish ABC and the Italian La Stampa.
We note right away that the question of the CIA's involvement or non-involvement in the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Boris Pasternak is hardly possible to find out from the archives of the Swedish Academy. However, the importance of new materials should not be underestimated.
Pasternak's competitors
The Swedish newspaper Sydsvenskan, which was the first to read the materials of the archive, writes that there were four of Pasternak's main competitors: the Dane Karen Blixen, the Frenchman Saint John Perse, and the Italians Salvatore Quasimodo and Alberto Moravia.
Two of these writers, Alberto Moravia and Karen Blixen, would never win the Nobel Prize, which would later become one of the constant reproaches against the Swedish Academy. Indeed, Karen Blixen is one of the most significant and influential Scandinavian writers, and Alberto Moravia is perhaps the most bright representative neorealism in Italian literature.
San Jon Perce and Salvatore Quasimodo were "luckier" more. The latter received the Nobel Prize immediately after Pasternak - in 1959 ("For lyric poetry, which expresses the tragic experience of our time with classical vivacity"), and to Persu ("For sublimity and imagery, which by means of poetry reflect the circumstances of our time") - in 1960.
Among the contenders for the Sydsvenskan award is Mikhail Sholokhov. According to the Swedish newspaper, it was put forward by the writer and member of the Swedish Academy Harry Martinson together with PEN. In turn, Pasternak was nominated in 1958 by Albert Camus, winner of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature.
The figure of Harry Martinson in this context looks extremely curious. Firstly, it was he who nominated Boris Pasternak in 1957. Secondly, Martinson's acquaintance with Soviet literature in no way can be called a "cap" - a "writer from the people" with an ideal "working" biography (however, he survived the influence of modernism), Martinson back in 1934 was invited to the USSR for the first congress of the Writers' Union. Martinson did not like the trip to Moscow at all - to such an extent that in 1939 he volunteered for the Finnish army after the start of the Soviet-Finnish war.
Another noteworthy fact of Sholokhov's nomination is the reason why his candidacy was no longer considered by the Swedish Academy. According to Sydsvenskan, the academicians decided that Sholokhov had not recently published any new works. In 1965 when Soviet writer won the Nobel Prize for the novel " Quiet Don"We decided not to mention it.
"Doctor Zhivago" and politics
Another Swedish newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet, based on materials provided by Sydsvenskan, asks how decisive the publication of Doctor Zhivago was for Pasternak to receive the Nobel Prize. According to the journalists of the publication, the members of the Swedish Academy, who made their choice in 1958, did not realize all political consequences such a step.
In addition, do not forget that Pasternak was among the contenders for the award for more than 10 years. In 1957, his candidacy was rejected, according to published materials, not because of the insufficient value of his legacy (which did not yet include Doctor Zhivago), but because the Spanish poet Juan Ramon Jimenez became the laureate in 1956. . Members of the Academy felt that two consecutive awards for "difficult" lyrics would create a trend that could damage the reputation of the Nobel Prize.
Nevertheless, the release of Doctor Zhivago in 1957 should not be underestimated. Most likely, it was the publication of the novel that became decisive in the fight against the main contenders for the award. The permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, Anders Oesterling, who read the novel first in Italian, noted that the work stands above politics. Because of this, Esterling approved of Pasternak's candidacy, even though Doctor Zhivago was not released in the Soviet Union.
Obviously, a cursory analysis of archival materials by Swedish journalists needs to be continued. Most likely, further study of the details of awarding the Nobel Prize to Boris Pasternak will shed light on many dark places not only in this particular story, but also in the history of literary life in the middle of the 20th century as a whole.
