Winner of the 1958 Nobel Prize for Literature, Doctor Zhivago has gone on to take its place among the classics of Russian literature. Its author, Boris Pasternak, began the novel before WWI but did not complete it until 1956. Essentially, the story is about Russia before and after the October Revolution of 1917. There are many characters who float into and out of the story, the main one being Yuri Zhivago. As the tale unwinds, we encounter the decadence of pre-war Czarist Russia, the harrowing experience of WWI, and the sudden exhilaration of revolution. But exhilaration gives way to the horror of civil war and Bolshevik terror. Throughout these waves of alarming change, Yuri Zhivago strives to understand the tumult, to accept it, and to understand himself and come to terms with life. 

The main themes are loneliness, disillusionment with revolution, and the unpredictability of life punctuated by coincidence. Doctor Zhivago remains one of the great philosophical novels of the 20th century because so many of its profound, thought-provoking ideas are still relevant in the chaos of 21st-century politics. The storm of war, of revolution, of human passions, and of nature are recreated in one of modern history’s most titanic novels.

This recording is from the translation by Max Hayward and Manya Harari.