Boris Pasternak Research Articles

Experiences of psychological analysis of Boris Pasternak's poem “Snow is Falling”

Experiences of psychological analysis of Boris Pasternak's poem “Snow is Falling”

Театральный код в лирике Бориса Пастернака

Abstract The problem of the theatrical code has been widely studied in Pasternak’s prose, but it has not received the proper attention from scholars regarding his lyrics. This paper discusses three significant factors having influenced the theatrical code formation. First, the theater is understood as special topos, different from other types of artistic space. Second, the theater becomes a specific semiotic sign, deforming the primary linguistic meaning and endowing it with additional meaning. Third, the theater proves to be a means of creating a universal metonymic discourse extending to other aspects of the lyrical whole. In the lyrical continuum, the theater initially exists as a space presupposing a special eventfulness that cannot be realized in other spheres. Also, the stage becomes a factory of metamorphosis, creating the contours of events related to the lyrical hero. Besides using the topos of the stage, Pasternak, in his lyrics, semiotizes the word, turning it into a vocal gesture. The vocal gesture coming from the stage and the hum of the auditorium form the most crucial counterpoint of theatrical performance, developing the lyrical plot and strengthening the role of the opposition to the stage and life. The focus of this paper is on three types of lyrical plot: 1) the stage play as a tragic sacrifice related to the death of the hero; 2) the lyrical hero endowed with the features of a creator who creates a new world; 3) the hero’s acquisition of the world of freedom, a motive that is significant in the life and work of Pasternak.

Мотив болезни в романе Бориса Пастернака „Доктор Живаго”

The motif of illness and recovery lies at the core of the worldview of the protagonist of Boris Pasternak’s novel Doctor Zhivago. The novel refers to the motif of illness firstly because of the protagonist’s trade and the realities of the post-revolutionary and civil war years, which were accompanied (or followed) by typhus epidemics. Secondly, the motif of illness is inextricably linked with the time of major historic transitions, and as such with the prevalent feeling of violation of physical and psychological harmony of the universe. The article distinguishes and analyses a number of themes and motifs which are interwoven with the motif of illness, such as creativity, the release of unconscious impulses, liminal states, dreamstates, and the figure of the window. All these themes and motifs were outlined in Pasternak’s poems and later found their continuation and development in the novel Doctor Zhivago.

Pasternakův Hamlet a Stalinova hrůzovláda

In the present paper, the author has carried out a comparative analysis of Boris Pasternak’s rendering of Hamlet, which first appeared in 1940 and was republished time and again between 1941 and 1957, sometimes with major cuts and revisions. Recounting the disturbing history of the most famous Shakespearean translation in the Russian language and re-evaluating previous research on it, the author arrives at a conclusion that Pasternak’s Hamlet, by and large, aims at holding a mirror up to the times of the Stalinist Russia. The translation’s extensive political engagement is documented by juxtaposing Shakespeare’s original with Pasternak’s striking allusions to the times of terror in which he had to live.

The Creative Legacy of the Great Russian Poet Boris Pasternak: Traditions and Innovation in His Poetic Works

This study examines the poems of Boris Pasternak, the famed Russian literary figure. It analyzes and compares the poet's works with those of his contemporaries and predecessors’. Some motifs, themes, images, and characteristic features of the stylistics and tropics of poetic creativity in Pasternak's lyrics were revealed, which signify the influence of traditions and innovation. By employing several literary criticism methods, namely those of close reading, a structuralist analysis, and biographical criticism, this study found that there is a wealth of themes both old and new in Pasternak’s poetry. These themes were mostly derived from past authors, which confirm the findings of Baróthy (2015), Han (2015), and Polivanova & Polivanov (2018). These themes were then reconstructed in Pasternak’s works in a way that signify these works as a celebration of the old and the welcoming of the new in the Russian literary tradition. This study has cemented Boris Pasternak’s role as a hub linking the old and the new generations in Russian literature.

Vladimir Zelinsky. A talk with my father

This book can be classified as a memoir with one reservation made by its author: ‘These meditations go alongside the recollections…’ The son, writing his recollections in the memoir form, is Vladimir Zelinsky, a Russian Orthodox Church priest serving in Italy. His father Kornely Zelinsky (1896–1970) is a Soviet literary critic whose reputation has been stained by a number of gestures in his literary career. Most known as the theoretician in the Constructivists poetic group in the 1920s, he abandoned it and his former views in 1930 under the ideological pressure. In 1940, he wrote an internal review that practically barred the publication of Marina Tsvetaeva’s verse collection and made her life situation unbearable. In 1958, he was among the most bitter critics of Boris Pasternak after the latter was awarded the Nobel Prize. What position can his son, a priest, take in his memoirs? This position is not one of all-forgiveness but of understanding arrived at in the filial dialogue with his father’s life spent in the time affected by the ideological virus.

Shostakovich: A Coded Life in Music by Brian Morton

Reviewed by: Shostakovich: A Coded Life in Music by Brian Morton Cameron Pyke Shostakovich: A Coded Life in Music. By Brian Morton. London: Haus Publishing, 2021. [220 p. ISBN 978-1-913368-43-2. £9.99] The appearance of the first paperback edition of this 2006 volume is to be welcomed. Morton presents a clear overview of the composer's life while navigating and synthesising the key contours of the considerable scholarly literature. He draws upon a broad cultural understanding: there are perceptive references, for example, to Olivier Messiaen and Arnold Schoenberg as well as to Arshile Gorky and Boris Pasternak. While the author acknowledges that he is not a musicologist, a significant number of key works are discussed in terms of their music, as well as underlying meaning: this is particularly the case with the symphonies, which Morton identifies as 'the form in which his essence as a composer would be expressed' (p. 40), acknowledging that some works are 'capacious enough to sustain any number of contradictory interpretations' (p. 46). Morton's discussions of the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District and Symphony No. 8 are particularly sensitive. Reporting the composer's excitement at the film version of Lady Macbeth (released in 1966–1967 as Katerina Ismailova), Morton comments that it was 'as if his entire musical history were somehow embedded in that great work's narrative of cultural paucity, betrayal, defiance, violence, and imprisonment' (p. 202). In contrast, Symphony No. 8 is viewed as 'a meditation on the whole idea of symphonism … a return to the modernist experiment of the equally unloved Fourth Symphony' (p. 124). Both arguments could be extended: the sympathetically drawn Katerina re-emerges in the tragic figure of Loreley in Symphony No. 14, while the composer's wider tendency to subvert symphonic form, as in the 'problematic' Symphony No. 6 (p. 105) culminates in Symphony No. 15, in the final coda of which, as the late Alexander Ivashkin argued, symphonic syntax is itself eroded. Morton himself notes 'a steadily deepening absorption in sound itself' in some of the late period works (p. 189). Morton correctly identifies the key characteristics of the composer's genius: his ability to write music, often under considerable psychological pressure, which could operate on different levels; his sardonic exploitation, drawn from Gustav Mahler and Nikolai Gogol, of the full potential of juxtaposition; his profound sense of social and ethical duty; and his stature 'among the very greatest exponents – and perhaps the last greatest exponent – of what we still uneasily call classical music' (p. 24). In presenting 'a straightforward narrative of the composer's life and the evolution of his music' (p. 22) and emphasising 'a basic consistency of attitude' (p. 14), more could have been made of what Edison Denisov called the 'arch' between the early and late works: for example, the 'unexpected revival' (Denisov) of percussion in the coda of the Cello Concerto No. 2 and subsequently. Indeed, the discussion of the 'late period' works is more cursory than that of the earlier and middle-period scores. Moreover, while Morton earlier acknowledges the 'intermingling of major works in his mind with smaller-scale works' (p. 150), it is in these final works that the cross-referencing becomes a significant stylistic feature in itself, as if the composer increasingly sought to create a personal narrative on his entire creative output, towards much of which he seems to have felt a profound dissatisfaction. I would not, then, agree that the works of the last decade are 'less obviously encrypted' (p. 199), particularly when one considers the chamber music, and notwithstanding the composer's partial return to word setting. I would also have valued acknowledgement of the influence of Gavriil Nikolayevich Popov (on Symphony No. 4) and of Mieczysław Weinberg (on the later string quartets). [End Page 347] The book is written in an accessible style, though on occasion sensationalist phrasing sits uneasily with its erudition and seriousness of purpose, and some will also find references to Shostakovich's numerology more convincing than others. The lack of footnotes and an index likewise do not do justice to the range and clarity of the book's cultural reference. Shostakovich's visit...

Прочтения, интерпретация и переводы Шекспира: проблема (без)действия и его причин в советских переводах

The aim of the article is to explicate the ideational contents of translations of the word “conscience” and their significance for understanding the poetic mythology of the Silver Age. Using translations of “Hamlet” by Mikhail Lozinsky, Boris Pasternak, and Anna Radlova, the article traces translations of the word “conscience” and instances where the word was omitted or added in the Russian translations. The conclusion is that specific translational choices were conditioned not so much by Soviet censorship (which demanded an ametaphysical mindset that would be contrary to treating “conscience” as moral knowledge concerned with a human being’s posthumous fate), as by a Silver Age myth of the poet as a super-human being and a cultural hero. This myth aligns with “rationalizing” Hamlet’s indecision. The paper’s novelty lies in its conclusion that it was that poetic myth that led Soviet and post-Soviet translators to prefer to interpret Hamlet as a super-human being charged with a mission of a cosmic scale, which should not have been hindered by the moral considerations of the characters. Our findings are that translators of Shakespeare continued the Silver Age myth of the poet as a divine being, even as the interpretations paradoxically appeared to be in line with the Soviet worldview that looked unfavorably at all things metaphysical.

Kolyma Stories

Kolyma Stories

A Story with Characters and Action

A Story with Characters and Action

ПЕРЕВОДЧЕСКАЯ ИНТЕРПРЕТАЦИЯ МОНОЛОГА ГАМЛЕТА «БЫТЬ ИЛИ НЕ БЫТЬ» В КОНТЕКСТЕ ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННЫХ ПРИНЦИПОВ В. В. НАБОКОВА И Б. Л. ПАСТЕРНАКА

Vladimir Nabokov’s translation of Hamlet’s soliloquy is compared to the original text and Boris Pasternak’s version. The translators had different views on the theory of translation which manifests through different approaches taken by Nabokov and Pasternak when they were translating Shakespeare’s conceptual metaphors. Nabokov’s aspiration for literal translation is put in contrast with «intentional freedom» of Pasternak’s «Hamlet». It is noted that Nabokov’s translation is much closer to the English text in terms of semantic content but nonetheless lacks idiomatic «naturalness» of Pasternak’s translation.

Boris Pasternak's Letter to a Lovelorn Oklahoman

Boris Pasternak's Letter to a Lovelorn Oklahoman Todd Fuller (bio) and Nicolas Pasternak Slater (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution leonid pasternak, boris beside the baltic at mereküla (1910), oil on canvas In August 2021 University of Oklahoma alumnus Ron K. Jones donated a letter that he had received in 1959 from Boris Pasternak (1890–1960) to OU Libraries' Western History Collections. In October 1958 Pasternak had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature but, under pressure from Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and the Union of Soviet Writers, declined to accept it. WLT is proud to publish Pasternak's 1959 letter here for the first time along with a note by Nicolas Pasternak Slater, Mr. Pasternak's nephew. From Peredelkino, Russia, to Norman, Oklahoma In the spring of 1959, as the Cold War raged between the former Soviet Union (present-day Russia) and the United States, two strangers, who shared a common bond, exchanged letters. One stranger, Ron Jones, was a brokenhearted young man who would soon graduate with a business degree from the University of Oklahoma. The other, Boris Pasternak, was (by this time) an oppressed poet, writer, and translator of great literary renown. The bond they shared was the epic novel, Doctor Zhivago, which Pasternak completed in the mid-1950s, had smuggled out of the Soviet Union by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli in 1956, and published in 1957. Upon its release, the novel was translated into numerous languages, including English. Ron Jones was fascinated by the novel because a young woman he was dating constantly raved about the book. To impress her, he read it numerous times. Though they were scheduled to attend a spring dance at his fraternity, she was not impressed and broke off the date. As a result, Ron grabbed his typewriter, locked himself in the women's restroom at the Phi Delt house (this after taping an "out of order" sign on the door), and wrote an impassioned letter to the author of Doctor Zhivago. Pasternak's response to Ron's letter specifically demonstrates the author's contempt for those literary critics attempting to impose various meanings and symbols onto the novel. [End Page 20] May 4th, 1959 MY DEAR RONNY K. JONES, may good fortune always and everywhere accompany you in your life, as you have had it with me; here is my answer you desired and dreamed of. Your fellow students are right in many respects. Not all written letters from me and to me reach their goal, not all arrived letters am I able to read to the end, especially the handwritten and the long ones, rare and very few of them have I time and possibility to reply. So much the more will I profit by the transient opportunity of […] writing to you to say in passing some casual truths. I read praising eulogistic English articles on "Dr. Zh," searching after separate hidden senses behind each word of the novel, suspecting deep symbols in every small, insignificant and shallow detail; making whole allegorical constructions out of such, obtained in that way comments, ascribed to the text. It is an error, a deplorable, measureless exaggeration. The main property or feature of the book is the flow of astonishment, of the novelty and singularity of the usual, that permeates the book. This breath is a common faculty of the volume, not a particular statement or truth to be found and cited on a certain place where it had been put. Art in general, every art is symbolical in a whole, large sense of directed attraction or force, and not in the meaning of rebukes or charades, consisting of many partial riddles to be guessed separately and then joined together for the final solution. Not only art, language, every language is still more symbolical, but also in the sense of indifferent meaningfulness, in the significance of spiritual energy or activity. Language is connected with reality and life, history of language is partly history of facts and countries, of developments and ages. Surnames of persons are everywhere derived from names of things. But will it hence appear that each isolated name or image or situation of my novel should mean more than...

A Poem by Heart

A Poem by Heart

Провинциальный интеллигент на изломе истории (о чистопольском враче Д.Д. Авдееве – прототипе доктора Живаго)

This article dwells on the biography of the provincial doctor Dmitry D. Avdeyev (1879–1952) unfolding during the dramatic events in 20th-century Russia. The methods of intellectual history and micro-historiography allow us to create a certain “portrait of a provincial doctor against the background of the era”, who had to make cultural choices. The paper analyses the impact of Avdeyev’s life on the image of Doctor Zhivago, the protagonist in Boris Pasternak’s famous novel, who embodied the best features of the Russian intelligentsia: selfless devotion, action for the common good, disregard of material wealth, and commitment to the timeless humanistic ideals. Avdeyev’s origin and family as well as his professional path are described. Further, the paper studies the everyday life and practice of the ordinary provincial doctor in the early 20th century, including the period of the Civil War and famine of 1921–1922 in the Volga region. It is emphasized here that Avdeyev’s reminiscences of these tragic events, which he had shared with writers evacuated to Chistopol and Yelabuga (1941–1943), were directly and indirectly reflected in Doctor Zhivago. During the war, the doctor’s house in Chistopol became a kind of a writers’ club and a literary salon. It is concluded that the dramatic clash between Avdeyev’s (and Doctor Zhivago’s and, to some extent, Pasternak’s) thoughts and dreams and the reality of post-revolutionary Russia, as well as their being fettered by the actualities of the epoch were, nevertheless, overcome through the spirit of creativity and due to finding meaning in serving the Russian people. This paper provides deeper insights into the lives and behavioural patterns of Russian intellectuals during this landmark period and can be used in interdisciplinary research on the intellectual history of 20th-century Russia and in literary studies.

The associative experiment as an investigative method of the translation process

This paper deals with the psycholinguistic cognitive process investigation methods of text reception and the translation process, the free associative experiment, which can be seen as a complex investigation method. Its application is, thus, to be embedded in the translational experiment, from the perspective of translation polyvariety: Two German novel translations „The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov and „Doctor Zhivago" by Boris Pasternak are to be analyzed in the frames of the psycholinguistic experiment. The source of the translation polyvariability is the subjective character’s meaning interpretation, which is based on probabilistic processes and associative meanings. Emotions play an important role here. The empirical data obtained will be used for didactic purposes in the prospective translators´ training.

Язык «второго рождения» Бориса Пастернака: идиоматика, семантика, визуальность

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the role of idioms in Boris Pasternak’s collection The Second Birth (1932), a topic which has not yet received scholarly attention. The idiomatic level of the Russian language, with its fixed connotations, provides Pasternak with material for sophisticated metaphors, and simultaneously for transmitting conventional and easily recognizable meanings. Thus, the focus on idioms offers an opportunity to explain clearly how a balance of simplicity and complexity is achieved in a work that stems from the poet’s transitional period. In the first section of the article, we discuss the main types of Pasternak’s treatment of idioms; in the second, we provide a number of illustrative examples, analyzing the intertwining of various phraseological modifications in the context of stanzas. In our reading, we pay close attention to the relationship between semantic and visual features of Pasternak’s verses, and in the third section, we discuss the topic of visuality in Pasternak’s poetry from a theoretical point of view. Idioms, we conclude, are not only an essential part of Pasternak’s poetic language, but also represent an area that opens up a new frontier of research.

«Ромео и Джульетта»: Литературный памятник. Рецензия на книгу: Шекспир У. Ромео и Джульетта, изд. подгот. Е.М. Луценко. М.: Ладомир: Наука, 2021. 734 с. (Серия «Литературные Памятники»)

The publication from the series “Literary Monuments” traditionally consists of three sections. The first presents the text of Shakespeare’s play and its translation (bilingualism in “Literary Monuments” is still the exception rather than the rule). Boris Pasternak’s translation is presented by the variant restored by the glassgrapher of 1943. The second section shows the main plot sources of Romeo and Juliet, namely novellas by Masuccio, Luigi Da Porto, Matteo Bandello, William Painter, and Arthur Brooke’s poem (most of them were translated into Russian specifically for this edition). The third section contains two articles, notes to the original text (a historical and cultural commentary reflecting the realities of Elizabethan times and the complexity of Shakespeare’s language), as well as a textual commentary on the translation. The first article, “The Tragic Laughter of William Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet,” discusses the history of the play, the sources of the tragic plot and the changes made by Shakespeare, “synthetic genre” of the play, its experimental character and language. The second article is devoted to the history of Romeo and Juliet translations into Russian and related issues: “...is it possible to translate Shakespeare correctly?” A problem statement and solution are typical for the Russian philological school, and the achievements of Enslish-speaking specialists are also taken into account.

Folk Terminology of the Balkan and Slavic Christian Orthodox Feasts: the Danger of Translation

The article combines methods of ethnolinguistics, Balkan studies, and translatory studies with the aim to analyze the translations of the folk Christian terms of feasts and other facts of the traditional culture. The study of the ways the East-Slavonic calendric term Vtoroj (Second) Spas ʻTransfi guration’ from the Boris Pasternak’s poem August is translated into seven Balkan and South Slavic languages (compared to two English translations) is supported by research of the terminology and corresponding feasts in Balkan and Slavonic traditions. The translations of the poem August investigated in the article are given in the Appendix.

THE GREAT ABSENTEE: NOTES ON THE ITALIAN RECEPTION OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY RUSSIAN POETRY FOR CHILDREN

The article offers a review of 20 th century Russian children’s poetry translated into Italian. Despite the fact that Russia can boast a great tradition of children’s literature in verse, the number of existing Italian translations is not very large and the authors translated are only some happy few. They are Vladimir Mayakovskiy, Osip Mandel’shtam, Boris Pasternak, Korney Chukovskiy and Samuil Marshak. Their not very many texts have mostly appeared for little publishers with scarce circulation. Attention to formal aspects has also not always been impeccable, and no Italian poet has systematically devoted himself to elaborate Italian versions that could aspire to true aesthetic autonomy. This is why, in spite of some notable translations in recent times, we must continue to speak of Russian poetry for children as the great absentee on the Italian cultural scene.

Н.О. Волконский – режиссер радиотеатра

The article deals with the creative biography of Nikolay Volkonsky and his influence on development of the radio theatre directing school in Soviet Union. Main stages of Volkonsky formation as a radio director are outlined. At the very early productions by Nikolai Volkonsky, some techniques are outlined, which soon become canon for the radio theatre. In these first national radio performances Evening with Maria Volkonskaya and Lulli the Musician, Volkonsky uses new sound directing methods that were innovative for broadcasting of that time. They at transforming the time and space of the stage action, presenting the characters through their speech pecularities. Under the leadership of Nikolai Volkonsky, Osip Abdulov and Erast Garin start their work at the radio. They subsequently will be known as the masters of the microphone. There are numerous productions by Nikolai Volkonsky on the radio. The author of the article has selected three performances that can help to create the most complete picture of the creative individuality of the director. These are the radio play The Plant based on the novel by Camille Lemonnier, the radio composition Journey through Japan based on the essays by Gregory Gausner and the monumental pathetic oratorio The Nine Hundred and Fifth Yearbased on the poem by Boris Pasternak. The early years of the soviet radio drama are revealing the common processes in developing of art radio programs when this new unexplored field of creative representation of reality has stood at the forefront of the cultural process. The pioneers of the radio theatre innovatively solved creative tasks by their own experience, gradually asserting the main principles of radio performance. Thus it soon became an independent art direction, important in the process of theatre transformation in the twentieth century and in the genre evolution of national art broadcasting.