Dr Zhivago Remembered

Dr Nihal D Amerasekera

The Russian revolution began during the first World War in February 1917 due to the inefficiency and corruption in the Tsarist government. Tsar Nicholas II abdicated in the hope that the unrest would subside. Then the Russian aristocracy and nobility ran the country until the October revolution. The Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin started the insurrection to overthrow the provisional government. Bolsheviks seized control of the government in Russia and later became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

The author Boris Pasternak was born in Moscow in 1890. His father was an illustrator for Leo Tolstoy and his mother, a concert pianist. Although he started his masterpiece soon after World War II the epic story was completed in 1956. Dr Zhivago is one of the most enduring love affairs of the 20th century. He dared to convey the truth about the disorder and unrest in the country which enraged the Communist Party. He was denounced as a traitor and could not get the Soviet publishers to publish it. Pasternak took the risky step to smuggle the manuscript to Italy where the book was first published in 1957. The book soon became an international best seller. Pasternak won the Nobel Prize for literature in the following year. He was compelled to refuse the award. The book was not published in the USSR until 1987. Although the Communist regime allowed him to leave the country and live in exile Pasternak wanted to remain in the Soviet Union.

There is much debate and controversy whether Dr Zhivago is a true story. Although considered a romantic novel, Pasternak has indeed admitted that Olga Ivinskaia is the enigmatic Lara in his book. His mistress Olga is the woman he loved until he died in May 1960. A series of love letters, manuscripts and poems by Pasternak that were sold at Christie’s in London show their separation and imprisonments and their affection for each other all through Stalin’s purges and hardships.

Dr Zhivago is a story of the most convulsive events of the 20th Century and is one of the finest books of our time. I read this masterpiece as a young doctor in the late 1960’s. The book records the Czarist oppression and also the horrors of the Bolshevik revolution. The descriptions of the people, the events and the breath-taking scenery brought those characters to life. This sweeping saga indeed changed the way I saw the world forever. It is a story of human passion and the love for his country then in such turmoil.

The complex and continuously evolving social and cultural landscape makes the love story a compelling read. Caught up in the cataclysmic events of the revolution, Yuri Zhivago’s life is truly tragic. The shuddering loss of innocence and the trials and tribulations of Lara’s life during this dark period is described in heart rending detail. So little was known about life in Russia then. Pasternak gave us a peek into this mysterious country and its people in their darkest time. Like the great Russian writers Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Pasternak had the ability to write a story with great passion, emotion and patriotism.

Dr Zhivago the film was directed by David Lean, a master of the sweeping historical epic and was produced by Carlo Ponti. The long three-hour film was released in 1965 and became one of the most successful films in movie history. The star studded cast of Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chapman, Rod Steiger, Alec Guinness and others made it one of the finest films ever made winning five Oscars and becoming a box office hit. I was mesmerised by the beauty and charm of the scenery and the cinematography along with the passionate and heartfelt performances. Julie Christie’s fine portrayal as Lara and Omar Sharif’s indelible performance as the young doctor brought the story together to make the film one of the finest, I have watched.

I felt the pain and the anguish when Yuri Zhivago deserted the partisans and walked back home, tired and bewildered, through a Siberian snow-storm. Much of the film was made in Spain. Some of the scenes of the Siberian winter were done in Finland and Canada. The loneliness and the sweeping Siberian storms in the vast expanse of the inhospitable Varykino are so beautifully shown in the film. There are clips of the pre-revolution gaiety and the grandeur of the palaces of the rich and the hopelessness and the despair of the poor in Moscow. These extreme images of inequality help us to compare this with the harshness of what was to follow. This does grab the true spirit of the time so perfectly. Dr Zhivago is a masterful motion picture that captures the lives of a few families caught up in the revolution. It does so perfectly in such intimate and harrowing detail.

The melodic Lara’s theme that is played all through the film, on and off, was composed by Maurice Jarre. Due to time constraints, David Lean gave him 10 weeks to compose the music. Jarre spent a weekend in the mountains above Los Angeles where he found the inspiration for the music. He included a Balalaika to give the melody an authentic Russian feel. The music of Lara’s theme has a certain timeless quality. It has something inherently powerful that draws me to it. The melody digs deep into my consciousness and becomes part of me. Hence the theme remains one of my special favourites. The music expresses so completely and brilliantly the vast romanticism of the story. Even now when I hear the melody It takes me back to the film and the desolate icy wilderness of Siberia, the beautiful snow-capped Ural Mountains and Yuri and Lara’s final moments in Varykino.

The sadness of the civil war in Russia was a 100 years ago and the conflict and the suffering of the people is hopefully at an end. The film and the music together makes for a motion picture that can truly class itself as epic and a classic. It is a film who’s like we will not see again. Incidentally, Paul Francis Webster wrote the lyrics to Lara’s theme in 1966 and has been popular ever since.

Dr Zhivago is not a film made to evaluate Czarist Russia and Communism. It is merely a story of those caught up in the complexities of the colossal impact of the revolution. The film starts and ends with Alec Guinness as Yevgraf Zhivago, Yuri’s stepbrother. He wanted to seek out the daughter of Yuri and Lara. When questioned by Yevgraf, the girl, Tanya Komarova refused to answer. But he discovered that she was a musician and played the Balalaika. It is then he makes the enigmatic final statement of the film. “It’s a gift”. Yuri’s mother was a fine musician and played the Balalaika.

Boris Pasternak continued to write prose and poetry until the very end of his life. He died of lung cancer in May 1960. Although the regime kept the news low-key, many thousands who admired his work attended the funeral. He is revered like the great Russian writers Pushkin, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy. At his funeral, despite the presence of the KGB and officials a young voice recited Boris Pasternak’s banned poem called “Hamlet”. The coffin was lowered amidst cheers and the tolling of church bells. To this day Pasternak’s grave remains a shrine for the Soviet dissident movement.