Doctor Zhivago (86 page)

2.
kerenki:
A nickname for banknotes issued by the Provisional Government in 1917 and by the Russian state bank until 1919, from the name of Alexander Kerensky (see part 5,
note 2
).

3.
labor conscripts from Petrograd:
By a decree issued in December 1918, all able-bodied citizens of the RSFSR were obliged to work on state construction projects. The name of St. Petersburg was changed to Petrograd in 1914, after the outbreak of World War I. In 1924 it became Leningrad, and in 1991 it became St. Petersburg again.

4.
stormy petrels:
In 1901, Maxim Gorky (see part 2,
note 7
) published a poem entitled “The Song of the Stormy Petrel,” in which the petrel symbolizes the working class as a revolutionary force. He was arrested for publishing it but soon set free. The poem, which was one of Lenin’s favorites, became a battle song of the revolution.

5.
Pugachevism … Pushkin’s perception … Aksakovian:
Emelian Pugachev (1742–1775) was a Don Cossack who led a rebellion in 1773–1774, claiming the throne under the pretense that he was the tsar Peter III. Alexander Pushkin wrote
The History of Pugachev
(1834) and a fictional treatment of the same events in his short novel
The Captain’s Daughter
(1836). The Aksakov family, the father Sergei (1791–1859) and his two sons, Konstantin (1817–1860) and Ivan (1823–1886), were writers belonging to the group known as Slavophiles, who favored the native and local traditions of Russian life as opposed to Western influences. Sergei Aksakov, who was born in Ufa, the capital of Bashkiria, over a thousand miles east of Moscow on the border of Asia, gives a detailed description of Russian patriarchal life, hunting, fishing, flora, and fauna in his
Family Chronicle
(1856).

6.
kulaks:
The word
kulak
, Russian for “fist,” was a derogatory name applied to well-off peasants who owned their own land, a group that emerged after the agricultural reforms of 1906. The Bolsheviks declared them the “class enemy” of poor peasants and subjected them to various forms of persecution and extermination.

7.
ataman:
A general title given to Ukrainian military leaders, related to the word
hetman
, and possibly derived from the German
Hauptmann.
During the Russian Civil War it was used as a title for various Cossack leaders and acquired a negative tone.

8.
the Greens:
See part 6,
note 12
.

9.
the Cheka:
An abbreviation of the Russian words for Extraordinary Commission (the full title was All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counterrevolution and Sabotage), the first Soviet state security organization (secret police), founded in December 1917 and headed by Felix Dzerzhinsky, known as “Iron Felix” (1877–1926). By 1921 the Cheka numbered 200,000 men. In 1922 it became the GPU (State Political Administration).

1.
St. Akulina’s day:
St. Aquilina of Byblos (281–293), martyred during the reign of Diocletian, is commemorated on April 7/20.

2.
a Social Democrat:
See part 4,
note 1
.

3.
the Demidovs:
The family of the Demidovs was one of the most distinguished in Russia, second only to the imperial family in wealth and known for its philanthropy. Anatoli Nikolaevich Demidov (1813–1870) acquired the Italian title of Prince of San Donato and built a villa in Florence.

4.
Blessed is the man …:
The first half of the sentence is from the opening of
Psalm 1 (“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked …”); the rest is a jocular rhyme.

5.
Suvorov:
Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov (1729–1800) was reputed never to have lost a battle. He was only the fourth man in Russian history to be awarded the highest rank, that of generalissimo. The fifth and last was Joseph Stalin.

6.
SR … Constituent Assembly:
On November 12, 1917, an All-Russian Constituent Assembly was democratically elected to draw up a constitution for Russia. The SR Party won a large majority of the seats, almost twice as many as the Bolsheviks. After meeting for one day on January 5, 1918, the assembly was dissolved on orders from Lenin.

7.
our White-Stoned Mother:
Moscow was known endearingly as “the White-Stoned Mother” of the Russian people, because of the white stone used in building the churches of the Kremlin.

8.
Hebrew youths … Mazeppa:
The book of Daniel 3:8–30 tells the story of the three Hebrew men thrown into the fiery furnace by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar for refusing to worship his golden idol. Mazeppa (1644–1709) was a hetman of the Cossacks in the Ukraine, who first served Peter the Great and then joined the Swedes against him. The name came to be a general derogatory epithet.

9.
the dark waters … secrecy:
The phrases and rhythms are loosely based on Psalm 18:11: “He made darkness his covering around him, his canopy thick clouds dark with water.”

10.
the year of Griboedov’s death:
Alexander Griboedov (b. 1795), Russian poet, playwright, and diplomat, author of the verse comedy
Woe from Wit
, was killed on February 11, 1829, while on an official mission to Persia.

1.
Tyutchev:
Pasternak felt a strong affinity with the work of the poet Fyodor Tyutchev (1803–1873), whose poem “The Summer of 1854” Zhivago slightly misquotes from memory.

2.
Dostoevsky’s
Demons … 
the Communist Manifesto:
Dostoevsky’s 1872 novel was, among other things, a forceful attack on the radicals and nihilists of the later nineteenth century. The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and published in 1848, set forth the revolutionary program of the German Communist League.

3.
Pray fervently … he is her glory:
The first words come from an Orthodox prayer to the Mother of God; the rest are from the Song of the Mother of God (the Magnificat), Luke 1:46–55.

4.
Arzamas … adolescent:
Arzamas was a literary society formed by a group of friends in Petersburg in 1815, which the young Pushkin, who was then fifteen himself, soon joined. From 1821 to 1823, he lived mainly in Kishinev, the capital of the recently annexed Bessarabia, where he was in military service.

5.
Nekrasov:
Nikolai Nekrasov (1821–1877), the major poet of the “prose age” of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, was a man of radical leanings and deep social conscience. His best work often captures the style of the folk song.

6.
I am a bourgeois … my fine self:
Zhivago refers to Pushkin’s poem “My Genealogy” (1830), where the words “I am a bourgeois” are repeated as a refrain. The second
passage is from stanza 18 of “Onegin’s Journey,” a section that Pushkin later cut from his novel in verse
Evgeny Onegin
(1823–1830).

7.
Nightingale the Robber:
A monstrous figure, part bird, part man, who appears in the medieval Russian epic
Ilya Muromets and Nightingale the Robber
, from which Zhivago proceeds to quote.

8.
In Turgenev somewhere:
Turgenev’s late collection,
Literary Reminiscences
(1874), includes a piece entitled “About Nightingales.”

9.
Chekhovian schoolboys …:
In an early story, “Boys,” Chekhov describes the scheme of two schoolboys to run off to America and become Indians.

10.
My soul … sleeping:
The words, which Pasternak gives in Church Slavonic, come from the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete (650–712), an Orthodox penitential canon sung during the Great Lent (see part 3,
note 3
).

1.
Kolchak:
Admiral Alexander Kolchak (1874–1920) supported the Provisional Government after the February revolution and opposed the Bolsheviks. In 1918 he became a member of the Siberian Regional Government (White), and when it was overthrown by a military coup, he was appointed head of state with dictatorial powers and given the title of Supreme Ruler. Kolchak’s brutal repressions and mass executions aroused dislike even among potential allies, including the Czech Legion, the British, and the Americans. When the Regional Government was taken over by a pro-Bolshevik faction, Kolchak was condemned and executed, despite orders to the contrary from Moscow.

2.
Vozdvizhensky Monastery … Great Lent:
The monastery, like the town and the hospital earlier, is named for the feast of the Elevation of the Holy Cross (see part 4,
note 7
). The words quoted are the start of one of the hymns of the feast. Holy Week follows the forty days of the Great Lent and leads to Easter.

3.
church time:
The time of day in the church is reckoned as in Jewish practice, the day starting at nightfall (6:00 p.m.).

4.
Holy Thursday … the Twelve Gospels:
Holy Thursday commemorates the Last Supper and the betrayal and arrest of Jesus. On the night of Holy Thursday, the matins of Holy Friday are served, including a reading of twelve composite passages from the four Gospels describing the trial and crucifixion of Jesus.

5.
Leibochka’s little tricks:
In March 1918, Trotsky (see part 6,
note 1
) was made People’s Commissar for Army and Navy Affairs and Chairman of the Supreme Military Council—that is, the commander in chief of the Red Army at the start of the civil war. Galuzina uses the diminutive of Leib, Trotsky’s first name in Yiddish.

6.
Kubarikha … Medvedikha … Zlydarikha:
Fanciful nicknames suggestive, respectively, of a spinning top, a she-bear, and a wicked person.

7.
Kirghiz and Buryat:
Peoples from Central Asia. The Kirghiz, a Turkic people living in the area of the Tian Shan mountains, were brought under Soviet power in 1919. The Buryat are a northern Mongolic people who live in Siberia.

8.
the former cooperative laborist:
That is, a member of the Labor Group
(Trudoviki)
in the Duma, affiliated with the SR party and headed by Kerensky, part of whose program was the idea of cooperative farm labor.

9.
Convention … Thermidorians:
The French revolutionary National Convention,
which sat from 1792 to 1795, held executive power during the First Republic, with Robespierre, Marat, and Danton among its prominent members and the Reign of Terror as its political means. It was brought down by the so-called Thermidorian reaction (see part 6, notes
2
and
5
) and replaced by the Directoire.

10.
kulichi … paschas:
Foods traditionally eaten in celebration of Easter. A
kulich
is a tall, cylindrical cake, usually decorated with fruit and icing, and
pascha
is a molded sweet dish made from fresh white cheese, butter, sugar, eggs, and cream, with various dried fruits, nuts, and flavorings.

11.
Many years:
The prayer wishing a person “Many Years” is sung on name days or for congratulations on various occasions.

12.
Miliukov:
Pavel Miliukov (1859–1943), statesman and liberal historian, and a prominent member of the Constitutional Democratic Party, was elected to the Duma, became a member of the Provisional Government after the February revolution, and served as foreign minister from March to May 1917. He was known to be a powerful orator.

13.
the Black Hundred:
The name of a counterrevolutionary movement in Russia, formed in 1900 from conservative intellectuals, officials, landowners, and clergy, with a reputation for being anti-Semitic and anti-Ukrainian. It grew weaker after 1907 and was finally abolished following the February revolution.

1.
Kappel’s formation:
General Vladimir Kappel (1883–1920), who sided with the Constitutional Democratic Party after the February revolution, was put in command of the so-called Komuch White Army Group in 1918 (“Komuch” is an abbreviation of Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly). After the execution of Admiral Kolchak (see part 10,
note 1
), he commanded the remnants of the White Army in Siberia and led them in a retreat across the frozen Lake Baikal, an episode known as the Great Siberian Ice March. He died of frostbite.

2.
the law on food requisitioning:
In January 1919, a decree was issued calling for the requisitioning without compensation of what was described as “surplus agricultural produce.” The procedure was open to abuse and resulted in great unrest among the peasants, which was brutally suppressed.

3.
Church Slavonic … Russian:
The language of the Russian and some other Orthodox Churches is Church Slavonic. Ultimately derived from Middle Bulgarian, it differs from Russian, which leads to misunderstandings such as those that follow here. The lines quoted are from Psalm 91 in the King James Version.

4.
Dukhobor community … Tolstoyism:
The Dukhobors (meaning “Spirit-Fighters,” a name coined by their opponents) emerged as a Christian sect in Russia in the eighteenth century, but may go back further. They rejected the authority of state and church, the Bible as divine revelation, and the divinity of Christ, lived in egalitarian farming communities, and refused military service, for which they were repeatedly persecuted. Their beliefs are close to the teachings of Tolstoyism (see part 1,
note 5
), and in fact Tolstoy contributed money to their cause when they petitioned to move to western Canada in the late nineteenth century.

5.
You are angry, Jupiter … the Moor can go:
The saying about Jupiter, which is proverbial in Russia, comes from the Latin:
Iuppiter iratus ergo nefas
(“Jupiter is angry,
therefore he is [it is] wrong”), which is attributed to Lucian of Samosata (ca. 125–180
AD
). The phrase about the Moor, also proverbial, comes from
The Conspiracy of Fiesco in Genoa
(1783), a play by the German poet and playwright Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805).