The Zhivago affair : the Kremlin, the CIA, and the battle over a forbidden book

Resource Information

The work The Zhivago affair : the Kremlin, the CIA, and the battle over a forbidden book represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Salisbury Public Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

The Zhivago affair : the Kremlin, the CIA, and the battle over a forbidden book

Title remainder

the Kremlin, the CIA, and the battle over a forbidden book

Statement of responsibility

Peter Finn and Petra Couvée

Creator

• Finn, Peter, 1962-

Contributor

• Couvée, Petra

Subject

• Dissenters -- Soviet Union -- Biography
• Pasternak, Boris Leonidovich, 1890-1960
• Pasternak, Boris Leonidovich, 1890-1960 -- Censorship
• Politics and literature -- Soviet Union -- History
• Prohibited books -- Soviet Union -- History
• Authors, Russian -- 20th century -- Biography
• Soviet Union -- Politics and government -- 1953-1985
• United States -- Foreign relations -- Soviet Union
• United States, Central Intelligence Agency -- History -- 20th century
• Soviet Union -- Foreign relations -- United States

Genre

• Biography

Language

eng

Summary

Drawing on newly declassified files, this is the story of how a book forbidden in the Soviet Union became a secret CIA weapon in the ideological battle between East and West. In May 1956, an Italian publishing scout paid a visit to Russia's greatest living poet, Boris Pasternak. He left carrying the manuscript of Pasternak's first and only novel, entrusted to him with these words: "This is Doctor Zhivago. May it make its way around the world." Pasternak believed his novel would never be published in the Soviet Union, where the authorities regarded it as irredeemable--but he thought it stood a chance in the West and, indeed, it was widely published in translation. Then the CIA smuggled a Russian-language edition into the Soviet Union. Copies were sold on the black market and passed surreptitiously from friend to friend, and Pasternak found himself in no small trouble. But his funeral in 1960 was attended by thousands of admirers who defied their government in order to bid him farewell. The example he set launched the great tradition of the Soviet writer-dissident.--From publisher description

Biography type

contains biographical information

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

891.73/42

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

LC call number

PG3476.P27

LC item number

D6837 2014

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography