0:00:04 > 0:00:07It's one of the greatest love stories of the 20th century.
0:00:07 > 0:00:09A tale of passion and fear,
0:00:09 > 0:00:13set against a backdrop of revolution and violence.
0:00:13 > 0:00:15GUNSHOT
0:00:15 > 0:00:16Julie Christie as Lara.
0:00:16 > 0:00:21The violent, sensual, sensitive girl.
0:00:21 > 0:00:23Zhivago's great love and mistress.
0:00:24 > 0:00:28But our story isn't about Yuri Zhivago and Lara,
0:00:28 > 0:00:30it's about their creator,
0:00:30 > 0:00:34Boris Pasternak, a man who became a prisoner in his own country.
0:00:35 > 0:00:38He willingly committed acts of literary suicide
0:00:38 > 0:00:41practically every day.
0:00:41 > 0:00:44It may have been the bravest book ever written.
0:00:44 > 0:00:49Pasternak faced penury, public denunciation and even death.
0:00:49 > 0:00:51IN RUSSIAN:
0:00:58 > 0:01:03He wanted to have his say and he knew that it was dangerous.
0:01:03 > 0:01:04- ARCHIVE:- On Stalin's orders,
0:01:04 > 0:01:0675% of the supreme War Council are murdered.
0:01:06 > 0:01:10Pasternak's love of Russia was always at odds with his
0:01:10 > 0:01:13disenchantment with the brutal Soviet regime.
0:01:14 > 0:01:18Writing the book under Stalin was dangerous,
0:01:18 > 0:01:21attempting to to get it published at the height of the Cold War,
0:01:21 > 0:01:22even more so.
0:01:34 > 0:01:38I would love to know who the original source was that British intelligence
0:01:38 > 0:01:43got the manuscript from before they gave it to the CIA.
0:01:43 > 0:01:48The CIA used every opportunity they could to catch on to something
0:01:48 > 0:01:50cultural to injure the Russians.
0:01:57 > 0:02:01Our story begins before the film won five Oscars
0:02:01 > 0:02:03and its author the Nobel Prize.
0:02:05 > 0:02:07It's the untold story of the real Doctor Zhivago,
0:02:07 > 0:02:09Boris Pasternak.
0:02:14 > 0:02:17Pasternak's only novel, Doctor Zhivago,
0:02:17 > 0:02:21bears witness to one of the greatest moments of the 20th century -
0:02:21 > 0:02:23the Russian Revolution -
0:02:23 > 0:02:27and was immortalised in David Lean's epic film.
0:02:27 > 0:02:30From the most widely acclaimed novel of our generation,
0:02:30 > 0:02:34Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer presents David Lean's film,
0:02:34 > 0:02:37of Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago.
0:02:45 > 0:02:47It was on the streets of Moscow
0:02:47 > 0:02:50that Boris Pasternak grew up and he witnessed
0:02:50 > 0:02:54the birth throes of the Russian Revolution 100 years ago.
0:02:56 > 0:03:00The book was Pasternak's attempt to personalise what he experienced and
0:03:00 > 0:03:03witnessed through this momentous time.
0:03:07 > 0:03:12An early scene in the film echoes Pasternak's own feelings towards
0:03:12 > 0:03:14the beginnings of the Revolution,
0:03:14 > 0:03:18as Imperial cavalry charge a peaceful protest march,
0:03:18 > 0:03:21all seen through the eyes of Yuri Zhivago.
0:03:30 > 0:03:32When I read Doctor Zhivago,
0:03:32 > 0:03:36I couldn't help but feel that Yuri is Pasternak's alter ego.
0:03:36 > 0:03:38Yuri, too, is a poet,
0:03:38 > 0:03:43tormented by his great loves for the women in his life and for
0:03:43 > 0:03:45mother Russia, where to this day,
0:03:45 > 0:03:49Pasternak is still held in high regard as a writer.
0:03:49 > 0:03:52I welcome you on a tour devoted to Boris Pasternak,
0:03:52 > 0:03:56it is the place where he lived for many, many years.
0:03:56 > 0:04:01This area of Moscow connected with his life very tightly and connected
0:04:01 > 0:04:04with Doctor Zhivago and with many of his poems.
0:04:04 > 0:04:08I joined a tour tracing Pasternak's early footsteps
0:04:08 > 0:04:11in Moscow run by Anna Sergeeva-Klatis,
0:04:11 > 0:04:17a Russian Pasternak scholar and lecturer at Moscow State University.
0:04:19 > 0:04:21Anna, sorry to interrupt, sorry, everybody.
0:04:21 > 0:04:25This is a great turnout, this evening.
0:04:25 > 0:04:29What does that say about the popularity and in the interest
0:04:29 > 0:04:32- in Pasternak in Russia now? - Because he's a great writer.
0:04:33 > 0:04:36Is that true? Do we all agree?
0:04:36 > 0:04:38SHE TRANSLATES TO RUSSIAN
0:04:41 > 0:04:45Boris was a Muscovite from his head to his...
0:04:45 > 0:04:47- Toes.- ..toes.
0:04:47 > 0:04:52He spoke like a Muscovite and he moved like a Muscovite,
0:04:52 > 0:04:57he loved Moscow and Moscow reflected in many of his poems.
0:04:57 > 0:05:00He left Moscow for very short periods.
0:05:00 > 0:05:03He spent all his life in Moscow.
0:05:03 > 0:05:07What would you say is interesting about Boris's upbringing?
0:05:07 > 0:05:10It was quite bourgeois, middle-class, wasn't it?
0:05:10 > 0:05:12His family was an artistic family.
0:05:12 > 0:05:16His father was a famous painter
0:05:16 > 0:05:20and he was already famous when Boris was born.
0:05:20 > 0:05:25And his mother was a very gifted pianist.
0:05:25 > 0:05:27They both were very successful,
0:05:27 > 0:05:32the atmosphere in the family was really artistic.
0:05:33 > 0:05:36He was very gifted person from his childhood.
0:05:36 > 0:05:41And he began to draw when he was about 12 years of age.
0:05:41 > 0:05:43His father was very satisfied.
0:05:43 > 0:05:46He said that he can be a very talented painter.
0:05:46 > 0:05:48But he stopped.
0:05:50 > 0:05:51He changed his mind.
0:05:51 > 0:05:56And he began to play piano and he had very good achievements in that,
0:05:56 > 0:05:59but he also stopped that.
0:05:59 > 0:06:02And then he went into philosophy
0:06:02 > 0:06:06and he went to Germany and he was offered
0:06:06 > 0:06:10to continue his education in Germany because, as a Jew,
0:06:10 > 0:06:14he had no way to continue his career in Russia.
0:06:14 > 0:06:19And he refused because he began to write poetry. He was 22.
0:06:19 > 0:06:20That was the beginning.
0:06:22 > 0:06:24Having found his true calling,
0:06:24 > 0:06:28it was only five years later he saw the start of the Revolution,
0:06:28 > 0:06:32an event that changed his life and changed Russia forever.
0:06:32 > 0:06:36Excited by the Revolution, Boris never left Russia.
0:06:36 > 0:06:38His family were different.
0:06:39 > 0:06:41Despite their liberal leanings,
0:06:41 > 0:06:45the Pasternak family as a whole took a wary view of the Revolution.
0:06:45 > 0:06:50And when they happened to make a journey to Germany in 1923,
0:06:50 > 0:06:53they took the opportunity to make the visit permanent
0:06:53 > 0:06:58and went into exile. First there, and later in Oxford.
0:07:00 > 0:07:04The family home here is full of images of Boris's Russian childhood
0:07:04 > 0:07:08and the cultural greats who visited when they lived in Moscow.
0:07:08 > 0:07:10This is the garden room.
0:07:10 > 0:07:13Being part of the intelligentsia and cultural aristocracy,
0:07:13 > 0:07:16the family had many stellar visitors,
0:07:16 > 0:07:19painted and drawn by Boris's father.
0:07:19 > 0:07:23This one you might recognise, this is Rachmaninov at the piano.
0:07:23 > 0:07:26But for Boris, one visitor to their Moscow home
0:07:26 > 0:07:29stood out more than any of the others.
0:07:29 > 0:07:34Boris remembers as a child being woken by the sound of a piano
0:07:34 > 0:07:36being played solo by his mother and
0:07:36 > 0:07:40stumbling out into a room that was full of people, including Tolstoy,
0:07:40 > 0:07:45who was listening to the concert that she was giving in their house.
0:07:45 > 0:07:49This is Tolstoy in his family estate,
0:07:49 > 0:07:51reading one of his manuscripts.
0:07:52 > 0:07:58For Boris, Tolstoy was a moral example and an artistic example.
0:07:58 > 0:08:01Tolstoy was interested in the peasantry,
0:08:01 > 0:08:03the common life.
0:08:03 > 0:08:07And you can see this in Zhivago,
0:08:07 > 0:08:13where Boris is also interested in a language of peasant culture
0:08:13 > 0:08:15which he uses.
0:08:15 > 0:08:20So there was a strong feeling of compassion for the underclass,
0:08:20 > 0:08:22which Boris inherited.
0:08:22 > 0:08:23Before the Revolution,
0:08:23 > 0:08:27Tolstoy chose to stay in Russia and was a thorn in the side of
0:08:27 > 0:08:28the Romanovs.
0:08:28 > 0:08:30Now, for Pasternak,
0:08:30 > 0:08:33also feeling compelled to remain in his motherland,
0:08:33 > 0:08:38meant that he would be expected to be loyal to the new Soviet regime.
0:08:47 > 0:08:51If you want to see the how USSR glorified the Revolution,
0:08:51 > 0:08:55you need look no further than here in Moscow's Revolution Square
0:08:55 > 0:09:00underground station, where it's only depicted as magnificent and epic.
0:09:00 > 0:09:03Despite his privileged upbringing,
0:09:03 > 0:09:06Pasternak greeted the Revolution with gusto,
0:09:06 > 0:09:11hoping for a fairer society and a better system of government.
0:09:11 > 0:09:14And you can see his initial revolutionary fervour
0:09:14 > 0:09:15in the pages of his novel.
0:09:23 > 0:09:25"The Revolution broke out willy-nilly,
0:09:25 > 0:09:28"like a breath that's been held too long.
0:09:28 > 0:09:32"Everyone was revived, reborn, changed, transformed.
0:09:32 > 0:09:35"You might say that everyone has been through two revolutions,
0:09:35 > 0:09:40"his own personal revolution as well as the general one."
0:09:47 > 0:09:52The artists who were galvanised by the Revolution soon divided into
0:09:52 > 0:09:56two camps. There were those who supported the state
0:09:56 > 0:10:00and produced wholesome propaganda like this.
0:10:00 > 0:10:04Others, like Pasternak, remained neutral, but in doing so,
0:10:04 > 0:10:06he made himself a target.
0:10:08 > 0:10:09In 1922,
0:10:09 > 0:10:13Trotsky summoned Pasternak to his office and demanded to know what
0:10:13 > 0:10:18his poetry meant and why he didn't write about social themes.
0:10:18 > 0:10:22And when Yuri's captured in Doctor Zhivago, by the Red Army,
0:10:22 > 0:10:25it's clear the scene depicts Pasternak's
0:10:25 > 0:10:27and other writer's fears.
0:10:27 > 0:10:30- Yes. - I used to admire your poetry.
0:10:30 > 0:10:33- Thank you. - I shouldn't admire it now.
0:10:33 > 0:10:37I should find it absurdly personal, don't you agree?
0:10:37 > 0:10:40Feelings, insights, affections, it's suddenly trivial now.
0:10:42 > 0:10:44You don't agree? You're wrong.
0:10:44 > 0:10:48The personal life is dead in Russia.
0:10:48 > 0:10:49History has killed it.
0:10:51 > 0:10:55If the Russian people were fearful under Lenin in the years after his death,
0:10:55 > 0:10:58they were soon subjected to a new set of terrors
0:10:58 > 0:11:01when Stalin took control.
0:11:02 > 0:11:04- ARCHIVE:- On Stalin's orders,
0:11:04 > 0:11:0775% of the Supreme War Council are murdered.
0:11:07 > 0:11:11In their places, Stalin installed political commissars who ensured his control.
0:11:41 > 0:11:46Writers who were seen as a danger to the state, no matter who they were,
0:11:46 > 0:11:49put themselves at risk.
0:11:49 > 0:11:50And, like all Russians,
0:11:50 > 0:11:55Boris saw Vladimir Mayakovsky as the greatest living writer.
0:11:55 > 0:11:59A close friend and associate of Boris Pasternak's,
0:11:59 > 0:12:01he was dubbed the poet of the Revolution
0:12:01 > 0:12:05and he advocated socialist thought through his verse.
0:12:07 > 0:12:11But when Mayakovsky's writing became critical of the regime,
0:12:11 > 0:12:13his fate soon changed.
0:12:14 > 0:12:17In 1930, Mayakovsky committed suicide
0:12:17 > 0:12:20by shooting himself in the heart.
0:12:20 > 0:12:24Controversy rages as to why he did it - lost love,
0:12:24 > 0:12:28lost faith in the regime, or even that he was murdered.
0:12:30 > 0:12:34His funeral was the third biggest in the history of the Soviet Union.
0:12:34 > 0:12:37Pasternak was greatly disturbed by this turn of events,
0:12:37 > 0:12:40so much so that 25 years later,
0:12:40 > 0:12:44he reflected on Mayakovsky's work in Zhivago.
0:12:45 > 0:12:47"I've always liked Mayakovsky.
0:12:47 > 0:12:50"What an all-devouring poetic energy.
0:12:50 > 0:12:54"And his way of saying a thing once and for all, implacably,
0:12:54 > 0:12:56"straight from the shoulder.
0:12:56 > 0:12:59"And above all, the way he takes a good, bold swing,
0:12:59 > 0:13:02"and chucks it all at the face of society.
0:13:02 > 0:13:06"And a bit further, somewhere, into outer space."
0:13:06 > 0:13:10Mayakovsky's death was only the first of many.
0:13:10 > 0:13:13As Stalin's terror convulsed Russia,
0:13:13 > 0:13:16many of Pasternak's closest friends would be exiled,
0:13:16 > 0:13:18imprisoned or executed.
0:13:28 > 0:13:30Like all writers of the time,
0:13:30 > 0:13:34Pasternak had to think of his own fate in the face of what was going
0:13:34 > 0:13:36on all around him.
0:13:36 > 0:13:39The years of Stalin's terror were among the most tortuous
0:13:39 > 0:13:41for Pasternak and his countrymen.
0:13:41 > 0:13:46In 1932, Stalin's wife killed herself over his infidelity,
0:13:46 > 0:13:48shooting herself through the heart.
0:13:48 > 0:13:51That struck a profound chord with Pasternak,
0:13:51 > 0:13:55who was himself tormented over his own infidelity
0:13:55 > 0:13:56in his first marriage.
0:13:56 > 0:14:01He wrote a personal letter to Stalin, full of deep condolence,
0:14:01 > 0:14:04which is said to have bound the leader to the poet for life
0:14:04 > 0:14:07and given the latter a unique protection.
0:14:07 > 0:14:11Another incident that challenged Pasternak's loyalty came on a Moscow
0:14:11 > 0:14:15street corner when he met one of the most popular and highly regarded
0:14:15 > 0:14:18poets of the time.
0:14:18 > 0:14:22Osip Mandelstam recited his new verse, Stalin Epigram.
0:14:24 > 0:14:28"But around him a crowd of thin-necked henchmen
0:14:28 > 0:14:32"And he plays with the services of these half-men,
0:14:32 > 0:14:36"Some are whistling, some meowing, some sniffing.
0:14:36 > 0:14:40"He's alone booming, poking, and whiffing."
0:14:44 > 0:14:48Pasternak knew those lines could be fatal to the pair of them.
0:14:48 > 0:14:51So he told Mandelstam, "This never happened,
0:14:51 > 0:14:54"you didn't read that to me, I never heard it."
0:14:55 > 0:14:57Mandelstam was arrested.
0:14:57 > 0:15:00Stalin phoned Pasternak personally,
0:15:00 > 0:15:04wanting to know if the prisoner was a good writer or not.
0:15:04 > 0:15:08Pasternak avoided the question, whereupon Stalin taunted him,
0:15:08 > 0:15:11"Why aren't you standing up for your friend?"
0:15:11 > 0:15:13The call only lasted a few minutes,
0:15:13 > 0:15:16but it almost certainly sealed Mandelstam's fate.
0:15:17 > 0:15:22Stalin was clearly testing Pasternak's loyalty to the regime.
0:15:22 > 0:15:25And while he was protected, Mandelstam was not.
0:15:25 > 0:15:30So, when arrested again and charged with counterrevolutionary activities,
0:15:30 > 0:15:34Mandelstam died in transit to a labour camp.
0:15:34 > 0:15:38The official cause of death was "unspecified illness".
0:15:39 > 0:15:42Pasternak would never forget what happened to Mandelstam
0:15:42 > 0:15:45and his feelings of guilt and complicity
0:15:45 > 0:15:48would haunt him for the rest of his life.
0:15:56 > 0:16:01I'm leaving Moscow by train to take a trip to the country
0:16:01 > 0:16:04to see the next trick Stalin had up his sleeve.
0:16:10 > 0:16:14He created a community for writers at Peredelkino,
0:16:14 > 0:16:17just 15 miles south-west of Moscow.
0:16:22 > 0:16:25Well, we're only a few minutes by train outside Moscow,
0:16:25 > 0:16:27but the difference is palpable.
0:16:27 > 0:16:31Away from all that smog and stress and pollution,
0:16:31 > 0:16:34you were serenaded by birdsong in this sun-dappled wood.
0:16:34 > 0:16:38And you have a sense of what this might have meant for Pasternak,
0:16:38 > 0:16:40to connect to the Russian countryside,
0:16:40 > 0:16:44so important in the literary canon and to the Russian soul.
0:16:49 > 0:16:53But the reality of living and writing in Peredelkino,
0:16:53 > 0:16:56was described by one of Pasternak's neighbours, Dukovsky,
0:16:56 > 0:17:00as "entrapping writers in a cocoon of comforts,
0:17:00 > 0:17:03"surrounding them with a network of spies."
0:17:06 > 0:17:08Within a year of being here,
0:17:08 > 0:17:13Pasternak felt impassioned and strong enough to start writing
0:17:13 > 0:17:16Doctor Zhivago, a novel that speaks of his love of Russia
0:17:16 > 0:17:20and his hatred of the brutal regime that now ran it.
0:17:22 > 0:17:25It's very plain and austere, isn't it?
0:17:25 > 0:17:29It's a sort of writer's desk out of a woodcut or a fairy tale.
0:17:29 > 0:17:33I mean, partly, that's to ensure no distractions,
0:17:33 > 0:17:36but also what it connects with, I think, is a reference
0:17:36 > 0:17:39I'm sure I came across in the book, either by Pasternak,
0:17:39 > 0:17:42or his alter ego, Zhivago,
0:17:42 > 0:17:46saying that what he wants is to connect with the ordinary man and woman.
0:17:46 > 0:17:52His book, his great classic, isn't some highfalutin literary puzzle,
0:17:52 > 0:17:56but it's the story of Russia for everybody to understand.
0:17:57 > 0:17:59Plain speaking from a plain desk.
0:18:01 > 0:18:05It wasn't just Doctor Zhivago that Pasternak poured his writing into
0:18:05 > 0:18:07from this desk.
0:18:07 > 0:18:10He risked keeping in regular correspondence with his exiled
0:18:10 > 0:18:14family in Oxford, telling them of the pressures he was under,
0:18:14 > 0:18:17being part of the writer's colony in Peredelkino.
0:18:18 > 0:18:22These are extracts of letters that Boris wrote to his sisters.
0:18:22 > 0:18:24"The absurdities of life here,
0:18:24 > 0:18:27"the obstacles they create for writers and artists
0:18:27 > 0:18:29"are beyond belief,
0:18:29 > 0:18:32"but that's how a revolution has to be."
0:18:32 > 0:18:35In his letters to his sisters, as far as he's able,
0:18:35 > 0:18:38knowing of course that all his letters were probably
0:18:38 > 0:18:42being intercepted and read by the Soviets at that time,
0:18:42 > 0:18:46he talks about the incredible struggle to write his truth
0:18:46 > 0:18:48about a regime when
0:18:48 > 0:18:51of course that was absolutely not the thing to be doing.
0:18:51 > 0:18:55I genuinely believe that he, willingly almost,
0:18:55 > 0:18:58committed acts of literary suicide, practically every day.
0:18:59 > 0:19:03Pasternak carried on writing Doctor Zhivago
0:19:03 > 0:19:05in the idyll of Peredelkino,
0:19:05 > 0:19:08when suddenly his and Russia's worlds were turned upside down.
0:19:11 > 0:19:15The domestic terrors of Stalin's regime abated when history took
0:19:15 > 0:19:17an unexpected turn.
0:19:17 > 0:19:20Russia entered the Second World War,
0:19:20 > 0:19:23joining the fight against Nazi Germany.
0:19:23 > 0:19:26Stalin called it the great patriotic war.
0:19:30 > 0:19:34Pasternak saw it as a real chance for a new dawn for Russia,
0:19:34 > 0:19:38and became a fire warden, defusing the bombs that fell on Moscow.
0:19:38 > 0:19:43He even visited the front line to read his poetry to the troops.
0:19:43 > 0:19:46But his hopes for a new Russia were short-lived.
0:19:46 > 0:19:50The repressions and ethnic cleansing that followed victory meant that
0:19:50 > 0:19:53the terrors got even worse.
0:19:54 > 0:19:57As Stalin's iron grip tightened,
0:19:57 > 0:20:01Pasternak returned to writing Doctor Zhivago in Peredelkino.
0:20:01 > 0:20:05He lived there with his second wife, Zinaida,
0:20:05 > 0:20:08having divorced his first, Evgeniya.
0:20:08 > 0:20:12But a trip to Moscow in search of a publisher lead to a chance encounter
0:20:12 > 0:20:14that changed his life forever
0:20:14 > 0:20:17and gave his novel and David Lean's film
0:20:17 > 0:20:20a memorable love affair at its centre.
0:20:20 > 0:20:22It made Yuri Zhivago a romantic hero.
0:20:29 > 0:20:33This scene is a direct reference to Pasternak's visit to the offices of
0:20:33 > 0:20:36the state literary magazine, Novy Mir.
0:20:39 > 0:20:44It was there he met Olga Ivinskaya, who was working for the magazine.
0:20:44 > 0:20:48Her boss introduced him to her as "your biggest fan".
0:20:48 > 0:20:49Returning home that evening,
0:20:49 > 0:20:54Olga told her mother that she'd been "speaking with God".
0:20:54 > 0:20:58The next day, Pasternak sent her his full set of works and
0:20:58 > 0:21:00their relationship began.
0:21:00 > 0:21:04Boris was the most impassioned of men.
0:21:04 > 0:21:10What I most love about him is that you feel his extreme strain of
0:21:10 > 0:21:13emotionalism, through everything that he did,
0:21:13 > 0:21:16and he did not take anything lightly.
0:21:16 > 0:21:19I feel that he did have a certain moral weakness and that played
0:21:19 > 0:21:22out in his relationships.
0:21:22 > 0:21:24Olga had a daughter from a previous relationship
0:21:24 > 0:21:28and she remembered those early days of Boris and her mother
0:21:28 > 0:21:30very well.
0:21:30 > 0:21:31- My mother.- Right.
0:21:31 > 0:21:33Pasternak.
0:22:05 > 0:22:08What sort of man do you think Boris Pasternak was?
0:22:28 > 0:22:29Irena's mother, Olga,
0:22:29 > 0:22:34soon became Pasternak's mistress and his muse for Doctor Zhivago.
0:22:34 > 0:22:38Their relationship would open him to further pressure and danger as he
0:22:38 > 0:22:42continued writing the book with Olga in his life.
0:22:42 > 0:22:47There is absolutely no doubt that Olga became the prototype for Lara
0:22:47 > 0:22:48in Doctor Zhivago.
0:22:48 > 0:22:53Lara originally was based on his second wife, Zinaida Neigauz,
0:22:53 > 0:22:55but the minute that he meant Olga,
0:22:55 > 0:23:00his Lara softened and flowered to embody Olga Ivinskaya.
0:23:00 > 0:23:04David Lean's interpretation of this love affair was a big selling point
0:23:04 > 0:23:05for the film.
0:23:05 > 0:23:08Wouldn't it have been lovely if we'd met before?
0:23:08 > 0:23:09Before we did?
0:23:10 > 0:23:11Yes.
0:23:14 > 0:23:17We'd have got married, had a house and children.
0:23:19 > 0:23:22If we'd had children, Yuri,
0:23:22 > 0:23:24would you have liked a boy or a girl?
0:23:25 > 0:23:30I think we may go mad if we think about all that.
0:23:30 > 0:23:32I shall always think about it.
0:23:35 > 0:23:37Inspired by his new love,
0:23:37 > 0:23:39Pasternak threw himself into what would be
0:23:39 > 0:23:43his great epic of the Russian Revolution and civil war.
0:23:43 > 0:23:49He poured all his anguish and his deepest reflections into its pages.
0:23:49 > 0:23:52When his character Yuri talks about writing,
0:23:52 > 0:23:57well, it could almost be the voice of Pasternak himself.
0:23:58 > 0:24:03"Ever since his school days, he dreamed of writing a book in prose.
0:24:03 > 0:24:07"A book of impressions of life, in which he would conceal,
0:24:07 > 0:24:11"like buried sticks of dynamite,
0:24:11 > 0:24:16"the most striking things he had so far seen and thought about."
0:24:24 > 0:24:28There have been writers who have said that Zhivago is less a novel
0:24:28 > 0:24:30than an autobiography of a poet.
0:24:30 > 0:24:34It was his political beliefs that he channelled through the character of
0:24:34 > 0:24:36Yuri Zhivago.
0:24:38 > 0:24:40In David Lean's film adaptation,
0:24:40 > 0:24:43the scene between Yuri and his half-brother,
0:24:43 > 0:24:47played by Alec Guinness, shows Pasternak's political intentions.
0:24:47 > 0:24:51You lay life on a table and you cut out all the tumours of injustice.
0:24:51 > 0:24:53Marvellous.
0:24:53 > 0:24:55'I told him, if he felt like that, he should join the party.'
0:24:55 > 0:24:59Ah, cutting out the tumours of injustice, that's a deep operation.
0:24:59 > 0:25:01Someone must keep life alive while you do it.
0:25:01 > 0:25:05By living. Isn't that right?
0:25:05 > 0:25:07'I thought then it was wrong.
0:25:07 > 0:25:11'He told me what he thought about the party and I trembled for him.
0:25:11 > 0:25:15'He approved of us, but for reasons which were subtle, like his verse.'
0:25:19 > 0:25:22As he carried on writing Zhivago,
0:25:22 > 0:25:27the threats towards Pasternak soon became more direct and personal.
0:25:27 > 0:25:32Pasternak's fear and sense of isolation grew deeper.
0:25:32 > 0:25:33In 1948,
0:25:33 > 0:25:3825,000 copies of his poems were pulped by the state publisher
0:25:38 > 0:25:43and the leading literary magazine, Novy Mir, rejected his verse.
0:25:43 > 0:25:46As Pasternak noted drily,
0:25:46 > 0:25:49"public appearances by me are considered undesirable."
0:25:51 > 0:25:53In 1949,
0:25:53 > 0:25:57the secret police went to see Stalin to say they were going to arrest
0:25:57 > 0:26:02Pasternak. Imagine their surprise when the Great Leader began
0:26:02 > 0:26:04reciting Pasternak's verse.
0:26:04 > 0:26:07"Heavenly colour, colour blue," he said.
0:26:07 > 0:26:12And Stalin told his goons, "Leave him, he's a cloud dweller."
0:26:15 > 0:26:18He didn't know that he had this kind of golden protection on high from
0:26:18 > 0:26:22Stalin, and yet he risked his literary life daily
0:26:22 > 0:26:25writing his truth about a regime which appalled him.
0:26:31 > 0:26:34Pasternak's faith in his work was unshakeable.
0:26:34 > 0:26:38He began having readings of it at his dacha and here in Moscow.
0:26:38 > 0:26:42This was an extraordinary act of bravery, or perhaps recklessness,
0:26:42 > 0:26:44on his part. After all, at the time,
0:26:44 > 0:26:47copies of his poems were being pulped,
0:26:47 > 0:26:49orders for his arrest were circulating,
0:26:49 > 0:26:53and yet here he was risking the very act of defiance
0:26:53 > 0:26:56which had cost his friend Mandelstam his life.
0:26:57 > 0:27:01Pasternak must have known that informers would be eavesdropping on
0:27:01 > 0:27:06these readings. Retribution, when it came, was excruciating.
0:27:06 > 0:27:09The authorities left Pasternak himself alone.
0:27:09 > 0:27:14Instead, they arrested his new love, Olga Ivinskaya.
0:27:14 > 0:27:20In 1949, Olga was incarcerated in the notorious Lubyanka prison
0:27:20 > 0:27:22in central Moscow.
0:27:59 > 0:28:01She was put in solitary confinement
0:28:01 > 0:28:04and she was interrogated nightly over the book
0:28:04 > 0:28:06that her lover was writing.
0:28:06 > 0:28:10She was subjected to appalling sleep deprivation with blinding lights in
0:28:10 > 0:28:14her face, and I think that the authorities thought that, probably,
0:28:14 > 0:28:17she would crack very quickly and reveal all.
0:28:17 > 0:28:20Not once does she ever betray the man she loved.
0:28:22 > 0:28:24She did discover that she was pregnant
0:28:24 > 0:28:25while she was in the Lubyanka.
0:28:25 > 0:28:29And one day she was told she was going to be allowed a meeting with Boris,
0:28:29 > 0:28:32so she was absolutely thrilled and put on her favourite crepe de chine
0:28:32 > 0:28:36polka-dot dress, which, bizarrely, her mother had managed to smuggle
0:28:36 > 0:28:38into the Lubyanka for her.
0:28:38 > 0:28:42And in fact she was driven in a blacked-out car across Moscow
0:28:42 > 0:28:46and taken to another government building where, six months pregnant, she was marched
0:28:46 > 0:28:48up and down flights of stairs and, eventually,
0:28:48 > 0:28:53taken down to the basement where she smelt this very strange smell
0:28:53 > 0:28:56and these doors open, and she was pushed into the Moscow morgue,
0:28:56 > 0:29:00where there were the bodies on zinc top tables, under tarpaulin.
0:29:00 > 0:29:03And, of course, because she'd had no contact with Boris,
0:29:03 > 0:29:07she assumed that he was dead and that those were one of those bodies
0:29:07 > 0:29:10and she was left for many hours in the morgue in her silk dress and,
0:29:10 > 0:29:14of course, the next day she miscarried.
0:29:15 > 0:29:16Unaware of any of this,
0:29:16 > 0:29:19Pasternak himself was summoned to the Lubyanka,
0:29:19 > 0:29:23expecting to collect his newborn child.
0:29:23 > 0:29:26Instead, he was palmed off with some old letters and gifts
0:29:26 > 0:29:27that he'd given to Olga.
0:29:27 > 0:29:32It would be months before he learned the grisly truth.
0:29:34 > 0:29:36Pasternak was distraught.
0:29:36 > 0:29:39He told a friend, "Everything is finished now.
0:29:39 > 0:29:43"They've taken her away from me and I'll never see her again.
0:29:43 > 0:29:45"It's like death.
0:29:45 > 0:29:46"Even worse."
0:29:48 > 0:29:51She was sentenced to four years hard labour.
0:29:52 > 0:29:56Pasternak evoked his sense of desolation in Doctor Zhivago
0:29:56 > 0:29:59when Lara disappears, which David Lean used
0:29:59 > 0:30:02as one of the closing scenes to his epic
0:30:02 > 0:30:05interpretation of the novel.
0:30:05 > 0:30:08One day, she went away and didn't come back.
0:30:08 > 0:30:09She died, or vanished somewhere.
0:30:10 > 0:30:12In one of the labour camps.
0:30:12 > 0:30:17A nameless number on a list that was afterwards mislaid.
0:30:17 > 0:30:21That was quite common in those days.
0:30:21 > 0:30:24Despite these traumas, Pasternak kept writing.
0:30:24 > 0:30:29If the Soviet tactic was to pressure him to stop, it wasn't working.
0:30:30 > 0:30:32And then, in 1953,
0:30:32 > 0:30:38Stalin's death heralded a new era of hope and redemption for Pasternak.
0:30:38 > 0:30:41Olga was released after four years
0:30:41 > 0:30:43and they rekindled their love affair.
0:30:45 > 0:30:47Towards the end of the writing of the novel,
0:30:47 > 0:30:50Olga was typing up the manuscript every afternoon
0:30:50 > 0:30:53and it was she who was literally taking bound copies
0:30:53 > 0:30:56of the manuscript around to publishers.
0:30:56 > 0:31:01She acted like an editor, a literary agent, she was his stalwart,
0:31:01 > 0:31:03she watched his back.
0:31:03 > 0:31:08She absolutely held this man energetically with this love and belief and support.
0:31:08 > 0:31:10And I think we owe her everything.
0:31:11 > 0:31:15In 1954, after 20 years work,
0:31:15 > 0:31:19Pasternak finished writing Doctor Zhivago in Peredelkino.
0:31:21 > 0:31:22He was ecstatic.
0:31:22 > 0:31:26He wrote, "You cannot imagine what I have achieved.
0:31:26 > 0:31:30"I have found and given names to the sorcery that has been the cause of
0:31:30 > 0:31:36"suffering, bafflement, amazement and dispute for several decades.
0:31:36 > 0:31:42"Everything is named, in simple, transparent and sad words.
0:31:42 > 0:31:47"I also renewed and redefined the dearest and most important things.
0:31:47 > 0:31:54"Land and sky, great passion, creative spirit, life and death."
0:31:56 > 0:31:59If Boris's feelings about mother Russia were clear,
0:31:59 > 0:32:04so to were his enduring feelings towards the Soviet regime
0:32:04 > 0:32:06in the pages of Doctor Zhivago.
0:32:07 > 0:32:11"I don't know of any teaching more self-centred and further from the
0:32:11 > 0:32:13"facts than Marxism.
0:32:13 > 0:32:16"Ordinarily, people are anxious to test their theories in practice,
0:32:16 > 0:32:19"to learn from experience.
0:32:19 > 0:32:23"But those who wield power are so anxious to establish the myth of
0:32:23 > 0:32:26"their own infallibility that they turned their backs
0:32:26 > 0:32:29"on truth as squarely as they can.
0:32:29 > 0:32:32"Politics mean nothing to me.
0:32:32 > 0:32:36"I don't like people who are indifferent to the truth."
0:32:36 > 0:32:39Despite such bold passages,
0:32:39 > 0:32:42Pasternak was still confident his book would be published
0:32:42 > 0:32:47and he submitted it to the state publisher, Novy Mir.
0:32:47 > 0:32:48Advertisements even appeared
0:32:48 > 0:32:52forecasting the imminent arrival of the book.
0:32:52 > 0:32:55But then the Soviets moved the goalposts.
0:32:55 > 0:32:59In September 1956, Novy Mir turned the book down
0:32:59 > 0:33:01on ideological grounds.
0:33:01 > 0:33:05Pasternak was torn between his desire to see his book published
0:33:05 > 0:33:08and his fear over the possible repercussions.
0:33:08 > 0:33:10He now realised that if Doctor Zhivago
0:33:10 > 0:33:12was ever to see the light of day,
0:33:12 > 0:33:15he would have to look beyond Russia for a publisher.
0:33:17 > 0:33:22The Soviet loss of the book was about to become a wonderful
0:33:22 > 0:33:24opportunity for the West.
0:33:24 > 0:33:25As luck would have it,
0:33:25 > 0:33:29an Italian publishing house with links to the Communist Party
0:33:29 > 0:33:31had a man in Moscow at the time
0:33:31 > 0:33:34and he got wind of Doctor Zhivago and liked the sound of it.
0:33:34 > 0:33:38That man would go on to be one of the most important go-betweens in
0:33:38 > 0:33:40literary history.
0:33:40 > 0:33:42He's still alive, 95 now,
0:33:42 > 0:33:44and lives in a village north of Rome.
0:33:53 > 0:33:56SPOKEN IN ENGLISH:
0:34:13 > 0:34:15What happened next?
0:34:50 > 0:34:55In 1957, Sergio D'Angelo smuggled the Zhivago manuscript
0:34:55 > 0:34:57out of Russia through Berlin,
0:34:57 > 0:35:01where he passed it to his employer, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli.
0:35:09 > 0:35:14The Feltrinelli Foundation in Milan is now run by his son, Carlo.
0:35:16 > 0:35:21Why was your father so committed to Zhivago and to Pasternak himself?
0:35:43 > 0:35:47How did your father communicate with Pasternak
0:35:47 > 0:35:48during this whole process?
0:36:15 > 0:36:18And this code paid off.
0:36:18 > 0:36:22When the Russians forced Pasternak to send a telegram to Feltrinelli,
0:36:22 > 0:36:26asking for the manuscript to be returned for corrections to be made,
0:36:26 > 0:36:27it was in Russian.
0:36:27 > 0:36:31So Feltrinelli knew it had been sent under duress.
0:36:33 > 0:36:38The Soviet regime then blocked the publication of Doctor Zhivago
0:36:38 > 0:36:41in Russia, putting more pressure on Pasternak.
0:36:41 > 0:36:44Even with his arrangement with Feltrinelli in place,
0:36:44 > 0:36:46he didn't stop there.
0:36:46 > 0:36:49Either through determination or desperation,
0:36:49 > 0:36:54Pasternak gave out four other copies to contacts he trusted to take to
0:36:54 > 0:36:57countries with a strong literary tradition.
0:36:57 > 0:37:00I'm here in Paris to discover how one of those typescripts
0:37:00 > 0:37:03was smuggled into France.
0:37:03 > 0:37:08Jacqueline de Proyart was studying Russian at Moscow State University
0:37:08 > 0:37:11in 1956, and her fellow students said there was
0:37:11 > 0:37:13someone she had to meet.
0:37:13 > 0:37:17And they said, you know, if you are in Russia here
0:37:17 > 0:37:19and you don't go and see Pasternak,
0:37:19 > 0:37:22you will have been here for nothing.
0:37:22 > 0:37:24I was amazed because I knew Pasternak,
0:37:24 > 0:37:26but like a name across a blackboard.
0:37:26 > 0:37:30You saw the book before you met Pasternak.
0:37:30 > 0:37:33I opened it, I read it, the language is wonderful,
0:37:33 > 0:37:36because it's a poetic one.
0:37:36 > 0:37:39Very well-balanced. Pleasant to hear.
0:37:39 > 0:37:41I mean, it's very musical.
0:37:41 > 0:37:47So the literary value of this novel was...
0:37:47 > 0:37:49Amazed me.
0:37:49 > 0:37:55Pasternak trusted her and gave her a set of typescripts to smuggle back to France.
0:37:55 > 0:37:59These typescripts didn't carry Pasternak's name, for fear of them
0:37:59 > 0:38:02being found in transit out of Russia.
0:38:02 > 0:38:06The only name printed in the front matter was Doctor Zhivago.
0:38:06 > 0:38:09Is this the one you took to the French embassy?
0:38:09 > 0:38:11- Yes, yes, of course...- It is.
0:38:11 > 0:38:13I had it in my suitcase.
0:38:14 > 0:38:17And I put it in a certain way in my suitcase.
0:38:17 > 0:38:18When I came back,
0:38:18 > 0:38:21I opened my suitcase and the book was not at all in the same place.
0:38:21 > 0:38:24No, so somebody had opened your suitcase.
0:38:24 > 0:38:25Yes. Of course.
0:38:25 > 0:38:28But they didn't remove it. They saw it...
0:38:28 > 0:38:31They saw it, maybe they opened it, they saw no name
0:38:31 > 0:38:35and nobody knew Doctor Zhivago at that time.
0:38:35 > 0:38:38It was quite a scary proposition,
0:38:38 > 0:38:40it was a big responsibility, to do that.
0:38:40 > 0:38:43SHE CHUCKLES
0:38:43 > 0:38:49Well, I think when we are 29, you have still punch.
0:38:49 > 0:38:53It's not like putting a microchip in a handkerchief, is it?
0:38:53 > 0:38:54You've really got to...
0:38:54 > 0:38:56You've really got to hide that.
0:38:56 > 0:39:00- No...- And I love the fact that these are sort of careless tea stains
0:39:00 > 0:39:03on the cover of this great historical document.
0:39:03 > 0:39:04It's life.
0:39:06 > 0:39:07Meanwhile, in Oxford,
0:39:07 > 0:39:12the exiled Pasternak family was also involved in the intrigue of bringing
0:39:12 > 0:39:15Boris's masterpiece to print.
0:39:15 > 0:39:17When I was about 13, my mother
0:39:17 > 0:39:21asked me to go with her on a little bus journey
0:39:21 > 0:39:24up to the northern part of Oxford
0:39:24 > 0:39:28to the household of a Russian academic, because she had to pick up a parcel.
0:39:28 > 0:39:31I had the feeling this is an important occasion.
0:39:31 > 0:39:32There's something going on.
0:39:32 > 0:39:34Why did she need me with her?
0:39:37 > 0:39:40We came to this small academic's house
0:39:40 > 0:39:44and I was left in a room and my mother went into another room
0:39:44 > 0:39:47and came back with a brown paper parcel.
0:39:47 > 0:39:49And the brown paper parcel
0:39:49 > 0:39:53was the second volume of the two-volume typescript
0:39:53 > 0:39:55of Doctor Zhivago.
0:39:55 > 0:39:56And what was the plan?
0:39:56 > 0:39:58What was your mother meant to do?
0:39:58 > 0:40:01Boris wanted her and his sister to read it
0:40:01 > 0:40:04and it was guarded ferociously by them.
0:40:04 > 0:40:08There was a controversy on whether it would be dangerous
0:40:08 > 0:40:11for Boris to have it published or not.
0:40:11 > 0:40:13And it clearly was dangerous for Boris,
0:40:13 > 0:40:17but on the other hand, Boris had
0:40:17 > 0:40:21put the last 20 years of his life working on it,
0:40:21 > 0:40:24and he wanted to have his say,
0:40:24 > 0:40:28and he knew that it was dangerous.
0:40:30 > 0:40:33Despite the best efforts of the Kremlin and
0:40:33 > 0:40:37the Italian Communist party to get the typescript back
0:40:37 > 0:40:39from Feltrinelli in Milan to censor,
0:40:39 > 0:40:43Feltrinelli got the book published first, in November 1957,
0:40:43 > 0:40:46giving him the global copyright.
0:40:46 > 0:40:49So great was the demand for Doctor Zhivago
0:40:49 > 0:40:52that he licensed rights in 18 different languages
0:40:52 > 0:40:55in advance of the novel's publication.
0:41:10 > 0:41:14No Russian writer had gone round the state control of
0:41:14 > 0:41:18published works before, and this especially infuriated the new
0:41:18 > 0:41:20Soviet Premier, Nikita Khrushchev.
0:41:47 > 0:41:51As if Pasternak's life was not complicated and perilous
0:41:51 > 0:41:54enough, he was about to become a pawn in a much bigger
0:41:54 > 0:41:56and more dangerous political game,
0:41:56 > 0:42:00as anything that annoyed the Soviet Union was a godsend
0:42:00 > 0:42:03for their biggest Cold War enemy.
0:42:11 > 0:42:14The book came to the attention of the CIA,
0:42:14 > 0:42:19who wanted to make sure copies got into the hands of ordinary Russians.
0:42:24 > 0:42:25I'm here to meet Peter Finn,
0:42:25 > 0:42:29who is now the national security editor for the Washington Post.
0:42:30 > 0:42:35In 2014, he co-wrote a book documenting the CIA's involvement
0:42:35 > 0:42:38in turning Pasternak's novel against the Soviet state.
0:42:40 > 0:42:43How did you get involved in the story of Pasternak
0:42:43 > 0:42:45and the writing of this great book?
0:42:45 > 0:42:51I was a correspondent in Moscow for the paper between 2004 and 2008.
0:42:51 > 0:42:55And at that time I started to read about Pasternak
0:42:55 > 0:42:56in various biographies
0:42:56 > 0:43:00and I saw that the evidence on the CIA and its role
0:43:00 > 0:43:03was elusive but persistent.
0:43:03 > 0:43:08I also realised that if I'm going to bring anything to this story
0:43:08 > 0:43:13that's fresh or original, I would have to do get the CIA documents.
0:43:13 > 0:43:18So, that was a long process, that took probably three years
0:43:18 > 0:43:23from when I first approached the agency to when I got them.
0:43:23 > 0:43:28What are the documents or paragraphs that particularly catch your eye
0:43:28 > 0:43:30from your tranche here?
0:43:30 > 0:43:32This one I like because this is the beginning of it all.
0:43:32 > 0:43:38So, this is a document dated January 2nd, 1958,
0:43:38 > 0:43:41and you can see the outline of the whole operation here.
0:43:41 > 0:43:46They talk in the second paragraph, and it's redacted, but essentially
0:43:46 > 0:43:50"British intelligence are in favour of exploiting Pasternak's book.
0:43:50 > 0:43:54"and have offered to provide whatever assistance they can.
0:43:54 > 0:43:58"They have suggested the possibility of getting copies into the hands of
0:43:58 > 0:44:01"travellers going to the Iron Curtain area."
0:44:01 > 0:44:04So, it's essentially telling headquarters,
0:44:04 > 0:44:10"we are including two rolls of film, this is the book, Doctor Zhivago."
0:44:10 > 0:44:12This is very spy craft, isn't it?
0:44:12 > 0:44:17Somebody has stood over the book and taken pictures of every page presumably.
0:44:17 > 0:44:20Yes, correct. And then used to typeset their own edition.
0:44:20 > 0:44:23So, for them, this was a propaganda operation.
0:44:23 > 0:44:27They viewed culture as a form of propaganda
0:44:27 > 0:44:31that they could use against the Soviet state.
0:44:31 > 0:44:32These were not...
0:44:32 > 0:44:35They may have had very fine literary tastes,
0:44:35 > 0:44:40but they weren't doing this for literary or philanthropic reasons.
0:44:40 > 0:44:42They were doing this for political reasons.
0:44:46 > 0:44:50Now that the CIA had a manuscript of the novel,
0:44:50 > 0:44:52the race was on to weaponise it,
0:44:52 > 0:44:56to turn it into a kind of cosh to beat the Soviets with.
0:44:56 > 0:45:00But they needed to conceal their part in the subterfuge and find
0:45:00 > 0:45:03a European publisher to print copies in Russian.
0:45:03 > 0:45:06And as for what happened next in the story, well,
0:45:06 > 0:45:11that brings me as far as you can imagine from the steppes of Russia
0:45:11 > 0:45:13to the bosky countryside of Hampshire
0:45:13 > 0:45:16and somebody who was there at the time.
0:45:20 > 0:45:24My husband worked for the Dutch security service, the DBB.
0:45:24 > 0:45:26And they set up an operation,
0:45:26 > 0:45:30although it was initiated by the CIA.
0:45:30 > 0:45:35They found this printer in the Hague and my husband,
0:45:35 > 0:45:39he said to them, "I've got to go and collect some books."
0:45:39 > 0:45:44And he collected these books from the publisher
0:45:44 > 0:45:50and took them out to the CIA officer's house in Wassenaar.
0:45:50 > 0:45:52Are we talking about dozens or hundreds?
0:45:52 > 0:45:54Well, they printed 1,000 altogether.
0:45:54 > 0:45:59And they took something like 395 to the World Exhibition
0:45:59 > 0:46:03that was being held that year in Brussels.
0:46:03 > 0:46:07And they took them to the Vatican pavilion
0:46:07 > 0:46:09and the Vatican, when Soviet visitors came,
0:46:09 > 0:46:12had a rather cunning arrangement
0:46:12 > 0:46:16because they had a little sort of chapel at the back of the pavilion,
0:46:16 > 0:46:20so they would take their Soviet visitors there
0:46:20 > 0:46:23and hand out a book.
0:46:23 > 0:46:26It had a hardback cover in blue
0:46:26 > 0:46:30and it was wrapped in plain brown paper.
0:46:30 > 0:46:34Of course, these people who were going back to the Soviet Union,
0:46:34 > 0:46:41you couldn't just take a hardback book, so they removed the cover,
0:46:41 > 0:46:43divided the book into sections,
0:46:43 > 0:46:47and stuffed them in pockets or their trousers or whatever.
0:46:47 > 0:46:52This is the original copy that my husband brought back,
0:46:52 > 0:46:56and he wrote on it, "Saturday 6th of September, 1958."
0:46:56 > 0:46:58I'm sure you read fluent Russian.
0:46:58 > 0:47:00Sometimes.
0:47:00 > 0:47:05Do you think, when we look back at the Cold War and how it all ended,
0:47:05 > 0:47:08how significant was this episode?
0:47:08 > 0:47:12I think it did actually help sway opinion.
0:47:12 > 0:47:16It was very different to military operations
0:47:16 > 0:47:20because if you can sway people's way of thinking,
0:47:20 > 0:47:23in the long run that can be very effective.
0:47:23 > 0:47:24Was there much discussion,
0:47:24 > 0:47:28much thought about where this would leave Pasternak
0:47:28 > 0:47:33when his novel started turning up in Russia in a Russian edition?
0:47:33 > 0:47:37I don't think that they had worried too much about that.
0:47:37 > 0:47:40They were too keen on embarrassing the Russians.
0:47:43 > 0:47:45Boris, marooned in Peredelkino,
0:47:45 > 0:47:49was oblivious to the way his book was being used as a cultural
0:47:49 > 0:47:55weapon against the Soviet Union, but on the 23rd of October 1958,
0:47:55 > 0:47:58a very important announcement was made,
0:47:58 > 0:48:00shattering the relative calm in the household.
0:48:00 > 0:48:04It proved to be yet another major embarrassment for the Russian state.
0:48:06 > 0:48:10Imagine the elation bursting into this quiet rural retreat
0:48:10 > 0:48:14the day the telegram arrived in 1958
0:48:14 > 0:48:17telling the isolated, frustrated author
0:48:17 > 0:48:19that he had won the Nobel Prize.
0:48:19 > 0:48:22And here he is sharing that moment of triumph.
0:48:23 > 0:48:27But that sense of triumph was short-lived when Pasternak found
0:48:27 > 0:48:32himself confronting an exquisite and somehow rather Russian dilemma.
0:48:32 > 0:48:36Of course, he was free to go and collect the Nobel Prize if he wished,
0:48:36 > 0:48:40but if he did so, the authorities left him under no doubt
0:48:40 > 0:48:43that he would not be welcome again in his mother country.
0:49:29 > 0:49:33Word of Pasternak's award soon got around and he came out onto
0:49:33 > 0:49:36his steps to meet a horde of journalists.
0:49:36 > 0:49:41He told them, "to receive this prize fills me with great joy and also
0:49:41 > 0:49:45"gives me moral support, but my joy is a lonely joy."
0:49:45 > 0:49:50Perhaps he was referring to the many people in his own country who
0:49:50 > 0:49:52couldn't share in such happiness.
0:49:52 > 0:49:53Closer to home,
0:49:53 > 0:49:58Pasternak's nearest and dearest also had grave misgivings and
0:49:58 > 0:50:01his neighbour Fedin, another writer, called on Pasternak,
0:50:01 > 0:50:03not to offer his congratulations,
0:50:03 > 0:50:07but to tell him on no account should he accept the award.
0:50:08 > 0:50:13But as the West was giving Pasternak praises and prizes,
0:50:13 > 0:50:17Russia reacted in a very different way.
0:50:17 > 0:50:21That same year, he was expelled from the powerful Union of Writers,
0:50:21 > 0:50:25then publicly denounced and instructed to leave the Soviet Union
0:50:25 > 0:50:27in front of Khrushchev.
0:50:33 > 0:50:37This added to the pressures on Pasternak, and again
0:50:37 > 0:50:41the regime turned to his lover Olga to reinforce that.
0:50:45 > 0:50:50Olga was summoned to a meeting in Moscow and left it fearful that
0:50:50 > 0:50:53she and Boris were about to be expelled.
0:50:53 > 0:50:57On the street she bumped into a plausible seeming fellow,
0:50:57 > 0:51:00probably KGB, who gave her a cock-and-bull story
0:51:00 > 0:51:01about loving the poet's work.
0:51:01 > 0:51:04All Pasternak had to do to be safe, he said,
0:51:04 > 0:51:08was to write to Khrushchev assuring him of his allegiance to the USSR.
0:51:11 > 0:51:14A letter was sent, but its wording went on to become
0:51:14 > 0:51:17a contentious issue in the Pasternak family.
0:51:17 > 0:51:21I've come back to Moscow to meet Boris's daughter-in-law, Yelena,
0:51:21 > 0:51:23who is very clear about the particular point
0:51:23 > 0:51:26Pasternak wanted to make.
0:52:06 > 0:52:08Even given his perilous situation,
0:52:08 > 0:52:13Pasternak was still willing to risk riling the Soviet regime,
0:52:13 > 0:52:16by making a clear and personal distinction
0:52:16 > 0:52:20between the Soviet Union he despised, and the Russia he loved.
0:52:22 > 0:52:27Isolated in Peredelkino, Pasternak was reduced to poverty,
0:52:27 > 0:52:30not being allowed to accept the Nobel Prize money,
0:52:30 > 0:52:34or the considerable royalties from the novel's international sales.
0:52:36 > 0:52:39But soon money worries became overshadowed
0:52:39 > 0:52:43when Boris was diagnosed with lung cancer.
0:52:43 > 0:52:46And just three years after the global success of his novel,
0:52:46 > 0:52:52he died here in Peredelkino on the 30th of May, 1960.
0:52:54 > 0:52:59The Russian Literary Gazette carried only the smallest of notices of his death.
0:53:03 > 0:53:08If the Russian authorities wanted Pasternak's death to pass unnoticed,
0:53:08 > 0:53:12the Russian people had very different ideas.
0:53:12 > 0:53:14Unnoticed by the security guards,
0:53:14 > 0:53:18handwritten messages for travellers appeared at the ticket desk here
0:53:18 > 0:53:20at Kiyevskaya station.
0:53:20 > 0:53:24They said, "At three o'clock on the afternoon of Thursday 2nd of June,
0:53:24 > 0:53:28"the last leave-taking of Boris Pasternak,
0:53:28 > 0:53:31"the greatest poet of modern Russia, will take place."
0:53:33 > 0:53:37These little samizdat, or underground funeral announcements,
0:53:37 > 0:53:42led to thousands of mourners travelling out from Moscow to Peredelkino,
0:53:42 > 0:53:45to attend Pasternak's last rites,
0:53:45 > 0:53:49in defiance of strict Soviet laws on mass gatherings.
0:54:45 > 0:54:49The similarities between Pasternak's own funeral and Yuri's in
0:54:49 > 0:54:53David Lean's epic are striking and poignant.
0:54:53 > 0:54:57I was astonished at the extent of his reputation.
0:54:57 > 0:55:00His work was unattainable at the time,
0:55:00 > 0:55:02and was disapproved of by the party.
0:55:02 > 0:55:05But if people loved poetry, they loved poets,
0:55:05 > 0:55:08and nobody loves poetry like a Russian.
0:55:08 > 0:55:13The enmity of the Russian state towards Pasternak continued,
0:55:13 > 0:55:15and shortly after the funeral,
0:55:15 > 0:55:19Olga and Irina were sent to a labour camp for allegedly receiving
0:55:19 > 0:55:21royalties from the West.
0:55:21 > 0:55:26It was not until 1988, 30 years after he finished the book,
0:55:26 > 0:55:30that it was finally published in Russia in its original form,
0:55:30 > 0:55:32and caused an instant sensation.
0:55:33 > 0:55:36I love the image of the Moscow Metro in 1988,
0:55:36 > 0:55:40and absolutely everybody sitting with their copies of Doctor Zhivago.
0:55:40 > 0:55:44You know, a bit like when Harry Potter comes out, and everybody...
0:55:44 > 0:55:46- Or Lady Chatterley. - Yes, or Lady Chatterley.
0:55:46 > 0:55:48And there were queues snaking round the streets
0:55:48 > 0:55:51from book shops of people waiting,
0:55:51 > 0:55:54spending their hard-earned roubles to get a copy.
0:55:54 > 0:55:57So, I think it was definitely worth the wait.
0:55:57 > 0:56:01Judging by the response I have to meeting Russians around the world,
0:56:01 > 0:56:03and in Russia, when they discover I am a Pasternak,
0:56:03 > 0:56:05it was definitely worth the wait.
0:56:05 > 0:56:07The following year,
0:56:07 > 0:56:11Pasternak's eldest son, Yevgeni, was allowed to travel to Stockholm
0:56:11 > 0:56:16and collect the Nobel Prize on behalf of his father.
0:56:16 > 0:56:19I feel this is an historic moment.
0:56:48 > 0:56:49When you look at it now,
0:56:49 > 0:56:52do you think it was worth all the pain and suffering that he and other
0:56:52 > 0:56:55people around him went through?
0:57:26 > 0:57:30What struck me throughout has been the extraordinary determination of
0:57:30 > 0:57:34Boris Pasternak to abide in Russia, his homeland,
0:57:34 > 0:57:37and to live life on his own terms.
0:57:37 > 0:57:40He somehow contrived to find hope and promise
0:57:40 > 0:57:45amidst incredible setbacks and intolerable pressure.
0:57:45 > 0:57:48And that is what makes the epilogue of his book so compelling,
0:57:48 > 0:57:52when the friends of Yuri Zhivago are gathered together,
0:57:52 > 0:57:57watching the sunset, with a copy of his book in their hands.
0:58:00 > 0:58:04"They felt a peaceful joy for this holy city, and for the whole land,
0:58:04 > 0:58:08"and for the survivors among those who played a part in this story and
0:58:08 > 0:58:13"for their children. And the silent music of happiness filled them
0:58:13 > 0:58:17"and enveloped them and spread far and wide.
0:58:17 > 0:58:21"And it seemed that the book in their hands knew what they were
0:58:21 > 0:58:24"feeling, and gave them its support and confirmation."