October 23, 1958: Boris Pasternak Is Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature

October 23, 1958: Boris Pasternak is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, for his novel Doctor Zhivago. He sends a telegram to the Nobel Committee in Stockholm, Sweden, saying he is "Infinitely grateful, touched, proud, surprised, overwhelmed." But he cannot accept the award -- and not by his own choice.

Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was born on February 10, 1890 in Moscow, the son of Sephardic Jews. His 1st work of poetry was published in 1922, and he was hailed as one of the top writers in the Russian language. That same year, he married Evgeniya Lurye. They had 2 sons, Yevgeny and Leonid. Boris made his living by translating stage plays into Russian, including those of William Shakespeare and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

After World War II, he began cheating on his wife with Olga Ivinskaya, also a poet and a writer, who had been helping him translate the works of others. In 1949, she was arrested as a spy (she was almost certainly innocent) and spent 5 years in a gulag. Pasternak had been on the edge of arrest by the Stalin regime since 1934, and dared not speak up on her behalf.

What he did to was write Doctor Zhivago, which takes place in Russia between 1902 and 1945, and includes scenes of the failed Russian Revolution of 1905, World War I, the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, the Russian Civil War after it, the Stalinist Purges of the 1930s, and World War II. Pasternak patterned the character of Dr. Yuri Zhivago on himself, and that of Lara Guichard, Zhivago's mistress, on Olga.

It took Pasternak until 1955 to finish it, by which point Olga had been released. Soviet authorities rejected it for publication, because it seemed to reject socialism. The text was smuggled out of the country, and published in Italy on November 22, 1957. Premier Nikita Khrushchev and the Politburo were furious.

Once Pasternak was announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize, the KGB surrounded Pasternak his dacha in Peredelkino. Not only was he threatened with arrest, but the KGB also vowed to send Olgo back to the gulag, and told him that, if he went to Stockholm to collect his Nobel Medal, he would be refused re-entry to the Soviet Union.

So, on October 29, he sent a 2nd telegram to the Nobel Committee: "In view of the meaning given the award by the society in which I live, I must renounce this undeserved distinction which has been conferred on me. Please do not take my voluntary renunciation amiss."

In 1959, the CIA published a smaller-than-normal Russian-language edition, to smuggle into the Soviet Union, and let the people there read it. Pasternak did not have long to enjoy this: He died of lung cancer on May 23, 1960.

In 1965, a film adaptation premiered, one of several historical epics directed by David Lean. Yuri was played by Egyptian actor Omar Sharif, his son Tarek played Yuri as a boy, and Lara was played by English actress Julie Christie. Also in the film were Lean film veteran Alec Guinness, Geraldine Chaplin, Rod Steiger, Ralph Richardson and Klaus Kinski. It was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and Best Director for Lean; it won 5, mostly for artistic things like art direction and music.

Yevgeny Pasternak became a historian, and was able to collect his father's Nobel Prize in 1989. He lived until 2012.

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October 23, 1958 was a Thursday. Baseball season had ended 14 days earlier, when the New York Yankees beat the Milwaukee Braves in Game 7 of the World Series. Football was in midweek. One game was played in the NBA: The St. Louis Hawks beat the Detroit Pistons, 104-103 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis.

There were 2 games played in the NHL. The Montreal Canadiens beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 9-1 at the Montreal Forum. Jean Béliveau had 2 goals and an assist. So did Ralph Backstrom. Don Marshall had a goal and 2 assists. Maurice Richard had a goal and an assist.

And the Detroit Red Wings beat the Boston Bruins, 3-1 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. The New York Rangers and the Toronto Maple Leafs were not scheduled.