“Leaving my homeland is equivalent to death for me”
Boris Pasternak wrote the novel “Doctor Zhivago” after the Great Patriotic War, but the action in it takes place in tsarist times, in the years of the revolution and ends with the Second World War. The plot is believed to be based on an idealized biography of the author, and although the book is primarily about relationships between people, it also touches on political issues. According to the Soviet censorship, the red flag in the novel “Doctor Zhivago” was that the heroes were disappointed with the Revolution of 1917 and hoped that a war against at least one external enemy (the Nazis) would unite people and lead them into war. ultimate salvation. The difficult life in the revolutionary and Stalinist years is shown without embellishment, and in general the novel about the loneliness and experiences of a doctor-poet is the exact opposite of socialist realism.
With a similar decision, Pasternak in 1956 returned the draft of the novel to the Novy Mir publishing house, where the author wanted to publish it. In the letter, “As people who are in the opposite position to you, we believe that it is naturally out of the question for your novel to be published in the pages of New World magazine.” It was said.
At the same time, the novel can by no means be considered black and white, and the author considered himself a convinced patriot and clearly decided to emigrate. “Leaving my hometown is equivalent to death for me. “I am bound to Russia by my birth, my life and my work,” he later wrote to Khrushchev.
Rejected by Soviet publishing houses, Pasternak did not give up and sent the manuscript to Western countries: this manuscript was smuggled out of the USSR by the Italian publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, who believed that he was a socialist. The book caused a sensation in Europe and was translated into 18 languages.
Not a publication, but a special printing process
As can be seen from the documents published in 2014, at this stage the US Central Intelligence Agency became interested in the novel. It had its own cultural program in the 50s, the aim of which was to confront communist ideology.
“Pasternak’s humanist message that everyone, regardless of political loyalty or contribution to the state, has the right to privacy and deserves respect as human beings represents a fundamental challenge to sacrifice the individual for the good of Soviet morality. In a July 1958 memo from CIA officer John Morey, head of the Soviet Russia Division, he writes:
“This book has tremendous propaganda value, not only because of its message and thought-provoking nature, but also because of the conditions of its publication: we have a chance to make Soviet citizens wonder what is wrong with their government if this literary masterpiece is the only one of them. “The man who is considered the greatest living Russian writer cannot possibly be found in his native language, even in his own country,” wrote another intelligence officer.
The CIA therefore set out to encourage the spread of the novel, especially among Soviet citizens. It was extremely difficult to travel to the territory of the USSR with a bunch of books, but here the Americans were lucky: at the World Exhibition in Brussels in 1958, the Soviet Union had a large pavilion. Volga and Chaika cars, other examples of Soviet technology and a replica of Sputnik 1 were exhibited here. More importantly, about 16 thousand citizens of the USSR came to this exhibition, including many representatives of the cultural and creative elite.
Several hundred copies were printed in Russian by the Dutch publishing house Mouton Publishers, and the CIA tried to leave no trace of its involvement. In addition, distributing books in the American pavilion would arouse the suspicion of Soviet intelligence, and therefore the CIA requested help from the Vatican. There, Russian Catholic immigrants established a small library where they could reflect on the plight of the Christian community. It was here that a copy of the book was placed in the hands of Soviet citizens; some immediately tore off the distinctive blue cover and stuffed the pages into their pockets.
These pages were passed from hand to hand in Moscow and Doctor Zhivago was a great success. CIA chief Allen Dulles believed that “the operation was entirely worth the effort, given its obvious impact on the Soviet Union.” The book distribution was subsequently repeated many times – for example, at the World Festival of Youth and Students in Vienna in 1959, Russian immigrants threw copies of the novel into the windows of the buses of the Soviet delegation.
It is interesting that Nikita Khrushchev himself read the novel after his retirement, did not find anything anti-Soviet in it, and was upset that the book was banned. It turned out that the CIA had organized a completely special operation to publish a book that the president of the USSR could have ordered him to publish himself, if the information had been better conveyed to him.
Dulles’ Nobel Plan
On October 23, 1958, Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Nowadays, considering the proven involvement of the CIA in the promotion of the book, a natural question arises: was the Nobel Prize also the fruit of a conspiracy of American intelligence? There are a number of arguments in support of this – for example, according to the unspoken rules of the literary prize it must be published in the author’s native language, and Doctor Zhivago is his most important work. In addition, according to a CIA memo, it was necessary for the novel to be published in as many foreign publications as possible for maximum worldwide distribution. The note also mentions the award: “In order to consider him as a candidate for the Nobel Prize.”
However, the phrase “to be deemed worthy of an honor such as the Nobel Prize” only implies the creation of conditions under which the award of the prize would be possible. Moreover, there is not a single document that would confirm the fact of pressure on the Nobel Committee. Hypothetically, the CIA could have deliberately concealed them, but in the 130 published documents there is not a single direct or indirect reference to the existence of such a large-scale operation. There are sections of the text that have been deleted, but for context only the names of the agents and other specific information related to the intelligence work have been deleted.
Finally, publishing the novel in small circulation was an insignificant undertaking in terms of labor costs, but it was not easy for the CIA, as secrecy had to be carefully observed. A much larger operation would be required to put pressure on the Swedish Nobel Committee. Committee members, like other people, can be persuaded, intimidated or bribed. But to disrupt the operation and discredit the United States, it is enough for at least one of them to refuse and tell journalists about his intelligence interests.
To summarize, it can be assumed that the CIA indirectly helped Pasternak by promoting his novel. In any case, over the decades of its existence, American intelligence has carried out many malicious or vile operations, but the popularization of Russia and Russian culture abroad (and Pasternak was not perceived in any other way in the West) cannot be attributed precisely to this. to them.