Doctor Zhivago as a Historical Novel

In beginning his work on "Doctor Zhivago," Boris Pasternak repeatedly emphasized his desire to capture the course of Russian history at the beginning of the 20th century. What key points define the picture of the era in this novel? What... sources did Pasternak use, and who can be called the prototypes of the novel's characters? What genre traditions did he rely on? Konstantin Polivanov's book is an attempt to reconstruct both the history of the concept of "Doctor Zhivago" and the process of the writer's historiographical views development. The author demonstrates Pasternak's work with historical material, analyzes the complex interplay with time, and the poetics of anachronisms in the novel, marking the onset of the "years of timelessness" in post-revolutionary Russia. K. Polivanov also focuses on the book of poems by Zhivago that concludes the novel, which, according to the researcher, transcend timelessness by restoring historical time. Like the novel behind these poems, they testify to the "freedom" that, despite everything, will inevitably come to post-war Moscow. Konstantin Polivanov is a philologist, a professor at the Higher School of Economics, and the author of numerous works on the life and works of Boris Pasternak. The book is based on a dissertation defended at Tartu University (2015).