Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

First published: 1957

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Social realism

Time of plot: 1903–1943

Locale: Moscow, the eastern front, and Siberia, Russia

Principal Characters

• Yurii Andreievich Zhivago, a physician, poet, and man of goodwill
• Evgraf Andreievich Zhivago, his half-brother
• Nikolai Nikolaievich Vedeniapin (Uncle Kolia), his maternal uncle
• Antonina Alexandrovna Gromeka (Tonia), his wife
• Larisa Feodorovna Guishar (Lara), the wife of Pavel Antipov
• Pavel Pavlovich Antipov (Pasha) (also known as Strelnikov), a Red commissar
• Innokentii Dudorov (Nika), the son of a revolutionary terrorist
• Misha Gordon, the son of a Jewish lawyer, a friend of Yurii Zhivago
• Victor Ippolitovich Komarovsky, a shady lawyer and the seducer of Lara
• Liberius Averkievich Mikulitsyn, a Red partisan leader
• Tania, the daughter of Yurii Zhivago and Lara

The Story

Yurii Zhivago, a ten-year-old boy, attends his mother’s funeral. His uncle, Nikolai Nikolaievich Vedeniapin, consoles him. After the funeral, Yurii spends the night in a monastery room. He does not know that his father has deserted his family. His father’s business was once extensive; then, suddenly, all was gone. Yurii is very fond of his uncle, a former priest who later becomes a famous writer, university professor, and scholar of the revolution and who believes in strong individuals.

Three years later, Yurii experiences spells of unconsciousness while grieving and praying for his mother’s soul—indicative of an early inclination to mysticism. His father, Andrei Zhivago, commits suicide while traveling on a train. His lawyer, Victor Komarovsky, who was traveling with him at the time, maintains that Zhivago was an alcoholic and killed himself in a fit of alcoholic withdrawal.

As Yurii is growing up, his uncle places him to live with the Gromeko family and their daughter, Tonia. Some young men around them are revolutionaries, including Pasha Antipov. Amalia Guischar, the French widow of a Russian general, opens a dressmaking shop in Moscow. She is supported by Komarovsky, who succeeds in seducing her sixteen-year-old daughter Lara. Pasha Antipov falls in love with Lara. Amalia attempts suicide because of Komarovsky. Yurii, now a medical student, accompanies the doctor who treats her. As a result, Yurii sees Lara for the first time.

Although Lara is flattered by her affair with Komarovsky, she is also perturbed by it and is trying to break it off, but Komarovsky persists. When her brother Rodia needs money he has gambled away, Komarovsky offers to give Lara the money Rodia needs but only if she asks for it. Realizing that he will likely keep blackmailing her forever, Lara attempts to kill Komarovsky at a Christmas party, where Yurii is also present. She is placed with a helpful family and she manages to finish a school for teachers. She marries Pasha, but not before she tells him everything, which changes his life decisively. They decide to go to Yuriatin, in the Urals. Yurii is fascinated by mingling with people from the lower levels of society. He has also begun to write poetry. He marries Tonia Gromeko and their first child is born shortly before World War I.

After the war erupts, Yurii, who has become a doctor, joins the army. The Antipovs and their daughter Katenka are doing well in Yuriatin, but their marriage is not without problems. Each tries to behave more nobly, but Pasha is having second thoughts, thinking of divorce, yet he loves Lara more than ever. After many sleepless nights, he decides to join the army, thus solving the dilemma. When he stops writing, Lara sets out to look for him, having joined the army as a nurse.

Yurii is wounded by an artillery shell and meets Lara again in the hospital. She does not have favorable impressions of him. Yurii’s friends have published his book of poetry without his permission. The news about the revolution in Petersburg reaches him. He and Lara are often brought together in the hospital. He writes to Tonia about Lara, making his wife jealous, but he tells her he does not even know where her room is. Yurii observes the disintegration and anarchy in the growing chaos of the country. This reinforces his early favorable attitude toward the revolution and his hopes for a solution and a better life. He also shows the first inklings of his infatuation with Lara, but she soon leaves. So does Yurii. On the train to Moscow, he muses about Tonia, his sympathy for the seemingly inevitable revolution by the Bolsheviks, Lara, and the future of Russia.

Back in Moscow in the fall of 1917, Yurii’s son slaps him, frightened by his beard, showing how estranged they have become. Life is much harsher and full of scarcities. People are taking sides, and Yurii feels alone. He still hopes for betterment, but he is no longer sure. The revolution gathers momentum. Dealing with patients, Yurii contracts typhus. Suddenly, his half-brother Evgraf appears and helps the family, suggesting they go to the family estate Varikino, near Yuriatin, which they do in April, 1918. On the long train journey to Varikino, the Zhivagos experience many inconveniences and meet many interesting people. In conversations with them, Yurii declares that history has not consulted him, indicating the beginning of a change in his views on revolution. Another train rumbles by, and people think it is Comissar Strelnikov. On a stroll, Yurii is taken to see “the boss,” who seems to recall vaguely the name Zhivago. Yurii tells him that he is going to Varikino in search of seclusion and obscurity. Strelnikov tells him that he might drop by to see his wife and daughter, although they belong to another life now. They part without Yurii realizing that Strelnikov is Pasha Antipov.

At Varikino, the Zhivagos are met coldly by a family of Social Democrats, the Mikulitsyns, who support the Bolshevik Revolution, but Yurii tells them that Marxism as a science is too self-centered and removed from the facts and that politics do not appeal to him. He does not like people who do not care about the truth. Yurii confesses that he used to be very revolutionary but now thinks that nothing can be gained by brute force and that people must be drawn to good by goodness. He also believes that man is born to live, not to prepare for life. Yurii has given up practicing medicine so as not to restrict his freedom to think and write a diary. The Zhivagos settle down to a quiet rustic life. Evgraf drops by suddenly again with offers of help. Yurii still wonders what he is, what he does, and why he is so powerful. All he knows is that he is his half-brother, whom he considers to be his “good genius” and a rescuer. Yurii reveals that he has a heart condition, inherited from his mother. He hears a woman’s voice, but it is Lara’s, not Tonia’s.

Yurii meets Lara again in the public library. They renew their friendship. He begins to visit her at her apartment. The mystery of Strelnikov’s identity is finally resolved for Yurii. They talk about him often, concluding that he is not a Communist Party member: He is only trying to exorcise his inability to win Lara’s love, so he is taking it out on everybody else. Yurii realizes that his relationship with Lara is unfair to Tonia. He loves Tonia, and he is crushed by a guilty conscience, so he decides to stop seeing Lara. On his return home from the library, he is captured by red partisans, members of the so-called Forest Brotherhood, who require a doctor.

Yurii spends eighteen months in captivity, serving as a doctor but forced also to fire weapons in combat. He shoots mostly at treetops, feeling as though he were shooting at death itself. He tries to escape three times and witnesses many skirmishes between the red and white partisans, as well as examples of untold savagery. On one occasion, he wounds a white partisan boy and nurses him back to health. On another occasion, a distraught red partisan kills his own entire family, fearing what could happen to them if he were killed. The killing of prisoners is common. Yurii meets the son of the Mikulitsyns, a commissar with whom he has violent arguments. Yurii tells him plainly that he does not like the Mikulitsyns and they can all go to the Devil. Yurii finally escapes the Forest Brotherhood and goes to Lara in Yuriatin, instead of going to Tonia in Varikino.

Tonia and the children have returned to Moscow. Waiting for Lara in her apartment, Yurii compares her to Russia as the source of his love for them. He falls ill, and she nurses him back to health. They often talk about Komarovsky and Strelnikov, considering that they have both influenced their lives and made them into Adam and Eve. However, they both express their love for their spouses, Tonia and Pasha. They also blame war for everything. They frequently discuss the revolution, mostly in negative terms. They realize that their time of safety is over and that they cannot escape their destiny.

Yurii suggests that they all go to Moscow, but Lara wants to stay at home until Strelnikov’s fate is decided—in case he needs her. A letter arrives from Tonia in Paris telling Yurii that they will never see each other again. Komarovsky appears suddenly. He is now in the new government in the Far East and wants Lara to go there with him because she is in danger. Yurii and Lara return to Varikino instead, with the gift of love for each other. Yurii works on his book of poetry. At night, they hear the wolves howling, coming ever closer. Komarovsky returns, and this time he takes Lara with him because, according to him, Strelnikov has been shot. Yurii agrees that she must go, even though he pines for her terribly. Strelnikov, who has not been shot, appears at Varikino to win Lara back after three years of marriage. After a long talk with Yurii, he shoots himself.

Yurii returns to Moscow in 1922. He marries Marina, the daughter of the porter at Gromeko’s home. He soon suffers a heart attack in a streetcar and dies. At the funeral, Lara and Evgraf say their last goodbyes. After leaving the funeral, Lara is arrested on the street and disappears in a concentration camp. Many years later, Yurii’s old friends, Dudorov and Gordon, relate that Evgraf raised Lara and Yurii’s daughter, Tanya. Dudorov and Gordon enjoy a balmy Moscow evening after the end of the horrible war, hinting at the hopeful future and indestructibility of Russia, as well as of Yurii Zhivago. Yurii’s poetry is reprinted in the epilogue of the novel.

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