Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak [300]
13. the accursed questions: Dostoevsky coined this phrase (prokliatye voprosy) for the ultimate questions of human existence—the nature of man, the existence of God, the problem of evil, the meaning of life, the riddle of death—“the great Russian questions,” as Nicolà Chiaromonte called them, which Pasternak raises again in Doctor Zhivago, “when it seemed that history … had suppressed them forever” (“Pasternak’s Message,” in Pasternak: Modern Judgements, edited by Donald Davie and Angela Livingstone, Nashville and London, 1970).
14. in Paul … “interpretation”: The reference is to Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians 14:5 and 13: “Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy … Therefore, he who speaks in a tongue should pray for the power to interpret.”
15. Petenka Verkhovensky … the Futurists: Pyotr (“Petenka”) Verkhovensky is the young radical organizer, theorist, and mystificator in Dostoevsky’s novel Demons (1872), who came to signify the empty babbler and demagogue. The Russian Futurists were a group of poets and artists who embraced the ideas of the Italian writer F. T. Marinetti (1876–1944) in his Futurist Manifesto of 1908 and shared his enthusiasm for dynamism, speed, and machines. In 1912, David Burlyuk, Velimir Khlebnikov, Alexei Kruchenykh, Vladimir Mayakovsky, and others issued their own manifesto, A Slap in the Face of Public Taste.
16. mushroom rain: A warm rain with sunshine that is thought to encourage the growth of mushrooms.
PART SIX
1. annexates and contributses: “Annexations” and “contributions” were controversial terms in discussions of the Brest-Litovsk treaty of March 1918 between the new Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic (RSFSR) and Germany, Austria, and Turkey, ending Russia’s participation in World War I. The Russian negotiators, headed by Leon Trotsky (Lev Bronstein, 1879–1940), wanted no annexations of Russian territory and no payments of war reparations, but eventually agreed to both. The treaty was broken eight and a half months later.
2. Saint-Just: Louis de Saint-Just (1767–1794) was a French revolutionary and a close associate of Robespierre, with whom he was executed on 9 Thermidor (July 17, 1794), bringing an end to the Reign of Terror.
3. War and Peace … The Backbone Flute: These and Man, mentioned a little later, are titles of books of poetry by Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893–1930) published during the years of the war and the revolution. Pasternak had great admiration for these early poems and for their author.
4. Ippolit … The Adolescent: Ippolit is the consumptive rebel in Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, Raskolnikov is the hero of Crime and Punishment; the first-person narrator-hero of The Adolescent is Arkady Dolgoruky. They are all rootless young intellectuals in great inner turmoil.
5. Mme Roland’s before the Convention: Manon Roland (1754–1793), an ardent republican and admirer of Plutarch, kept a salon in Paris that had considerable political influence and was frequented mainly by the party of the Girondins, who opposed the violent measures of the Montagnards. She was executed along with other Girondins on October 31, 1793. Her Memoirs are an important record of the time. The revolutionary National Convention governed France from September 1792 to October 1795.
6. two left SR names: That is, the names of two left-leaning members of the Socialist Revolutionary Party (see part 5, note 8). The pseudonyms themselves are absurd, as was often the case at that time.
7. to a victorious conclusion: A watchword of Kerensky and the Provisional Government, who pledged to continue the war with Germany after the February revolution. The more radicalized workers and armed forces were aligned with the Bolsheviks in opposing the war.
8. Antaeus … an old Bestuzhevist: The mythological giant Antaeus kept his immense strength as long as he touched the earth. Hercules, who was unable to defeat him by throwing him to the ground, discovered his secret, held him up in the air, and crushed him