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Boris Pasternak

Boris Pasternak Books

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Doctor Zhivago

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Dr Zhivago

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Doctor Jivago 1

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Selected poems

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“It was partly the war, the revolution did the rest. The war was an artificial break in life-- as if life could be put off for a time-- what nonsense! The revolution broke out willy-nilly like a sigh suppressed too long. Everyone was revived, reborn, changed, transformed. You might say that everyone has been through two revolutions-- his own, personal revolution as well as the general one. It seems to me that socialism is the sea, and all these separate streams, these private, individual revolutions, are flowing into it-- the sea of life, the sea of spontaneity. I said life, but I mean life as you see it in a great picture, transformed by genius, creatively enriched. Only now people have decided to experience it not in books and pictures, but in themselves, not as an abstraction but in practice.”

LifeArtBeautyHistoryRevolutionIndividualityRussiaSocialismCommunismRussian RevolutionDoctor Zhivago
Book:Doctor Zhivago
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“They loved each other, not driven by necessity, by the “blaze of passion” often falsely ascribed to love. They loved each other because everything around them willed it, the trees and the clouds and the sky over their heads and the earth under their feet. Perhaps their surrounding world, the strangers they met in the street, the wide expanses they saw on their walks, the rooms in which they lived or met, took more delight in their love than they themselves did.”

LovePassion
Book:Doctor Zhivago
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“Trudging on foot, loaded with sacks, bundles, and babies, young mothers who had lost their milk, driven out of their minds by the horrors of the journey, abandoned their children, shook the corn out of their sacks onto the ground, and turned back. A quick death, they had decided, was preferable to a slow death by starvation. Better to fall into the clutches of the enemy than to be torn to pieces by some beast in the forest.”

MotherDespairStarvation
Book:Doctor Zhivago
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“After two or three stanzas and several images by which he was himself astonished, his work took possession of him and he experienced the approach of what is called inspiration. At such moments the correlation of the forces controlling the artist is, as it were, stood on its head. The ascendancy is no longer with the artist or the state of mind which he is trying to express, but with language, his instrument of expression. Language, the home and dwelling of beauty and meaning, itself begins to think and speak for man and turns wholly into music, not in the sense of outward, audible sounds but by virtue of the power and momentum 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 the force of its own laws, rhyme and rhythm and countless other forms and formations, still more important and until now undiscovered, unconsidered and unnamed. At such moments Yury felt that the main part of his work was not being done by him but by something which was above him and controlling him: the thought and poetry of the world as it was at that moment and as it would be in the future. He was controlled by the next step it was to take in the order of its historical development; and he felt himself to be only the pretext and the pivot setting it in motion. ... In deciphering these scribbles he went through the usual disappointments. Last night these rough passages had astonished him and moved him to tears by certain unexpectedly successful lines. Now, on re-reading these very lines, he was saddened to find that they were strained and glaringly far-fetched.”

ArtCreativity
Book:Doctor Zhivago
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“Само в глупавите книжлета живите са разделени на два лагера и нямат никакъв допир. А всъщност всичко така се преплита! Трябва да си ужасно нищожество, за да играеш в живота само една роля, да заемаш само едно място в обществото, да означаваш винаги едно и също!”

Human NatureBlack And White
Book:Doctor Zhivago
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“Очаквах да срещна някакъв брутален убиец или революционен маниак палач, а не видях нито едното, нито другото. Добре е, когато човек излъже нашите очаквания, когато не съвпадне с предварителните ни представи за него. Принадлежността към определен тип е краят на човека, това е неговата присъда. Ако не може да бъде сведен до общ знаменател, ако не е прекалено ясен, значи поне наполовина съответствува на изискванията за личност. Той е свободен от себе си, постигнал е зрънце от безсмъртието.”

Human NatureExpectations
Author:Boris Pasternak
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“A constant, systematic dissembling is required of the vast majority of us. It’s impossible, without its affecting your health, to show yourself day after day contrary to what you feel, to lay yourself out for what you don’t love, to rejoice over what brings you misfortune. Our nervous system is not an empty sound, not a fiction. It’s a physical body made up of fibers. Our soul takes up room in space and sits inside us like the teeth in our mouth. It cannot be endlessly violated with impunity. It was painful for me to hear you tell about your exile, Innokenty, how you grew during it, and how it re-educated you. It's as if a horse were to tell how it broke itself in riding school.”

Life PhilosophyDr Zhivago
Book:Dr Zhivago
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“Звёздное небо. Я на спине лежу и из густой травы На звёзды ясные гляжу во власти грёз. Иx серебристый свет, касаясь головы, Свивается венком вокруг моиx волос. Я душу выкупал свою в дождяx лучей, Иx светлый ливень смыл с неё земную муть, Она рванулась ввысь, чтобы себе скорей Путь на небо вернуть. Земля обьята сном, он сладок и глубок, И что-то лишь в тиши гудит невдалеке: Букашка ль близ меня уселась на цветок, Или вдали шумит плотина на реке, Иль это более ещё далёкий гром И эxа замирающий ответ, Иль то душа моя свой праздничный псалом Поёт с другиx планет. Лети, душа моя, сквозь дали без числа И загляни за край таинственныx завес, Которые рука господня соткала В премудрости иль приxоти небес. И взорами пытливыми окинь Всю бездну звёзд, весь купол голубой И прилети сквозь горную иx синь - Поговорить со мной. Что видела? - спрошу. - Там есть ли жизнь, как тут? Поxожа ли она на наш тоскливый ад? И существует ли взаправду Страшный суд, где жалуют святыx, а грешныx не щадят? Но мне-то в этом что? Одно мне обьяви, Одно я знать xочу, одно поведай мне: Там бьются ли сердца и в ниx огонь любви Горит ли в глубине? И если любят там, то я готов года Молиться, чтоб господь меня там поселил. А если нет и вxод любви закрыт туда, То бог с ней, со страной мерцающиx светил! Я землю предпочту тогда любой звезде, Пусть в ней я превращусь по смерти в праx и тлен - Всё может заменить любовь, любви ж взамен Нет ничего нигде.”

LovePhilosophyStarsThoughts Of The Mind
Book:Зарубежная поэзия в переводах Бориса Пастернака
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“The saddest thing of all was that their party represented a deviation from the conditions of the time. It was impossible to imagine that in the houses across the lane people were eating and drinking in the same way at such an hour. Beyond the window lay mute, dark, hungry Moscow. Her food stores were empty, and people had even forgotten to think of such things as game and vodka. And thus it turned out that the only true life is one that resembles the life around us and drowns in it without leaving a trace, that isolated happiness is not happiness, so that duck and alcohol, when they seem to be the only ones in town, are not alcohol and a duck at all.”

HappinessFoodRevolutionDepressionWinterHungerRussiaSoviet Russia
Book:Doctor Zhivago
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“Under the old order, which enabled those whose lives were secure to play the fools and eccentrics at the expense of the others while the majority led a wretched existence, it had been only too easy to mistake the foolishness and idleness of a privileged minority for genuine character and originality. But the moment the lower classes had risen, and the privileges of those on top had been abolished, how quickly had those people faded, how unregretfully had they renounced independent ideas--apparently no one had ever had such ideas!”

ClassCommunismMarxismIntellectualismClass Warfare
Book:Doctor Zhivago
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“I am weary of this notion of faithfulness to a point of view at all cost. Life around us is ever changing, and I believe that one should try to change one’s slant accordingly—at least once every ten years. The great heroic devotion to one point of view is very alien to me—it’s a lack of humility. Mayakovsky killed himself because his pride would not be reconciled with something new happening within himself—or around him.”

GrowthChangeHumilitySuicide
Author:Boris Pasternak
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“Stélnikov, que dejaba atrás la infancia, aspiraba a todo lo que fuese noble y elevado, consideraba la vida como un inmenso campo cerrado donde los hombres, respetando honradamente las reglas, competían en alcanzar la perfección. Cuando se dio cuenta de que no era así, no pensó que se había equivocado por haber juzgado de un modo demasiadamente esquemático la ordenación del mundo. Encerrado dentro de sí, durante mucho tiempo, lo que consideraba una ofensa, comenzó a acariciar la idea de erigirse en juez un día entre la vida y el oscuro elemento que la deforma, de asumir su defensa y vengarla. La desilución le hizo más cruel. La revolución le proporcionó las armas.”

RealidadRevoluciónCrecimiento
Book:Doctor Zhivago
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“The rulers of your minds indulge in proverbs, but they've forgotten the main one, that love cannot be forced, and they have a deeply rooted habit of liberating people and making them happy, especially those who haven't asked for it. You probably fancy that there's no better place in the world for me than your camp and your company. I probably should even bless you and thank you for my captivity, for your having liberated me from my family, my son, my home, my work, from everything that's dear to me and that I live by.”

WarReligionPoliticsAuthorityCommunismAuthoritarianismCaptivitySoviet Russia
Book:Doctor Zhivago
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“Всичко наоколо туптеше, набъбваше и растеше от вълшебните дрожди на съществоването. Възхищението от живота се носеше като тих полъх, като широка вълна без посока, по земята и през града, през стените и оградите, през дървесината и плътта, и изпълваше с трепет всичко по пътя си...”

Doctor Zhivago
Author:Boris Pasternak
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“This is how I will portray you, I'll trace your features on paper as the sea, after a fearful storm has churned it up, traces the form of the greatest, farthest-reaching wave on the sand. Seaweed, shells, cork, pebbles, the lightest, most imponderable things that it could lift from its bed, are cast up in a broken, sinuous line on the sand. This line endlessly stretching into the distance is the frontier of the highest tide. That was how life's storm cast you up on my shore, O my pride, that is how I'll portray you.”

Doctor Zhivago
Author:Boris Pasternak
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“O marxismo não possui autodomínio para ser considerado uma ciência. As ciências são mais ponderáveis. Marxismo e objetividade? Não conheço uma corrente mais isolada em si mesma e mais distante dos fatos do que o marxismo. Cada qual se preocupa em verificar suas ideias pela experiência, ao passo que as pessoas do poder, para criar histórias sobre sua infalibilidade, fazem de tudo para fugir da verdade. A política não me diz absolutamente nada. Não gosto de pessoas indiferentes à verdade.”

Comunismo
Book:Doctor Jivago 1
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“Después de dos o tres estrofas compuestas con toda facilidad y de algunas comparaciones que lo sorprendieron, el don del trabajo se apoderó de él y advirtió la proximidad de lo que se llama inspiración. La correlación de las fuerzas que presiden la creación parecen tomar entonces la iniciativa. La prioridad ya no corresponde a su autor ni a su estado de ánimo, al que trata de dar expresión, sino al lenguaje con que quiere expresarlo. El lenguaje, del cual nace el significado y la belleza adquiere su ropaje, comienza de suyo a pensar y hablar y todo se hace música, no en el sentido de pura resonancia fonética, sino como la consecuencia y duración de su flujo interno. Entonces, lo mismo que la masa corriente de un río, que con su fluir limpia las piedras del fondo y hace girar las ruedas del molino, el lenguaje que fluye, va creando por sí, en su carrera, casi inadvertidamente con la fuerza de sus leyes, el metro y la rima y mil otras formas y relaciones más secretas, desconocidas hasta ese, momento, no singularizadas y sin nombre. En aquellos momentos Yuri Andréivich se daba cuenta de que no era él quien llevaba a cabo el trabajo esencial, sino algo más grande que él, que por encima de él lo guiaba: la situación del pensamiento y la poesía en el mundo, lo que a la poesía le estaba reservado en el porvenir, el camino que ella tenía que recorrer en su desarrollo histórico. Él era solamenta una ocasión y un punto de apoyo para que ella pudiera ponerse en movimiento.”

PoesíaLenguajeCreación
Book:Doctor Zhivago
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“The poet gives his whole life such a voluntarily steep incline that it is impossible for it to exist in the vertical line of biography where we expect to meet it. It is not to be found under his own name and must be sought under those of others, in the biographical columns of his followers. The more self-contained the individuality from which the life derives, the more collective, without any figurative speaking, is its story.”

PoetAutobiographyBoris Pasternak
Book:Safe Conduct: An Autobiography and Other Writings
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“I think that if the beast who sleeps in man could be held down by threats of any kind, whether of jail or retribution, then the highest emblem of humanity would be the lion tamer, not the prophet who sacrificed himself.... What for centuries raised man above the beast is not the cudgel but the irresistible power of unarmed truth.”

IfsThinkingMenKindWould BeHumanitySleepCenturyHighestThreatRaisedBeastProphetJailLionsIrresistibleRetributionEmblemsUnarmed
Author:Boris Pasternak
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