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Boris Pasternak

Russian writer (1890–1960)

  • Fame76.6
  • Momentum2.1
  • Writers rank#175
Source-basedStable
  • Fame76.6
  • Momentum2.1
  • Writers rank#175
  • Wikipedia52.4K
Lived 1890–1960, aged 70
WritersWriter / Author
  • Wikipedia
    106 languages
    Cross-language footprint
  • Era
    1890–1960
    Aged 70
  • Known for
    Doctor Zhivago
    1965
Summary
Updated 2026-09-07

He wrote the century's most politically radioactive Russian novel — published first in Italy by the CIA, banned at home, and so incendiary that Moscow forced him to refuse the Nobel Prize that came with it.

Biography

About

Pasternak began as a poet; his 1917 collection My Sister, Life, published in Berlin in 1922, became a landmark in Russian verse. He spent years translating Goethe, Schiller, Calderón, and Shakespeare — versions that still hold Russian stages. Then came Doctor Zhivago, a novel spanning the 1905 Revolution to the Second World War, rejected by Soviet publishers and smuggled to Italy, where it appeared in 1957 as part of a CIA effort to embarrass the regime. The Nobel Prize followed in 1958. The Communist Party erupted, and Pasternak was compelled to decline. He died in 1960. His son accepted the…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Boris Pasternak

Boris Pasternak
said
They don’t ask much of you. They only want you to hate the things you love and to love the things you despise.
— On Soviet bureaucrats, in LIFE magazine (13 June 1960)
Boris Pasternak
said
The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant duplicity.
— As quoted in "Boris Pasternak" in I.F. Stone's Weekly (3 November 1958), § "Words Which Apply to Us As Well As Russia"; later in The Best
Boris Pasternak
said
The main misfortune, the root of all evil to come, was loss of the confidence in the value of one's own opinion.
— As quoted in "Boris Pasternak" in I.F. Stone's Weekly (3 November 1958), § "Words Which Apply to Us As Well As Russia"; later in The Best
Boris Pasternak
said
Gregariousness is always the refuge of mediocrities, whether they swear by Solovyov or Kant or Marx. Only individuals seek the truth.
— Doctor Zhivago (1957)
Boris Pasternak
said
That's metaphysics, my dear fellow. It's forbidden me by my doctor, my stomach won't take it.
— Doctor Zhivago (1957)
via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA
Where to find them

Platforms

By the numbers

Score breakdown

The six component signals behind the Fame score, and their ranks across the leaderboards.

Fame
Stable
76.6
Composite of search demand, mentions, audience & graph footprint.
Score components
Momentum2.1
Historical25.9
Now attention9.3
Source confidence65.0
Completeness65.0
Global rank
—
Country rank
—
Category rank
#175
Receipts

Sources