Olga Ivinskaya
Olga Ivinskaya | |
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Olga Vsevolodovna Ivinskaya (Russian: Ольга Всеволодовна Ивинская; June 16, 1912, in Tambov – September 8, 1995, in Moscow) was a Soviet poet and writer. She is best-known as friend and lover of Nobel Prize-winning writer Boris Pasternak during the last 13 years of his life and the inspiration for the character of Lara in his novel Doctor Zhivago (1957).
Early life
Ivinskaya, of German-Polish descent, was born in
Relationship with Pasternak
She met Boris Pasternak in October 1946, in the editorial office of Novy Mir, where she was in charge of the new authors department.[1] She was romantically involved with him until his death, although he refused to leave his wife.[2] Early in 1948, he asked her to leave Novy Mir, as her position there was getting more difficult because of their relationship. She took up a role as his secretary instead.[1]
Ivinskaya collaborated closely with Pasternak on translating poetry from foreign languages into Russian. While she was translating the
Pasternak acknowledged Ivinskaya as the inspiration for Doctor Zhivago's heroine Lara.[2][5] Many poems by Yuri Zhivago in the novel were addressed by Pasternak to Ivinskaya.
In October 1949,[6][7][8][9] Ivinskaya was arrested as "an accomplice to the spy"[1] and in July 1950[10] was sentenced by the Special Council of the NKVD to five years in the Gulag.[1] That was seen as an attempt to press Pasternak to give up writings critical of the Soviet system.[5] In a 1958 letter to a friend in West Germany, Pasternak wrote, "She was put in jail on my account, as the person considered by the secret police to be closest to me, and they hoped that by means of a grueling interrogation and threats they could extract enough evidence from her to put me on trial. I owe my life and the fact that they did not touch me in those years to her heroism and endurance."[11]
At that time of her arrest, Ivinskaya was pregnant by Pasternak and miscarried. She was released in 1953 after Stalin's death.[5] Doctor Zhivago was published in Italy in 1957 by Feltrinelli, with Ivinskaya conducting all negotiations on Pasternak's behalf.[1]
Ivinskaya was one of nine "prisoners of conscience" featured in Persecution 1961, a book by Peter Benenson that helped launch Amnesty International. In it, Benenson lauded her for refusing to cooperate with authorities and for willingly suffering to protect Pasternak.[12] However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the opening of Soviet archives, some sources suggested that, like most torture victims, she had been induced to cooperate with the KGB.[13] - New York Times mentions "Moskovsky Komsomolets" as a source.
Final years
After Pasternak's death in 1960, Ivinskaya was arrested for the second time, with her daughter, Irina Emelianova. She was accused of being Pasternak's link with Western publishers in dealing in hard currency for Doctor Zhivago. The Soviet government quietly released them, Irina after one year, in 1962, and Ivinskaya in 1964.[1] She served four years of an eight-year sentence, apparently to punish her for the relationship.[5] In 1978, her memoirs were published in Paris in Russian and were translated in English under the title A Captive of Time.
Ivinskaya was rehabilitated only under Gorbachev in 1988. All of Pasternak's letters to her and other manuscripts and documents had been seized by the
References
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h Vronskaya, Jeanne (September 12, 1995). "Obituary: Olga Ivinskaya". The Independent. Archived from the original on March 23, 2016. Retrieved October 27, 2010.
- ^ a b "Olga Ivinskaya; Inspiration for 'Dr. Zhivago's' Lara". Los Angeles Times. September 16, 1995. Archived from the original on November 3, 2012. Retrieved October 27, 2010.
- ^ Ivinskaya 1978, pp. 28–29.
- ^ Ivinskaya 1978, p. 29.
- ^ a b c d e f "Olga Ivinskaya, 83, Pasternak Muse for 'Zhivago'". Obituaries. The New York Times. September 12, 1995. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved October 27, 2010.
- ^ Batuyev, Valery (December 12, 1996). "Так грустно почему-то..." Ogoniok (in Russian). No. 49.
- ^ "Ольга Ивинская" (in Russian). Archived from the original on March 5, 2016.
- ^ "Ивинская и Пастернак: Любовь длинною в жизнь". personallife.ru (in Russian).
- ^
Ivanova, Natalya (2013). Борис Пастернак. Времена жизни (in Russian). Litres. ISBN 9785425090034.
- ^ "Жертвы политического террора в СССР". memo.ru. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016.
- ^ Ivinskaya 1978, p. 109.
- ^ Peter Benenson, Persecution 1961 (London: Penguin, 1961), 70-78.
- ^ “Model for Dr. Zhivago’s Lara Betrayed Pasternak to K.G.B.,” New York Times, November 27, 1997
- ^ Emélianova, Irina (2000). Légendes de la rue Potapov. Paris: Fayard.
Bibliography
- Ivinskaya, Olga (1978). A Captive of Time: My Years with Pasternak. Collins and Harvill Press. ISBN 0-00-262847-3.
- Mancosu, Paolo (2019). Moscow has Ears Everywhere: New Investigations on Pasternak and Ivinskaya. Hoover Press, Stanford. ISBN 978-0-8179-2244-3.
Further reading
- Pasternak, Anna (2017). Lara. New York, New York, USA: HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 978-0-06-243934-5.
External links
- Autumn on YouTube, poem by Pasternak about his love, performed as song by Larisa Novoseltseva