Why Is 'Doctor Zhivago' Banned In Soviet Russia?

Question

Heard this epic novel about Yuri Zhivago faced censorship during the Cold War era for its portrayal of the Russian Revolution and personal freedoms. What were the official reasons?

Mandy · Answer

It was censored partly because of its negative portrayal of the Bolshevik Revolution and the early years of Soviet rule. But this was all presented in a highly human manner, and the author’s criticism of Soviet ideology was felt to be too dangerous to be read by the population for decades. Conversely, this portrayal of love transcending systems of oppression links up with the theme of ‘forbidden love stories’, in which characters are ensconced in very strict social circumstances but are involved in clandestine relationships with each other. One such story features the tense relationship between a noted scholar and a strict guard in a very strictly-run academy, with all the hidden dangers and secret pleasures of their rebellious behavior.

Wyatt · Answer

When the USSR banned ‘Doctor Zhivago’, it was because the book contained anti-Soviet content. Pasternak wrote fundamentally of individualism, showed the full ferocity of the Bolsheviks’ excesses and refused to present communism as a utopia. Thus, ‘Doctor Zhivago’ became a threat to the powers that be and was subsequently banned in the Soviet Union even after Pasternak had under duress refused the Nobel Prize for Literature, which was awarded to him that year. The book was no longer permitted for twenty years, until the collapse of the Soviet Union. The ban on ‘Doctor Zhivago’ is a formidable demonstration of the power of art to expose the truth and challenge the authorities.

Xander · Answer

'Chance meetings and long goodbyes, sun-heavy dawns and sleepy nights...' – that’s the Soviet literature that the censors in Russia under Boris Pasternak wanted to keep from the public. When in 1957 Doztor Zhivago was published in the West Pasternak was publicly renounced by the Soviet writers. His novel depicted the cruel civil war following the Bolshevik Revolution from the perspective of those who were affected by it in a far too human way – in contrast to the Soviet myth of the ‘great’ and ‘bloody’ October and the subsequent heroism of the working class, as was the official Soviet view of history at the time.

But also the novel contains an extremely negative portrayal of Soviet bureaucracy, as well as the perennial struggle for individual freedom against totalitarian oppression. In contrast with the officially promoted socialist realism which admired industrialization and the heroism of the workers, the unique and poetic style of the writer formed a strong contrast to the brutally negative view of Soviet society in his novel. The fact that the book was published abroad and that its author even received the Nobel Prize for Literature, for example, made it even more detestable in the eyes of the censors. In the end the novel was even banned and its author publicly denigrated by the Soviet government.

Ruby · Answer

The Soviet Union could have used a literature more fuelled by propaganda during the revolution. ‘Doctor Zhivago’, by Russian poet Boris Pasternak, instead focuses on love, art and suffering in the midst of a great change. The novel’s main character, a half-Russian, half-Italian litterateur, is ambiguous towards the Bolsheviks and even celebrates the Whites, their enemies, in some parts. The conclusion the hero comes to is that great change comes at too high a price. The USSR saw the awarding of the Nobel Prize to ‘Doctor Zhivago’ as an act of Western sabotage and increased its censorship of literature.

Yasmin · Answer

Just imagine a novelist so daring that he scares a government to death. The Russian novelist Boris Pasternak wrote such a novel, ‘Doctor Zhivago’. Instead of just being banned in Russia, ‘Doctor Zhivago’ was secretly sent abroad to be published. The Soviets didn’t like Pasternak’s negative view of the Soviet revolution. Instead of the grandiose, heroic story of the rise of the revolution with its many suffering heroes, Pasternak created a negative, realistic view of the revolution, with a poetic soul locked in a grey, dirty, harsh world of facts, as opposed to the glowing, praise-worthy stories of successful tractor factories. However, the ban on ‘Doctor Zhivago’ had an unexpected effect. Suddenly the book became a symbol of freedom of art versus oppression.

s kamanzi · Answer

A better way to think about this is to consider all of the things that the book does not contain. For one, there is no call to arms. No denunciation of the Party officials who are the villains of the story. Instead, the criticism is embedded within the story itself. The reader watches as the idealistic young Yuri loses his ideals one by one. They see how the revolution devours its own children. They see how precious personal happiness is in a world where the future is a vague abstraction. It is this feeling of sadness and loss above all else that makes the novel so subversive. The censors could have countered a direct attack on the Revolution and its leaders, but they would have been stumped by a feeling. And how do you argue against the cumulative sense of melancholy that pervades the novel? You can’t. So the book is banned as a libel on the October Revolution. The author is used as an example of what will happen to others who venture into similar territory. The point of the suppression is to enforce a singular emotional and historical reality.

Diann Hinson-Trumbo · Answer

The novel is about the conflict between the individual and collective. Soviet ideology required that the individual sacrifice for the benefit of the collective. In authoring Doctor Zhivago, Solzhenitsyn created a protagonist in Doctor Zhivago who valued his personal life greatly and chose to spend time with his beloved Lara over involvement with the revolution. Moreover, the novel itself was opposed to the ideologically-inspired, socialist realist literature that was so prevalent throughout the Soviet Union. As such, the novel was opposed to the utilitarianism of the Soviet system. For the Soviet government, Doctor Zhivago represented a dangerous idea – that of the individual and their soul. The banning of the novel was meant to stifle this dangerous thought and prevent it from traveling down the rheas of information to the rest of the intelligentsia and the world. A profound book on what it is to be a human being in inhuman times, Solzhenitsyn was simply stating the obvious – that to the Soviet government, the individual was nothing and to deny this was to commit a grave literary crime.

Labicrep Anonuevo Ballon · Answer

This is not the first time a book has been banned for attempting to challenge society in some way – typically by attacking a single sensitive topic andthus challenging at the edge of the taboo. Some have attacked a religion and so been accused of blasphemy; some sexual material and so accused of obscenity; some have even advocated violent rebellion and been banned on grounds of sedition. But the Zhivago Case was different: here a book attacked at once religion, morality, and history – in short, the entire ideology of the Soviet regime. And the regime’s instinct for survival being what it is, the book was banned in its entirety. (As opposed to most ‘banned books’ which challenge at the edge of a taboo). ‘Zhivago’ challenged at the cornerstone of the regime’s ideology.

kirsty price · Answer

The novel abounds with poetry. Some of Zhivago’s poems are reproduced at the end of the book, and the impression left by them is the same as that produced by the man himself – the poetry is the essence of Zhivago, the kernel of the novel, as poetry is the kernel of all Pasternak’s work. He was a poet first and foremost, and in Doom of Memory Pasternak made the stand of a poet against a type of consciousness which the Soviet regime was trying to extirpate. For the Soviet government poetry which was introspective and contained a tinge of spirituality was depraved bourgeois decadence. They wanted poets to write about steel and tractors, about night skies and yearning in verse. But Pasternak’s book was a challenge to the very way in which the regime wanted its citizens to perceive the world. The ban on the book was in effect a ban on a particular type of feeling and a particular type of expression. The work was not being suppressed because it was offensive, but because it was different.

Ricky Jocson · Answer

I also compared it to “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” by Solzhenitsyn. The book was published in the Soviet Union during Khrushchev’s thaw and it contained a severe critique of the Soviet system. The main difference between Solzhenitsyn’s short story and “Zhivago” is the tone and scope of the books. While “Ivan Denisovich” was a concentrated and brutal picture of a single day in the life of a guy in the gulag, “Zhivago” is an epic, philosophical novel that questioned the very spiritual and historical foundations of the Russian Revolution over a period of five decades. And while the Soviet authorities could perhaps have tolerated a limited critique of Stalin’s excesses, “Zhivago” was a totally different matter – a poetic and holistic doubt of the entire revolutionary heritage of the Soviet regime. Needless to say, Pasternak’s international fame and the fact that “Zhivago” was published abroad were things that did not apply to Solzhenitsyn initially.

Why Is 'Doctor Zhivago' Banned In Soviet Russia?

10 Answers

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