How the U.S. Government Tried to Undermine the U.S.S.R. By Publishing ‘Doctor Zhivago’
The true story of how the CIA got into book publishing
By Christine Kingery
How do you turn down the Nobel Prize for literature? The Swedish Academy bestowed the award upon Boris Pasternak, author of books such as Doctor Zhivago, in 1958. For Pasternak, the Nobel was the ultimate recognition-as an artist, humanitarian, and Russian. But for his country, the Prize didn’t mean glory; for the Soviet Union, the award meant sedition, an embrace of Western values over the importance of nation and communism.
Pasternak was on the wrong side of the political regime. At the time of the Russian Revolution in 1917, he supported the new government’s ideals and goals. The difference was-and this was a big deal-he didn’t think that individuals should need to forgo their rights over the good of the State. It was that dissident ideology that put Pasternak on the outs with the Kremlin.
Pasternak wrote Doctor Zhivago over several decades, completing it in 1956. He tried to publish the book in Russia in a newspaper named Novy Mir. But the publisher, controlled by the Kremlin, decided that some passages were anti-Soviet and denied publication.
