Doctor Zhivago (1957) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

Summary edit see section history

Write a summary of the plot or a synopsis of this book.

Characters/People edit see section history

• Yuri Andreievich Zhivago (AKA Dr. Zhivago): A sensitive and poetic doctor who is thrown into the brutality of the Russian Revolution and WWI. He is married to Tonya Gromeko, but is deeply in love with Lara. (as a child, called Yura; affectionately, Yurochka) is the son of Andrei Zhivago, a profligate, and Maria Nikolaievna Zhivago. He is the Titular charecter of this Russian novel.
• Larissa 'Lara' Feodorovna Guishar: More simply known as "Lara," she is married to Pasha Antipov who later disappears with the war. She falls deeply in love with Yuri. She is the daughter of a Russianized, widowed Frenchwoman, Amalia Karlovna Guishar. Rodion (Rodia) is her younger brother.
• Antonina Alexandrovna Gromeko: The wife of Yuri, they lived together as children after Yuri's parents died. (Tonia) is the daughter of Alexander Alexandrovich Gromeko, a professor of chemistry, and his wife Anna Ivanavna, whose father was the landowner and ironmaster Ivan Ernestovich Krueger. As young people, Yurii Andreievich Zhivago and Misha Gordon, son of a lawyer, live with the Gromekos.
• Pavel Pavlovich Antipov: Started out as an idealistic young student involved in Bolshevism. Ended up being married to Lara, but he is forced to join the war, and disappears. Lara assumes him to be dead. (Pasha, Pashenka), Son of of a railway worker, Pavel Ferapontovich Antipov. After his father's exile to Siberia, he lives with the Tiverzins (Kuprian Savelievich and his mother, Marfa Gavrilovna), another revolutionary family of railway workers.
• Viktor Ippolitovich Komarovsky: A powerful lawyer with political connections. Lara ends up in an affair with him (before marrying Pasha), in which she is both repulsed and attracted by him. Was Andrei Zhivago's lawyer and is Madame Guishar's lover and adviser.
• Yevgraf Zhivago: The illegitimate half brother of Yuri, he has power and influence with the Bolsheviks that helps his brother avoid arrest in several situations.
• Misha Gordon: Add a description of this character.
• Anna Ivanovna
• Nikolai Nikolaievich
• Samdeviatov
• Markel
• Osip Gimazetdinovich Galiullin: (Yusupka) Son of Gimazetdin, the janitor at the Tiverzin's tenement; he is a Moslem.
• Strelnikov
• Krueger
• Marina
• Sima
• Innokentii Dudorov: (Nika). Son of Dementii Dudorov, a revolutionary terrorist, and a Georgian princess.
• Mikulitsyn
• Kolchak
• Katenka
• Tiverzin
• Christina
• Pamphil
• Sasha
• Katia
• Voroniuk
• Shura Shlesinger
• Lavrentii Mikhailovich Kologrivov: Rich industrialist; his wife, Serafima Fillovna; their daughters, Nadia and Lipa.
• Markel Shchapov: Porter at the Gromekos' house, and his daughter Marina (Marinka).

Quotes edit see section history

• “Oh, how one wishes sometimes to escape from the meaningless dullness of human eloquence, from all those sublime phrases, to take refuge in nature, apparently so inarticulate, or in the wordlessness of long, grinding labor, of sound sleep, of true music, or of a human understanding rendered speechless by emotion!”

• “A dark muffled figure will open the door, and the promise of her nearness, unowned by anyone in the world and guarded and cold as a white northern night, will reach him like the first wave of the sea as you run down over the sandy beach in the dark.”

• “Pasternak probably writing about himself as a writer: "After two or three stanzas and several images by which he himself was struck, his work took possession of him and he felt the approach of what is called inspiration. At such moments the revelation of the forces that determine artistic creation is, as it were, reversed. The dominant thing is no longer the state of mind the artist seeks to express but the language in which he wants to express it. Language, the home and receptacle of beauty and meaning, itself begins to think and speak for man and turns wholly into music, not in terms of sonority but in terms of the impetuousness and power of its inward flow. Then, like the current of a mighty river polishing stones and turning wheels by its very movement, the flow of speech creates in passing, by virtue of its own laws, meter and rhythm and countless other relationships, which are even more important, but which are as yet unexplored, insufficiently recognized, and unnamed.”

• “What is truly great is without beginning, like the universe. It confronts us as suddenly as if it had always been there or had dropped out of the blue.”

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Moscow
• Russia
• Siberia
• Varykino
• Sashenka
• Meliuzeievo
• Vasia
• Zybushino
• Varyldno
• Ustinia
• Montenegro
• Duplyanka
• Paris
• Biriuchi
• Kolia
• Kuteiny
• Krestovozdvizhensk
• Pskov
• White
• Flour Town
• Marfa
• Petrograd
• Yusupka
• Gospel
• China
• Mongolia
• Pazhinsk
• Kubarikha
• Yuriatin

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Russia in the XX Century: Describe this theme.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Boris Pasternak (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. Max Hayward (Translator) - The first translator of the book along with Manya Harari
2. Manya Harari (Translator) - The first translator of the book along with Max Hayward
3. Angela Livingstone
4. B. V. Sokolov

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Nobel prize (1958: Literature, great)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PG3476.P27
• Dewey: 891.7342

Notes for Parents edit see section history

A good gift to a child. They may not understand some potion. However, it portrays the revolutionary period in graphic detail

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Genre Fiction › Political
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Doctor Zhivago (novel) - WilkipediA: Doctor Zhivago (Russian: До́ктор Жива́го, Doktor Zhivago Russian pronunciation: <ˈdoktər ʐɪˈvaɡə>) is a novel by Boris Pasternak, first published in 1957 in Italy. The novel is named after its protagonist, Yuri Zhivago, a physician and poet and takes place between the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the Second World War -- WikipediA

Movie Connections edit see section history

• Dr. Zhivago (1965) (IMDb): Staring Omar Sharif, Rod Steiger, Alec Guinness, Julie Christie, and Geraldine Chaplin
• Doctor Zhivago (TV Miniseries 2002) (IMDb): Staring Sam Neil, Keira Knightley, Hans Matheson

Books with Additional Background Information edit see section history