The Zhivago Affair

The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle over a Forbidden Book

De: Peter Finn, Petra Couvée

Narrado por: Simon Vance

In May of 1956, an Italian publishing scout took a train to the Russian countryside to visit the country's most beloved poet, Boris Pasternak. He left concealing the original manuscript of Pasternak's much anticipated first novel, entrusted to him with these words from the author: "This is Doctor Zhivago. May it make its way around the world." Pasternak knew his novel would never be published in the Soviet Union, where the authorities regarded it as an assault on the 1917 Revolution, so he allowed it to be published in translation all over the world. But in 1958, the CIA, which recognized that the Cold War was above all an ideological battle, published Doctor Zhivago in Russian and smuggled it into the Soviet Union where it was snapped up on the black market and passed surreptitiously from friend to friend. Pasternak, whose funeral in 1960 was attended by thousands of fans who stayed for hours in defiance of the watching KGB, launched the great Soviet tradition of the writer-dissident. With sole access to otherwise classified CIA files, the authors give us an irresistible portrait of the charming and passionate Pasternak and a twisting Cold War thriller that takes us back to a time when literature had power to shape the world.

©2014 Peter Finn and Petra Couvée. Recorded by arrangement with Pantheon Books, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC. (P)2014 HighBridge Company

Excellent

An informative book. Well done. Pasternak is more than the author of Dr Zhivago. The CIA involvement was a surprise without which we might not have known Zhivago..

Excellent History of Pasternak and his Masterpiece

I loved the inside look at the life of an amazing writer and literary legend in Soviet times. Along with Fifty Russian Winters, it portrays the life of the artistic elite and their struggles to create and express themselves within the boundaries--or sometimes outside of them--imposed by the Communist Party and Soviet leaders. This story is an inspirational tale of perseverance in the struggle for what the author thought was right and his struggles to survive and see his life's work emerge from behind the Iron Curtain. I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in Pasternak, Soviet and Russian history, or literature in general. The reading was well done; the pronunciation of Russian names and places was accurate (I'm a Russian-speaker); and the story was engaging. Be sure to check it out and then read Dr. Zhivago with this new knowledge in mind!

mostly about personal histories

great insight into Soviet literary life but less about the spies and more about the sorted lives of the artists.

Must read!

This gives the needed background to the novel & film. It is a must read/listen! Even as the Zhivago Affair and the novel Dr.Zhivago are related, as cousins, the Affair does not explain the novel itself, but the background to the history of the novel’s writing. It reveals the result of the history seen in the novel. What Yuri Zhivago shows us of the beginning of the Soviet system, is seen in Boris Pasternak’s life experience. Pasternak realized the necessity of the publishing of his book Dr.Zhivago, and was willing to sacrifice for it. As the Soviets tried to silence the book, the reality of who they are and what their system is came all the more to the fore.

The reading was one of the best I have ever heard. Not at all monotone, nor mellow dramatic, but engaging all the way through! Excellent!

Love

Interesting story, details I had not heard from other accounts. Well read by the narrator.