Lara

by Anna Pasternak

  ‘that bronzed glow’: Emelianova, Légendes, p. 68.

  ‘My God, it is true’: ibid., p. 67.

  ‘The novel will probably’: Mallac, Boris Pasternak, p. 206.

  ‘the words “Doctor Zhivago”’: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 82.

  ‘I have to and want to’: ibid.

  ‘I never thought’: Clowes (ed.), Critical Companion, p. 136.

  ‘So what is the novel’: ibid., p. 141.

  ‘One might have thought’: Ivinskaya, Captive, pp. 39–40.

  ‘But I asked you’: ibid., p. 40.

  ‘If there had been’: ibid., pp. 41–2.

  ‘Olia, I love you!’: ibid., p. 42.

  ‘All it would take … make her eat’: Emelianova, Légendes, p. 57.

  ‘time of great happiness’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 41.

  ‘We had a room’: ibid., pp. 43–4.

  ‘Z does not know that O’: Slater (ed.), Family Correspondence, p. 405.

  ‘What is the hour?’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 47.

  ‘managed to create’: ibid., p. 186.

  ‘I think Zinaida Nikolayevna’: ibid., pp. 186–7.

  ‘BL was so tormented’: ibid., p. 187.

  ‘I do not pity you’: ibid.

  ‘It is absurd to imagine’: ibid., pp. 187–8.

  ‘Before he finished the novel’: Emelianova, Légendes, p. 86.

  ‘a settlement of accounts’: Mallac, Boris Pasternak, p. 195.

  ‘What’s wrong?’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 208.

  ‘This harrowing chapter’: ibid.

  ‘You mark my words’: ibid., p. 210.

  ‘The Revolution is not shown’: ibid.

  ‘Your novel raises’: Clowes (ed.), Critical Companion, pp. 36, 140.

  ‘I have just finished’: Boris Pasternak, Essay in Autobiography, p. 119.

  ‘The book was going to take us’: Emelianova, Légendes, p. 87.

  CHAPTER 8: THE ITALIAN ANGEL

  ‘The publication’: account of Sergei D’Angelo’s meeting with Boris Pasternak, www.pasternakbydangelo.com.

  ‘his grip was nice and firm’: ibid.

  Characteristically, he then: ibid.

  ‘In the USSR’: ibid.

  ‘You will give me a copy’: ibid.

  Boris, however, knew: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 8.

  ‘All of a sudden, I realised’: www.pasternakbydangelo.com.

  ‘The manuscript was 433’: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 12.

  ‘Let’s not worry’: www.pasternakbydangelo.com.

  ‘This is Doctor Zhivago’: ibid.

  D’Angelo took the package: ibid.

  It was just before noon: ibid.

  ‘I had a visit today’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 212.

  ‘obviously realised’: ibid.

  ‘What have you done?’: ibid.

  He also gave copies: Paolo Mancosu, Smugglers, Rebels, Pirates: Itineraries in the Publishing History of Doctor Zhivago, Hoover Institution Press, 2015, p. 2.

  ‘This is more important’: Mallac, Boris Pasternak, p. 210.

  ‘We looked’: Mancosu, Smugglers, p. 27.

  When Zinaida snapped: Mallac, Boris Pasternak, p. 210.

  ‘At one point, Feltrinelli’: www.pasternakbydangelo.com.

  ‘Not to publish a novel like this’: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 89.

  ‘But what has he done! … fall into place’: Ivinskaya, Captive, pp. 215–16.

  ‘How can anyone love’: ibid., p. 216.

  ‘long-legged’, ‘You know’, ‘Don’t worry’: ibid.

  ‘He was indeed young’: ibid., p. 217.

  According to D’Angelo: www.pasternakbydangelo.com.

  Although he wrote to Feltrinelli: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 91.

  ‘If its publication here’: Boris Pasternak, Biographical Album, p. 373.

  ‘I will never forget Feltrinelli’: Author interview Charles Pasternak.

  ‘I realise perfectly well’: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 92.

  castigated as a ‘bourgeois individualist’: ibid.

  ‘The novel by B. Pasternak’: www.pasternakbydangelo.com.

  ‘racing around Moscow’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 219.

  ‘How typical of you’: ibid., p. 218.

  When Olga reported: ibid., p. 219.

  ‘It seems self-evident’: ibid., p. 220.

  ‘If ever you receive a letter’: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 95.

  ‘It was important’: Author interview Isaiah Berlin.

  ‘Unlike some of its readers’: Frances Stonor Saunders, ‘The Writer and the Valet’, London Review of Books, 25 Sep 2014.

  Berlin concluded that Boris: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 96.

  ‘principal Russians’, ‘dear Bowra’: Slater (ed.), Family Correspondence, pp. 380–1.

  ‘It’s an important work’: ibid.

  ‘exalted employer’, ‘immense desk’: www.pasternakbydangelo.com.

  He asked D’Angelo: ibid.

  ‘in good spirits’, ‘completely absurd’: ibid.

  Pasternak ‘shrugged his shoulders’: ibid.

  ‘The thing that has disturbed’: Boris Pasternak, Biographical Album, p. 373.

  ‘There are quite a few’: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p.102.

  ‘that the letter from Goslitizdat’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 223.

  ‘I shall make this into something’: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 103.

  ‘About a year ago Goslitizdat’’: Boris Pasternak, Biographical Album, p. 373.

  ‘On March 12th’: ibid., p. 375.

  I will tell you when: Ivinskaya, Captive, pp. 399–400.

  ‘We saw our father in Uzkoye’: Boris Pasternak, Biographical Album, p. 377.

  ‘I remember everything … his feelings’: Gladkov, Meetings with Pasternak, p. 149.

  ‘On that beautiful summer morning’: ibid.

  ‘I’m in for trouble this time’: ibid., pp. 148–9.

  ‘People who are morally scrupulous’: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 108.

  ‘I have started rewriting’: ibid.

  ‘This was no easy task’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 226.

  ‘Irochka, my treasure … Your BP’: Emelianova, Légendes, p. 89.

  ‘Boris came with me’: ibid.

  ‘Pasternak has written’: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 112.

  ‘the need for anonymous content’: Slater (ed.), Family Correspondence, pp. 388–9.

  ‘1 November 1957’: ibid.

  ‘But we shall soon have’: Mancosu, Smugglers, p. 1.

  On the 22nd the first edition: Mallac, Boris Pasternak, p. 271.

  CHAPTER 9: THE FAT IS IN THE FIRE

  ‘You can congratulate me’: Boris Pasternak, Biographical Album, p. 381.

  ‘A very good translator’: Slater (ed.), Family Correspondence, p. 381.

  ‘That won’t work’: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 97.

  In 1958 Nabokov would refuse: Neil Cornwell, Pasternak’s Novel: Perspectives on ‘Doctor Zhivago’, Keele, 1986, p. 12.

  ‘Doctor Zhivago is a sorry thing’: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 97.

  On 8 Jul 1957, Harari wrote: from the HarperCollins Publishers archives.

  ‘As for the poetry’: from the HarperCollins Publishers archives.

  ‘Max would read a page’: Ann Pasternak Slater, ‘Rereading: Dr Zhivago’, Guardian, 6 Nov 2010.

  ‘As to the poetry’: from the HarperCollins Publishers archives.

  In a memo to Frank Wisner: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 115.

  The Eisenhower White House: ibid., p. 117.

  Among the books they translated: ibid., p. 125.

  The American publisher Felix Morrow: Mancosu, Smugglers, p. 9.

  ‘The Soviet public’: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 125.

  ‘This book has great propaganda value’: ibid., p. 131.

  De Ridder decided
to press ahead: Mancosu, Smugglers, p. 10.

  In the first week of September: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 138.

  Later press reports suggested: Mancosu, Smugglers, p. 10.

  A CIA memo of 9 September: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 142.

  ‘Is it true that an original’: Slater (ed.), Family Correspondence, p. 405.

  On 8 February 1958: Barnes, Literary Biography, pp. 333–4.

  ‘youth just deserted’: Author interview Irina Emelianova.

  ‘one day he was unrecognisable’: ibid.

  In September the Oxford don: Barnes, Literary Biography, p. 337.

  ‘When D[octor] Z[hivago] comes out’: Slater (ed.), Family Correspondence, p. 397.

  ‘During the interval’: Gladkov, Meetings with Pasternak, pp. 152–3.

  Albert Camus devoted attention: Evgeny Pasternak, Boris Pasternak, p. 235.

  In May, Pasternak wrote: Mallac, Boris Pasternak, p. 220.

  ‘If the N[obel] prize’: Slater (ed.), Family Correspondence, pp. 405–6.

  ‘to A Moravia’: the Italian writer Alberto Moravia.

  ‘In one photograph we see BL’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 239.

  ‘the congratulations of Kornei Chukovsky’: he was a critic and literary scholar who wrote and translated children’s books. He translated Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Twain and G. K. Chesterton.

  ‘I’m not going to congratulate you’: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 162.

  ‘Do what seems right to you’: ibid., p. 163.

  ‘He was happy, thrilled’: ibid.

  Later, anxious that his embrace of Pasternak: ibid., p. 163.

  ‘I was probably one of the first’: Emelianova, Légendes, p. 94.

  ‘Pasternak will do us all great harm’: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 164.

  ‘There would be no mercy’: ibid.

  When Kurt Wolff: Mallac, Boris Pasternak, pp. 229–30.

  ‘On Saturday 25th October’: ibid., p. 232.

  Two whole pages of Saturday’s edition of Literaturnaya Gazeta: ibid.

  ‘Some of our girls took refuge’: Ivinskaya, Captive, pp. 240–1.

  ‘It is ridiculous but Doctor Zhivago’: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 169.

  ‘Everybody listened in silence’: Gladkov, Meetings with Pasternak, pp. 166–7.

  ‘The monstrous cheapness of it all’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 242.

  ‘He was devastated’: Emelianova, Légendes, pp. 96–7.

  ‘It was a loneliness’: ibid.

  ‘How strange young people’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 243.

  ‘The time had now come for Boris’: ibid.

  CHAPTER 10: THE PASTERNAK AFFAIR

  ‘It was an unusual kind of letter’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 245.

  ‘1. I have received your invitation’: ibid., pp. 245–6.

  His letter ended: Evgeny Pasternak, Boris Pasternak, p. 236.

  ‘scandalous in its impudence’: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 172.

  A long, formal resolution: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 247.

  ‘There was the feeling of being harassed’: ibid., p. 251.

  ‘Olia, I have to say something’: ibid., pp. 251–3.

  ‘Mitia, forgive me’: ibid., p. 252.

  ‘Our suicide would suit’: ibid.

  ‘Tell me,’ she asked Fedin: ibid., p. 253.

  ‘Mama came [back] from Peredelkino’: Emelianova, Légendes, p. 116.

  ‘In view of the meaning’: Barnes, Literary Biography, p. 346.

  ‘We were dumbfounded’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 250.

  ‘If you allow Pasternak’: ibid., p. 255.

  It was only the fourth time: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 177. Of the 821 Nobel Laureates who have been awarded the prize since its inception in 1901, just six people have refused it. Boris Pasternak, the three Germans, the Vietnamese politician Le Duc Tho (1973), and Jean-Paul Sartre (1964).

  ‘I had felt that death’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 255.

  ‘Everyone will understand it’: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 179.

  ‘mangy sheep’, ‘As everybody who’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 256.

  ‘Lyonya and I will have to’: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 180.

  ‘It was a horrible atmosphere’: Author interview Irina Emelianova.

  ‘No, Olia, I couldn’t go abroad’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 256.

  ‘During this time, Boris cried’: Emelianova, Légendes, p. 95.

  ‘People would just slide them’: ibid., p. 100.

  News from the Western press: Mallac, Boris Pasternak, pp. 235–6.

  ‘Olga Vsevolodovna’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 257.

  ‘for me, Boris Leonidovich’: ibid.

  ‘Looking back’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 259.

  ‘Olia, keep it all as it is’: ibid., p. 259.

  ‘Dear Nikita Sergeyevich’: ibid.

  ‘threat was hanging’: Author interview Irina Emelianova.

  ‘That is why those calls’: ibid.

  ‘Mama and I were chatting’: Emelianova, Légendes, p. 109.

  ‘You are wanted on the phone’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 282.

  ‘Olga Vsevolodovna, my dear’: ibid.

  ‘They knew BL was stubborn’: ibid., pp. 283–5.

  ‘I remember with elation’: Emelianova, Légendes, p. 129.

  ‘It will be interesting now’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 286.

  ‘in a voice befitting a town crier’: ibid., p. 287.

  ‘Aren’t you ashamed’: ibid.

  Polikarpov continued in his ‘friendly’ manner: Ivinskaya, Captive, pp. 284–8.

  ‘They should have held’: ibid., p. 288.

  ‘Just think – how right’, ibid., p. 289.

  ‘In vain, in years of turmoil’: ibid.

  ‘lack of resolve’: ibid., p. 260.

  ‘That letter’: ibid.

  CHAPTER 11: A BEAST AT BAY

  ‘Dear Boris Leonidovich’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 296.

  In his overflowing mail bags: ibid., pp. 298–9.

  ‘The whole world knows … all-embracing’: ibid.

  ‘Sholokhov’: Mikhail Sholokhov was the author of And Quiet Flows the Don, regarded as a classic in the Soviet Union. This epic novel was written in four volumes, published between 1925 and 1940. In the earlier parts of the novel, the author is seen to be relatively objective towards the civil war – both Reds and Whites are shown to have committed atrocities. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1965.

  Boris also struck up correspondences: Evgeny Pasternak, Boris Pasternak, p. 238.

  ‘to a very great extent this triumph’: Boris Pasternak, Fifty Poems, p. 22.

  Lines included: ‘When I saw’: Ivinskaya, Captive, pp. 300–10.

  ‘In the course of this turbulent … around me’: ibid.

  ‘Tempest not yet over’: Slater (ed.), Family Correspondence, p. 407.

  ‘All the letters I receive’: ibid., pp. 407–8.

  ‘It seemed that we had survived’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 313.

  ‘Like a fish thrown back’: Emelianova, Légendes, p. 135.

  ‘Pasternak does not receive’: ibid., p. 133.

  ‘It was very important for him’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 307.

  ‘BL was always in high spirits’: ibid., p. 308.

  ‘by the time BL found himself’: ibid., p. 309.

  ‘Have you two quarrelled?’: ibid., p. 320.

  ‘I am a white cormorant’: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 208.

  ‘The falling of a small stone’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 322.

  ‘sections of the Government’: Mallac, Boris Pasternak, p. 244.

  ‘The misery of this last quarrel’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 323.

  ‘Oliusha, life will go on’: ibid., pp. 404–12.

  ‘I shall try to phone you today’: ibid.

  ‘[28 February] Oliusha’: ibid.

  ‘Even if your fears’: ibi
d.

  ‘One day things may be’: ibid.

  ‘To Oliusha on her birthday’: ibid., p. 332.

  ‘the perpetual accusation’: Finn and Couvée, Zhivago Affair, p. 202.

  Boris told his French translator: ibid., p. 203.

  Naturally the KGB were monitoring: ibid., p. 204.

  ‘Of course these very letters’: Boris Pasternak, Fifty Poems, p. 22.

  ‘BL intended to show what he understood’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 333.

  ‘BL loved organising outings’: Emelianova, Légendes, p. 138.

  ‘BL would arrive just after seven’: ibid., p. 149.

  ‘we were constantly laughing’: ibid., p. 307.

  ‘There was a Christmas tree’: ibid., p. 155.

  ‘We sang O Tannenbaum’: ‘O Tannenbaum’ is a German Christmas folk song addressed to a fir tree; its evergreen qualities represent constancy and faithfulness.

  CHAPTER 12: THE TRUTH OF THEIR AGONY

  ‘Sometimes BL lunched at the Big House’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 336.

  ‘It was astonishing’: ibid.

  ‘He put on a show’: ibid., p. 339.

  These had been sent: Carlo Feltrinelli, Senior Service: A Story of Riches, Revolution and Violent Death, Granta Books, 2013, p. 217.

  ‘I bumped into BL’: Emelianova, Légendes, p. 157.

  ‘April was blissful’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 339.

  I entrust: Paolo Mancosu, Inside the Zhivago Storm: The Editorial Adventures of Pasternak’s Masterpiece, Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, Milan, 2013, p. 366.

  ‘disturbing about BL’s appearance’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 341.

  ‘Oliusha, I almost forgot’: ibid., p. 343.

  ‘There is so much unnatural chit-chat’: ibid., p. 413.

  ‘If you begin to feel’: ibid., p. 413.

  ‘he sent notes with [their friend] Kostia Bogatyrev’: according to Irina, Konstantin Bogatyrev was a ‘fantastic translator who was later assassinated by the KGB’.

  On Friday 6 May: Barnes, Literary Biography, p. 371.

  ‘wanted to make a direct attack’: Author interview Irina Emelianova.

  ‘My poor Mama’: Emelianova, Légendes, p. 162.

  ‘Olga was an adventuress’: Author interview Natasha Pasternak.

  ‘The nurses in attendance’: Ivinskaya, Captive, p. 58.

  ‘Olyusha won’t love me’: ibid., p. 344.

  ‘VERY WORRIED BORIS ILLNESS’: Slater (ed.), Family Correspondence, p. 417.

  ‘19th May 1960. Moscow’: ibid.

  ‘BORIS INFARCT’: the infarct, a localised area of dead tissue resulting from the obstruction of blood supply to that area, was thought to be in Boris’s heart.