Doctor Zhivago

Author: Pasternak
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: Yuri Zhivago is the son of a wealthy Siberian merchant, but was abandoned by his father at a very young age. Orphaned at the age of 10 after his mother's death, he was sent to live with Professor Gromeko by his uncle. The professor and his family treated him kindly, allowing him to be educated alongside his daughter, Tonya. After graduating from medical school, Zhivago became a surgeon and married Tonya.
When World War I broke out, Zhivago was drafted into the army and worked in a field hospital on the front lines. After the October Revolution, Zhivago returned to Moscow from the front. He cheered the birth of the Soviet regime: "What a brilliant surgical operation! It skillfully cut out the foul old sore in one go! It issued a verdict on the injustice of a century in a straightforward manner. This has never been seen before. It is a miracle in history!" However, life in post-revolutionary Moscow was extremely difficult, and the Zhivago family was on the brink of starvation. Zhivago himself contracted typhoid fever. At this time, his half-brother, Evgraf Zhivago, persuaded the family to move to the Urals, where at least they would not starve.
In April 1918, the Zhivago family set off for Varykino Village, the estate of Tonya's maternal grandfather. While life there was sustainable, Zhivago felt stifled. He could neither practice medicine nor write. He often went to the library in nearby Yuriatin to read. There, he met Liza, his lover. Liza had come to Yuriatin with her husband, Basha Antipov, who had joined the Red Army and was now known as Strelnikov, a senior Red Army commander. He avoided Liza and did not meet her. Zhivago told Liza that Strelnikov was a former officer and would not earn the trust of the Bolsheviks. Once they no longer needed outside military experts, they would crush him.
, Zhivago was kidnapped by partisans and forced to work as a doctor. After spending more than a year with them, he escaped back to Yuriatin. His in-laws and wife, Tonya, had already returned to Moscow and then fled abroad. With the Red Army's victory, outside military experts became targets of repression. Strelnikov, Liza's husband, who had already fled, was at the top of the list. Liza and Zhivago were constantly in danger of being arrested. They hid in the empty village of Varykino. The lawyer Komarovsky, who had wronged them both, came to Varykino and tricked Liza into leaving. Strelnikov also came to search for his wife but found she had been tricked away. Devastated, he shot himself.
Varykino was left with only Zhivago. To survive, he walked back to Moscow. In Moscow, he reunited with his brother Evgraf, who found him a job as a doctor in a hospital. On his first day of work, Zhivago suffered a heart attack and died suddenly on the sidewalk.