Boris Pasternak

Manuscripts

Original manuscripts, letters, and literary documents from the Boris Pasternak archive.

Inscription: ‘For my dear papa and mama with deep feeling, of which filial love is only a small part. 20/IX/27 Moscow Borya’ First edition (1927) of Boris Pasternak, The Year 1905

1927

First edition (1927) of Boris Pasternak, The Year 1905

1927

Manuscript of a poem

The typescript of Doctor Zhivago Title page

The typescript of Doctor Zhivago First page

Chronology

1. 1890

   10 February: Boris Pasternak born.

2. 1901

   August: Boris enters the second class of the Fifth Moscow Gymnasium.

3. 1903

   Meets the composer A. Scriabin, and begins studying musical composition with the musicologist Yu. Engel.

4. 1905

   October: teaching in schools and universities interrupted; general political strike. December: Pasternak family leaves for Berlin.

5. 1906

   July: family visits the island of Rügen; Boris studying with Yu. Engel, composing music (two preludes survive). August: family returns to Moscow.

6. 1908

   June: Boris completes the Gymnasium with a gold medal. Enrols at the faculty of law at Moscow University.

7. 1909

   March: meets Scriabin again. May: transfers to the philosophy department of Moscow University. June: completes his Sonata in B minor for pianoforte (also survives).

8. 1910

   February: first surviving poems and prose writings. November: accompanies his father to Astapovo for Tolstoy's funeral.

9. 1912

   April: travels to Marburg University, attending philosophy seminars by Cohen, Natorp and Hartmann. August: joins his parents, visiting Italy. Autumn: tutors the son of the industrialist Eduard Salomon.

10. 1913

    March: submits doctoral thesis on 'Hermann Cohen's theoretical philosophy'. April: the collection Lirika, including five poems by Boris, is published. Graduates with a first-class degree. December: 'Lirika' publishes his first book of poems, Twin in the Clouds.

11. 1914

    May: meets Vladimir Mayakovsky; tutors the son of the poet Jurgis Baltrušaitis at Petrovskoye.

12. 1915

    January: working on his tale The Mark of Apelles; tutor in the home of M. Philipp.

13. 1916

    January-June: travels to the Urals for office work at a chemical factory. October: travels to Tikhie Gory for office work. December: verse collection Over the Barriers published.

14. 1917

    February: Revolution breaks out in Petrograd. March: Boris returns to Moscow. Composes poems for the collection My Sister Life and starts work on a novel about Zhenia Luvers. October: armed uprising in Moscow.

15. 1918

    Translates Kleist's plays Prinz Friedrich von Homburg and Die Familie Schroffenstein. July-August: composes the poetry collection Themes and Variations.

16. 1919

    Translates Goethe's Die Geheimnisse [The Mysteries].

17. 1920

    Translations from Hans Sachs.

18. 1921

    Summer: meets the artist Evgenia Lourié. September: Boris's parents and sisters leave for Germany.

19. 1922

    January: marries Evgenia Lourié. May: the story Luvers' Childhood and verse collection My Sister Life published. August: Boris and his wife join his parents in Berlin.

20. 1923

    January: verse collection Themes and Variations published. March: returns with his wife to Moscow; September: their son Evgeni born.

21. 1924

    February: completes the story Aerial Ways, which is published in August.

22. 1925

    January-March: begins the novel Spektorsky. July: working on the long poem The Year 1905.

23. 1926

    Spring: starts work on the long poem Lieutenant Schmidt. June-October: his wife and son visit his parents in Berlin.

24. 1927

    September: The Year 1905 published.

25. 1929

    January-May: writing A Tale [translated as The Last Summer], published in August. October: Over the Barriers: Poems from various years published.

26. 1930

    January-April: working on Safe Conduct. 14 April: suicide of Vladimir Mayakovsky. May: permission for Boris to visit Germany refused. September: work completed on Spektorsky. December: Boris leaves his wife and son to live with friends.

27. 1931

    January: completes Safe Conduct. April: writes verse collection, Second Birth. July: Spektorsky published. July: travels to Tbilisi with Zinaida Neuhaus, later to become his second wife. November: Safe Conduct published.

28. 1932

    July: travels to Sverdlovsk with Zinaida Neuhaus and her two sons. August: Second Birth published.

29. 1933

    One-volume edition of his Poems published. November: travels to Georgia with a writers' delegation.

30. 1934

    January: death of Andrey Bely. May: arrest of Osip Mandelstam; Boris intercedes with Bukharin. June: Boris receives telephone call from Stalin. August: Boris makes a speech at the Writers' Congress. His translation of Vazha-Pshavela's The Snake-Eater published in Tbilisi, Georgia.

31. 1935

    June-July: Boris is sent to the Anti-Fascist conference in Paris, and visits London. October: his translations of Georgian Lyric Poetry published. N. Punin and L. Gumilyov (son of the poets Nikolay Gumilyov and Anna Akhmatova) are arrested; Boris writes to Stalin and successfully intercedes for them.

32. 1936

    February: Boris speaks at the Third Plenary Meeting of the Writers' Union, Minsk. Summer: he is allocated a dacha at Peredelkino and writes a verse collection, Summer Notes.

33. 1937

    Returns to prose (Patrick's Notebook). June: refuses to sign a petition for the execution of 19 army generals. July: suicide of his friend, the Georgian poet Paolo Yashvili. September: arrest of his friend, the Georgian poet Titsian Tabidze. October: arrest of the writer Boris Pilnyak. December: extract of Patrick's Notebook published.

34. 1938

    January: birth of Boris and Zinaida's son, Leonid. March: Bukharin tried and shot. Boris working on translations of poems by Shakespeare, Verlaine, Alberti, Keats, Byron, and Becher.

35. 1939

    January-March: translating Hamlet, commissioned by the theatre director Vsevolod Meyerhold. June: Marina Tsvetayeva returns from emigration. Meyerhold arrested in June and his wife, the actress Zinaida Raikh, assassinated in July. August: Boris's mother Rosalia dies in London. Arrest of Tsvetayeva's daughter Ariadna in August, and of her husband Sergei Efron in October.

36. 1940

    June: publication of Boris's translation of Hamlet, and in October of Selected Translations.

37. 1941

    March-April: translating Romeo and Juliet and composing the verse collection Peredelkino. June: Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union. July: Zinaida and her sons evacuated from Moscow; first bombing raids on Moscow. August: Boris sees Tsvetayeva off when she is evacuated and a month later he hears of her suicide. October: Boris is evacuated to Chistopol.

38. 1942

    February: his translation of Romeo and Juliet completed. September: returns to Moscow and delivers the manuscript of On Early Trains to the printers. December: returns to Chistopol.

39. 1943

    January-February: translates Antony and Cleopatra. June: On Early Trains published; Boris and Zinaida return to Moscow. August-September: visits the recent battle-fields of Orel with a writers' delegation to the army.

40. 1944

    Newspaper publication of individual war poems. The translations of Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra published. August-September: translates Othello.

41. 1945

    January: translates Henry IV, Part I. February: the verse collection Earth's Expanse published. April: death of his stepson Adrian Neuhaus. May: Boris's father Leonid dies in Oxford; Othello published. August: translates Henry IV, Part II. November: begins work on Doctor Zhivago. December: Selected Poems published.

42. 1946

    June: Boris's translations of the Georgian poet N. Baratashvili published. August: decree of Central Committee of the CPSU on the journals 'Zvezda' and 'Leningrad'. September: Fadeyev, Secretary of the Writers' Union, makes a speech criticising Pasternak. First nomination of Pasternak for the Nobel Prize. Boris reads opening chapters of Doctor Zhivago at his dacha at Peredelkino. October: acquaintance with Olga Ivinskaya begins.

43. 1947

    Reads the opening chapters of Doctor Zhivago at the homes of various friends. July-August: translates King Lear.

44. 1948

    April: the entire edition of his Selected Works is pulped by the authorities. In the summer, Part I of Doctor Zhivago is typed in several copies which Pasternak sends to friends in Leningrad, Ryazan and Frunze. August-February 1949: translates Faust, Part I.

45. 1949

    July: two-volume edition of his translations of Shakespeare published. October: Olga Ivinskaya arrested.

46. 1950

    April: his translation of Goethe's Selected Works published. June: translates Macbeth. December-August 1951: translates Faust, Part II.

47. 1952

    June: another reading of Doctor Zhivago at his Moscow home. October: hospitalised with myocardial infarction.

48. 1953

    January: discharged from hospital. March: death of Stalin. May: Olga Ivinskaya released in an amnesty. First draft of Doctor Zhivago completed. Publication of Faust.

49. 1954

    April: Znamya publishes ten 'Poems of Yuri Zhivago'.

50. 1955

    March: closing chapters of Doctor Zhivago completed. August-September: translates Schiller's Maria Stuart for Moscow Arts Theatre. October-November: final revision of Doctor Zhivago.