Doctor Zhivago

Name: Doctor Zhivago
Rating: 4.4 (1311 reviews)

by Boris Pasternak

First published 1957

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4.4(1,311)

Yuri Zhivago grows from an orphaned boy into a physician and poet in the final years of imperial Russia. His marriage to Tonya Gromeko offers family stability, while his recurring encounters with Lara Antipova draw him towards a love that neither can reconcile with existing loyalties. World War I brings Yuri and Lara together as medical workers, but the revolutions of 1917 scatter families and drive the Zhivagos from Moscow towards the Urals.

Civil war destroys the refuge they seek. Yuri is compelled to serve a Red partisan force, and his later reunion with Lara at Varykino becomes a brief sanctuary from political violence and loss. Through a wide cast and a long historical span, Pasternak contrasts ideology with conscience, domestic affection and artistic freedom. The poems attributed to Yuri close the novel by interpreting suffering, death and renewal through Christian images of sacrifice and resurrection.

Historical Periods

Eastern Front of World War I1914–1918 CE Russian Revolution of 19051905–1907 War Communism and the Red Terror1918–1921 Early Soviet Moscow and the New Economic Policy1922–1929

Genres

Christian Fiction Court & Political Fiction Historical Sagas Romance Social & Domestic Fiction War Fiction

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