Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle over a Forbidden Book

Начало книги

“If this is freedom seen through Western eyes, well, I must say we have a different view of it.”

Chapter 8

“We tore a big hole in the Iron Curtain.”

Chapter 9

“We’ll do it black.”

Chapter 10

“He also looks the genius: raw nerves, misfortune, fatality.”

Chapter 11

“There would be no mercy, that was clear.”

Chapter 12

“Pasternak’s name spells war.”

Chapter 13

“I am lost like a beast in an enclosure.”

Chapter 14

“A college weekend with Russians”

Chapter 15

“An unbearably blue sky”

Chapter 16

“It’s too late for me to express regret that the book wasn’t published.”

Afterword

Acknowledgments

A Note on Sources

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Illustration Credits

A Note About the Authors

Illustrations

Prologue

“This is

Doctor Zhivago

. May it make its way around the world.”

On May 20, 1956, two men took the suburban electric train from Moscow’s Kiev station to the village of Peredelkino, a thirty-minute ride southwest of the city. It was a blue-sky Sunday morning. Spring had pushed the last of the snow away just the previous month, and the air was sweet with the scent of blooming lilac. Vladlen Vladimirsky, easily the bigger of the two, had bright blond hair and wore the billowing pants and double-breasted jacket favored by most Soviet officials. His slender companion was clearly a foreigner—Russians teased the man that he was a stilyaga, or “style maven,” because of his Western clothing. Sergio D’Angelo also had the kind of quick smile that was uncommon in a country where circumspection was ingrained. The Italian was in Peredelkino to charm a poet.

Читать дальше →