The Deceased was a Very Modest Man

News of the funeral spread by word of mouth, and handbill notices were posted at the Kiev station in Moscow…. naturally removed by activists and busybodies. But new copies promptly appeared. The result was that a large crowd, estimated at several thousand, began to congregate at the approaches to the village cemetery….

The gardens and countryside near Pasternak’s home were a riot of apple and lilac blossom as the coffin was borne in slow procession for half a mile along the country lanes and paths leading from his house to the cemetery.

At the graveside Valentin Asmus, a philosopher and an old friend of Pasternak’s, gave a short, informal address. He spoke of Boris Leonidovich as one of the glories of Russian literature…..

Two of Pasternak’s lyrics… were then recited: Had I but Known the Way of it and Hamlet. Shouts of Glory to Pasternak rung out. The scene was moving almost beyond endurance; tension mounted, tears fell, the phantom of a political demonstration hovered. But before long the plainclothes security men moved in and managed to terminate the proceedings without open scandal.

As the coffin lid was lowered into position the bells of the local Church of the Transfiguration suddenly began pealing….


Extraordinary picture. A funeral advertised like an underground rock concert; the beauty of the country scene; the moving address; that moment of tension; then the security men move in. And for a poet.

This is how Ronald Hingley’s biography ends. For some analysis…..

It’s a good biography, with an understanding both the poetry and the political context, and sympathy for all concerned. It’s also very tart in places, which can be quite off putting – but is part of the balanced appreciation of the art and the politics. However, for all the knowledge and insight I felt that Hingley doesn’t quite get Pasternak: thus the sharpness?

Can I give an example? Yes. In Marburg Pasternak is rejected by Ida Vysotskaya. This episode later becomes a famous lyric named after the town, which refers to the joyous emotion caused by Ida’s refusal to marry him. For Hingley this is paradoxical, and he describes it thus: exhilarating emotional impact on the unpredictable Pasternak.

Yet later the same author talks of the artist’s power within Pasternak, which is barely under control. This seems to me a possible explanation, or a way in, to the personality of the poet: through the emotions. Strong emotions are hardly controllable, always moving, never still, and ready to fly in any of a hundred different ways, with their very strength creating the possibility of joy or agony at any time.

To understand someone who experiences these, as Pasternak appears to do, and which is in some way connected to his creative genius, you have to feel this. I believe Hingley is very close to doing so, but ultimately there is a barrier between them, because his understanding of Pasternak is primarily an intellectual one. And ideas fix, simplify, distance the emotions, and thus weakens the instinctive sympathy: perhaps because the body thinks, but in a different way to the mind.

Can this also explain Pasternak’s views on his own work?

The book returns again and again to a Pasternak’s repudiation of his earlier verse. The poet was always looking for renewal (the last chapter is called The Last Rebirth). Clearly, if you’re after something new all the time you will reject what has gone before. However, what struck me was the possibility that Pasternak may have experienced his past work as stale: because it was a fixed product, one finished moment in a life of continual creativity. Thus the last thing you do is always the best, because it’s part of your actual day-to-day experience, and is more vital than the past, which, at the very least, shades into the realm of ideas. Hence the descriptions of him in his late 60s: youthful looking, animated and talkative….verbal cascade like a tumultuous human waterfall…. Like a man in his forties…. The power of the emotions is linked to the creative force, but of course there’s that secret something that creates the content of the verse. Secret something! What is that?

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