Classics of Russian Literature | Boris Leonidovich Pasternak, 1890–1960 (Lecture 33)

Lecture 33: Pasternak became one of the major prophets of the 20th century. Raised in a family of artists and musicians, he eventually settled on poetry as his means of artistic expression. Not only were his own poems of very high quality, but he also mastered the art of translation in an unusually powerful way. His translations of Shakespeare breathed a new and different life into the art of the Elizabethan poet, and they kept Pasternak in a field of endeavor much less politically dangerous in the Stalinist USSR than writing his own poetry. Later, in the era of Khrushchev’s so-called “thaw,” he took the chance of publishing a novel, which gained instant international fame and caused Pasternak to feel the fury of the Soviet government.

Suggested Reading and Viewing:
Lazar Fleishman, Boris Pasternak: The Poet and His Politics.
Grigorii Kozintsev, Hamlet, the film with English subtitles, translated by Boris Pasternak, with music by Dmitri Shostakovich.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet and Othello, in The Complete Works, edited by W. J. Craig.