Boris Pasternak

Russian writer, a novelist and poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958 and rejected the award because of pressure from his government. His outstanding novel Doctor Zhivago (1957) made into a motion picture in 1965, was not allowed to be published in Russia.

In 1922 Pasternak married Evgeniya Lurye, a student at the Art Institute. The following year their son Yevgenii was born. In 1932 Pasternak fell in love with Zinaida Neuhaus, the wife of the Russian pianist Heinrich Neuhaus. They both got divorces and married two years later.

Boris Pasternak died of lung cancer in his dacha in Peredelkino on the evening of 30 May 1960 at age 70. In 1989, Pasternak's son Yevgeny finally accepted the Nobel award on his father's behalf. Doctor Zhivago has been part of the main Russian school curriculum since 2003.