Russian poet and novelist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1958, thanks to your novel Doctor Zhivago, which saw the light translated into Italian and Russian. It is known that in a magazine publication Time, Ivan Tolstoy, made known in his book The Laundered Novel the process of how the book was published. Tolstoy, the CIA and the M16, in 1958, learned that said book, still in manuscript, would be on a plane one day, and they arranged to photograph all the material and return it.
Later the book was published, using Russian paper, with the typical fonts of the country. Once the content had been corrected, they gave some copies to the members of the Swedish Academy, who, upon verifying the quality, made it possible for them to nominate Pasternak as the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Although it seems incredible, the Stanford professor, Lázar Fleishman, who is known as the greatest researcher on Pasternak’s work, has not approved of this fact, and rather classifies it as fictitious.
It is also known that Pasternak sent a letter thanking the Swedish Academy, explaining his enormous gratitude and surprise. However, after a few days, due to interference by the Russian government, he was forced to send another letter, the content of which read: “Considering the meaning that this award has taken in the society to which I belong, I must reject this undeserved award that is He has granted me. Please don’t take this the wrong way. “
The Russian authorities and the KGB put strong pressure on Pasternak, and they had him against the wall and wanting to banish him from the country. He died in 1960.
For 26 weeks, the story that the United States told about this fact was very well received by the readers of The New York Times. In 1958, the Pasternak cartoon, by Bill Mauldin, showing the Nobel Prize for Literature doing forced labor in Siberia, won the Pulitzer Prize.
Finally, he had to wait until 1988 for his novel Doctor Zhivago is published in the Soviet Union. Only his son Yevgueni, in 1989, was allowed to receive the Nobel representing his late father.