“Doctor Zhivago” by Boris Pasternak in Italian criticism of the 1950s: a discussion in the magazine “Il Ponte”

Abstract

the article will focus on the history of the first publication of the novel “Doctor Zhivago” by Boris Pasternak, on its influence on the formation of opinion about Boris Pasternak as a truly major prose writer, as well as on the potential role in the further receipt of the Nobel Prize by the author in 1958. As one knows, the first publication took place in Italy. It is from Italian cultural figures Giangiacomo Feltrinelli (the first publisher of the novel) and Pietro Antonio Zveteremich (its translator) it depended on how the novel would be received abroad, where Boris Pasternak had not been well-known by the late 1957 – the Swedish Academy initially refused to nominate the writer as a Nobel laureate due to insufficient fame in wide literary circles. After the publication of “Doctor Zhivago”, it was essential to determine what the content of the first reviews of this work would be. The paper reviews the first reviews of the novel in the Italian press, in particular, the discussion that unfolded in the independent monthly magazine “Il Ponte”. Such well-known cultural figures in Italian literary circles as Guglielmo Petroni, Carlo Cassola, and Manlio Cancogni spoke out. Their opinions were not ignored, they were accepted by the general public.