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A Captive of Time: My Years with Pasternak: the Memoirs of Olga Ivinskaya
English, Russian (translation)
Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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257 people want to read
About the author
Olga Ivinskaia
2 books1 followerOlga Vsevolodovna Ivinskaya (Russian: Ольга Всеволодовна Ивинская) (June 16, 1912, Tambov – September 8, 1995, Moscow) was the mistress of Nobel Prize-winning Russian writer Boris Pasternak and the inspiration for the character of Lara in his novel Doctor Zhivago.
Ivinskaya, of German-Polish descent, was born in Tambov to a provincial high school teacher. In 1915, the family moved to Moscow. After graduating from the Editorial Workers Institute in Moscow in 1936, she worked as an editor at various literary magazines. She was an admirer of Pasternak since her adolescence, attending literary gatherings to listen to his poetry. She married twice: the first time to Ivan Yemelianov in 1936, who hanged himself in 1939, having one daughter, Irina Yemelianova; the second time in 1941 to Alexander Vinogradov (later killed in the war), producing one son, Dmitry Vinogradov.
Ivinskaya, of German-Polish descent, was born in Tambov to a provincial high school teacher. In 1915, the family moved to Moscow. After graduating from the Editorial Workers Institute in Moscow in 1936, she worked as an editor at various literary magazines. She was an admirer of Pasternak since her adolescence, attending literary gatherings to listen to his poetry. She married twice: the first time to Ivan Yemelianov in 1936, who hanged himself in 1939, having one daughter, Irina Yemelianova; the second time in 1941 to Alexander Vinogradov (later killed in the war), producing one son, Dmitry Vinogradov.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 10, 2013
Happy, happy birthday Boris Pasternak! Today, 10 February 2013, Joselito honestly and brilliantly remembers you.
You would have been 123 years old today. Had you still been alive, you'll see young women swooning over rock stars and singing their songs, the lyrics securely imbedded in their memory. Then you would have realized that during your time, you were the Justine Bieber in the USSR. You sang no songs, but with your poetry, and its effects on your admirers, you could have had as many beautiful women as you desired. Yeah, like today's rock stars.
You would have been doubly proud also of this book written by your mistress who, from some of her pictures, had a strong resemblance to Bette Davis. But she was no dumb bimbo as most mistresses nowadays are. She was truly your intellectual spouse. Long before you met her, she had already your poems in her heart. Can the dead read? Have you read this book? Here is part of the passage where she described your first meeting (which would surely make you blush)--
"...I was standing by the window. Natasha and I were just about to go off to lunch. Coquettishly holding out her hand for him to kiss, Zinaida Piddubnaya said: 'Boris Leonidovich, let me introduce one of your most ardent admirers.' And then there he was at my desk by the window, the most unstinting man in the world, to whom it had been given to speak in the name of the clouds, the stars, and the wind, who had also found eternal words to say about man's passion and woman's weakness. What happiness to partake of such soaring flights and giddy descents--up to the gardens of the stars and down with them again through the gullet into which they flow, swallowed by the nightingales of all the nights of love that ever were! People said that he summoned the stars to his table, and the whole world to the carpet at his bedside.
"But what do I care if this is what other people used to say! I now said it afresh for myself, repeating it for my own ears alone. What happiness, and horror, and turmoil he was to bring into my life, this man..."
She was the Lara of your most famous work, "Doctor Zhivago." People have wondered what gave you the idea of crafting a love story where the romantic protagonists are both committed in marriage to their respective spouses. They didn't know the plot's sketch was drawn by your real-life experience. You were married and Olga Ivinskaya had been twice married also (with two young children) when you met and fell in love with each other.
She outlived you for 35 years. And long after you passed away she continued living for you, defending your name and memory. Solzhenitsyn called you a coward for publicly renouncing your work and the Nobel Prize awarded to you. Your beloved Olga explained the circumstances that led you to do these under extreme pressure from the Soviet authorities and instead praised you for your courage, as one of the very few who maintained their independence despite Stalin and his long reign of terror. She was as brave as you were. She was arrested and spent many years in jails and Russian gulags when you were still alive AND after your death (with her own daughter)--all for being close to you. Indeed, she had suffered a lot for being your lover, companion and literary muse, the woman without whom "Doctor Zhivago" would not have been written, yet never did she have any regret or bitterness.
On 27 June 1972, around 12 years after you died and 23 years before her own death in 1995, she finished writing this book and ended it with a direct message, not to her readers, but to you. Let me read it to you slowly and silently, for if the dead cannot read, maybe they can still hear. Olga Ivinskaya--your Lara--said these to you Boris:
"My love! I now come to the end of the book you wanted me to write. Forgive me for writing it as I have. It was beyond me to do it in a manner worthy of you.
"When we first met at 'Novy Mir' I was only just thirty-four years old. Now, as I write these final lines, it is my sixtieth birthday...The greater part of my conscious life has been devoted to you--and what is left of it will also be devoted to you.
"Life, as you know, has not been kind to me. But I have no complaint against it: it bestowed on me the great gift of your love, of our friendship and closeness. You always used to say to me that life treats us more gently, with more compassion, than we generally expect. This is a great truth, and I never ceased to be mindful of your words to me: '...one must never, in any circumstances, despair. In misfortune it is our duty to hope and to act.'
"You were right also in saying that we never learn from the lessons of others, and are always fatally drawn to the hollow and perilous vanities of life. But through all my follies and misfortunes, through all the emptiness and futility of my present lonely existence, I stretch out my hands to you, and say:
"'...now, as life begins to fade
"And I stand by my dear ones' graves
"I know I may knock at heaven's gate,
"For wasn't I loved by you?"
Sigh.
You would have been 123 years old today. Had you still been alive, you'll see young women swooning over rock stars and singing their songs, the lyrics securely imbedded in their memory. Then you would have realized that during your time, you were the Justine Bieber in the USSR. You sang no songs, but with your poetry, and its effects on your admirers, you could have had as many beautiful women as you desired. Yeah, like today's rock stars.
You would have been doubly proud also of this book written by your mistress who, from some of her pictures, had a strong resemblance to Bette Davis. But she was no dumb bimbo as most mistresses nowadays are. She was truly your intellectual spouse. Long before you met her, she had already your poems in her heart. Can the dead read? Have you read this book? Here is part of the passage where she described your first meeting (which would surely make you blush)--
"...I was standing by the window. Natasha and I were just about to go off to lunch. Coquettishly holding out her hand for him to kiss, Zinaida Piddubnaya said: 'Boris Leonidovich, let me introduce one of your most ardent admirers.' And then there he was at my desk by the window, the most unstinting man in the world, to whom it had been given to speak in the name of the clouds, the stars, and the wind, who had also found eternal words to say about man's passion and woman's weakness. What happiness to partake of such soaring flights and giddy descents--up to the gardens of the stars and down with them again through the gullet into which they flow, swallowed by the nightingales of all the nights of love that ever were! People said that he summoned the stars to his table, and the whole world to the carpet at his bedside.
"But what do I care if this is what other people used to say! I now said it afresh for myself, repeating it for my own ears alone. What happiness, and horror, and turmoil he was to bring into my life, this man..."
She was the Lara of your most famous work, "Doctor Zhivago." People have wondered what gave you the idea of crafting a love story where the romantic protagonists are both committed in marriage to their respective spouses. They didn't know the plot's sketch was drawn by your real-life experience. You were married and Olga Ivinskaya had been twice married also (with two young children) when you met and fell in love with each other.
She outlived you for 35 years. And long after you passed away she continued living for you, defending your name and memory. Solzhenitsyn called you a coward for publicly renouncing your work and the Nobel Prize awarded to you. Your beloved Olga explained the circumstances that led you to do these under extreme pressure from the Soviet authorities and instead praised you for your courage, as one of the very few who maintained their independence despite Stalin and his long reign of terror. She was as brave as you were. She was arrested and spent many years in jails and Russian gulags when you were still alive AND after your death (with her own daughter)--all for being close to you. Indeed, she had suffered a lot for being your lover, companion and literary muse, the woman without whom "Doctor Zhivago" would not have been written, yet never did she have any regret or bitterness.
On 27 June 1972, around 12 years after you died and 23 years before her own death in 1995, she finished writing this book and ended it with a direct message, not to her readers, but to you. Let me read it to you slowly and silently, for if the dead cannot read, maybe they can still hear. Olga Ivinskaya--your Lara--said these to you Boris:
"My love! I now come to the end of the book you wanted me to write. Forgive me for writing it as I have. It was beyond me to do it in a manner worthy of you.
"When we first met at 'Novy Mir' I was only just thirty-four years old. Now, as I write these final lines, it is my sixtieth birthday...The greater part of my conscious life has been devoted to you--and what is left of it will also be devoted to you.
"Life, as you know, has not been kind to me. But I have no complaint against it: it bestowed on me the great gift of your love, of our friendship and closeness. You always used to say to me that life treats us more gently, with more compassion, than we generally expect. This is a great truth, and I never ceased to be mindful of your words to me: '...one must never, in any circumstances, despair. In misfortune it is our duty to hope and to act.'
"You were right also in saying that we never learn from the lessons of others, and are always fatally drawn to the hollow and perilous vanities of life. But through all my follies and misfortunes, through all the emptiness and futility of my present lonely existence, I stretch out my hands to you, and say:
"'...now, as life begins to fade
"And I stand by my dear ones' graves
"I know I may knock at heaven's gate,
"For wasn't I loved by you?"
Sigh.
February 8, 2013
I have been trying to remember the name of this book for a long time and I finally found it.
From what I remember this book was brilliant. This best time to read this book is while one is reading "Doctor Zhivago" or right after finishing the book.
From what I remember this book was brilliant. This best time to read this book is while one is reading "Doctor Zhivago" or right after finishing the book.
June 7, 2024
Schiwago Projekt die Dritte. Die Lebens- und Beziehungsgeschichte der Geliebten Pasternaks, der ein Parallelleben mit ihr und mit seiner Familie führte. Der Kampf um Anerkennung, Zeugnis davon, wie ein berühmter Mann eine Frau in die Abhängigkeit bringt, Zeugnis auch des Terrors einer unbarmherzigen Diktatur. Pasternak und Iwinskaja, das sind die Vorbilder für Schiwago und Lara. Ein spannendes Zeitdokument.
November 28, 2018
I became interested in this book when I learned that Olga Ivinskaia was the inspiration for Lara in Boris Pasternak’s book, Dr. Zhivago. (The movie is one of my favorites.). Olga had a 14-year romantic relationship with Pasternak. I was expecting the book to provide insight into the development of Lara’s character — the similarities between Olga and Lara and what influenced Pasternak to choose Olga as his “model.” Instead, this is Olga’s “baring of soul” to the world so that we might get to know Pasternak and the world he lived in.
In one of his poems, Pasternak wrote, “You are eternity’s hostage, A captive of time.” Pasternak and Ivinskaia truly were captives of their time. When A Captive of Time was published, Dr. Zhivago still had not been published in the Soviet Union, yet Pasternak and his novel had received worldwide acclaim. He had won the Nobel Prize for literature, but the Soviet government had forced him to refuse it or be expelled from Russia; he was kicked out of the Official Writers Union. A Captive of Time provides “unprecedented insight” into Pasternak’s life work, the political climate at the time that Zhivago was written, and the persecution both Pasternak and Ivinskaia endured as a result.
While this book was a slow read — I had to put it down and return to it several times — I am glad I did not give up on it.
(Historical notes: According to UPI, excerpts from Dr. Zhivago first officially appeared as a 4-page spread in a publication in the Soviet Union in 1987; 5 months later, Novy Mir, the prestigious Russian literary magazine, published the full novel in 4 parts. — Source: UPI archives, December 13, 1987. Ivinskaia died in 1995 — Source: Spokesman Review, September 13, 1995 (Pasternak died in 1960 — Source: A Captive of Time). The movie was shown in Russia for the first time in 1994 — Source: Biography.com. The book became part of 11th grade curriculum in Russia in 2003 — Source: Wikipedia.)
In one of his poems, Pasternak wrote, “You are eternity’s hostage, A captive of time.” Pasternak and Ivinskaia truly were captives of their time. When A Captive of Time was published, Dr. Zhivago still had not been published in the Soviet Union, yet Pasternak and his novel had received worldwide acclaim. He had won the Nobel Prize for literature, but the Soviet government had forced him to refuse it or be expelled from Russia; he was kicked out of the Official Writers Union. A Captive of Time provides “unprecedented insight” into Pasternak’s life work, the political climate at the time that Zhivago was written, and the persecution both Pasternak and Ivinskaia endured as a result.
While this book was a slow read — I had to put it down and return to it several times — I am glad I did not give up on it.
(Historical notes: According to UPI, excerpts from Dr. Zhivago first officially appeared as a 4-page spread in a publication in the Soviet Union in 1987; 5 months later, Novy Mir, the prestigious Russian literary magazine, published the full novel in 4 parts. — Source: UPI archives, December 13, 1987. Ivinskaia died in 1995 — Source: Spokesman Review, September 13, 1995 (Pasternak died in 1960 — Source: A Captive of Time). The movie was shown in Russia for the first time in 1994 — Source: Biography.com. The book became part of 11th grade curriculum in Russia in 2003 — Source: Wikipedia.)
July 22, 2015
When I was 10 years old, a book was serialised in a Hindi magazine of repute 'Dharmyug'. The magazine perished when the world shifted from appreciating reading and intellect to thrash that found its undeserved triumph in daily soaps (there aren't any other kind on Indian TV) making the viewers hooked onto the mindless drivel that nudges them into a zombie like state. Well, I eagerly awaited each issue so that I could read the poetry in the text. They were the most poignant words anyone could write, that so tugged at your baby heart. I forgot the words, but yearned to read the original book, practically all my life. Then a niece asked me if I wanted anything from US and since I had seen the book online, I asked if she could get it for me. She did! 'Only a dollar, Masi', she marvelled.
I picked up the book with unrestrained abandon. And have been sorely disappointed. I started reading 'A Captive of Time, My Years with Pasternak' long back, but could not proceed beyond a few pages. Then picked up again recently. The style is drab and erratic. It seems as if someone watching Pasternak and Olga Ivinskaya (Pasternak's long time mistress) from outside their life has written it or perhaps a ghost written book? Or Ivinskaya has cleverly covered the most crucial aspects of their life, including the role of Pasternak's wife? May be coz Ivinskaya leans heavily on papers/ docs related to Pasternak, rather than any emotional connect, it's struggles, heart breaks, defeats and triumphs...
Only two narratives stand out. Pasternak writing 'Dr Zhivago' and winning the Nobel prize/ being manipulated to give it up (largely thanks to Ivinskaya) and Ivinskaya's incarceration to a Labour Camp.
Pasternak seems more in love with Olga (on whom, Lara of Dr Zhivago is based) than other way round. She blames Pasternak for not having rescued her from the Labour Camp. Could a writer already at logger heads with Stalin-minions succeed?
She did the bidding of the Govt coz her years at the Labour Camp destroyed her spirit? Doesn't look like that. Pasternak did provide the little comforts he could. You see the struggle for money (Pasternak also financially supported Ivinskaya) with the 'Big House' (Pasternak's house where he lived with his legally wedded wife). Ivinskaya's attempts to gain that position only find place in some letters written by Pasternak to Ivinskaya that are attached in the end. Ivinskaya seems to have 'guided' Pasternak into one problem to another before attempting to extract him from it, and thus controlling all crucial aspects of Pasternak's life especially the finances and his writings? She was the Go To person for the Govt machinery when they wanted to manipulate Pasternak into doing something his sensibilities/ pride/ principles etc didn't allow him to do. Ivinskaya was the 'practical' one, being content in her life with her two kids (earlier to Pasternak) and parents.
Did she love, Pasternak? In her own way, she did. But, for Pasternak Ivinskaya was his love, muse, life... But, not enough for him to leave his wife (perhaps coz divorces weren't so common as now?) for her.
Makes you wonder if love was an illusion each created to suit themselves? Or is the concept of love as being pure, sacrificing, worth giving everything for -unpractical' or archaic or 'just a concept far removed from reality'?
Some books have a soul that shine so brightly. Some spill over with love. Some mesmerise you. Some keep you tied till you read the very last word. Some make you wonder. Some make you dream. Some make you wistful. This one isn't any of them. It's a chronicle of some events of Pasternak-Ivinskaya's life that Ivinskaya has chosen to write about.
Ivinskaya could have been honest about 'her years with Pasternak' instead of being guarded as she is. One does wonder if the use of 'years' rather than 'life' is intentional as that does sum up the book.
Read the book for excerpts of poetry/ books written by Pastrenak coz they are brilliant. Better still, read Pasternak. May be I'll take out that dog eared copy from Dad's library, if it has survived and reread Dr Zhivago.
I picked up the book with unrestrained abandon. And have been sorely disappointed. I started reading 'A Captive of Time, My Years with Pasternak' long back, but could not proceed beyond a few pages. Then picked up again recently. The style is drab and erratic. It seems as if someone watching Pasternak and Olga Ivinskaya (Pasternak's long time mistress) from outside their life has written it or perhaps a ghost written book? Or Ivinskaya has cleverly covered the most crucial aspects of their life, including the role of Pasternak's wife? May be coz Ivinskaya leans heavily on papers/ docs related to Pasternak, rather than any emotional connect, it's struggles, heart breaks, defeats and triumphs...
Only two narratives stand out. Pasternak writing 'Dr Zhivago' and winning the Nobel prize/ being manipulated to give it up (largely thanks to Ivinskaya) and Ivinskaya's incarceration to a Labour Camp.
Pasternak seems more in love with Olga (on whom, Lara of Dr Zhivago is based) than other way round. She blames Pasternak for not having rescued her from the Labour Camp. Could a writer already at logger heads with Stalin-minions succeed?
She did the bidding of the Govt coz her years at the Labour Camp destroyed her spirit? Doesn't look like that. Pasternak did provide the little comforts he could. You see the struggle for money (Pasternak also financially supported Ivinskaya) with the 'Big House' (Pasternak's house where he lived with his legally wedded wife). Ivinskaya's attempts to gain that position only find place in some letters written by Pasternak to Ivinskaya that are attached in the end. Ivinskaya seems to have 'guided' Pasternak into one problem to another before attempting to extract him from it, and thus controlling all crucial aspects of Pasternak's life especially the finances and his writings? She was the Go To person for the Govt machinery when they wanted to manipulate Pasternak into doing something his sensibilities/ pride/ principles etc didn't allow him to do. Ivinskaya was the 'practical' one, being content in her life with her two kids (earlier to Pasternak) and parents.
Did she love, Pasternak? In her own way, she did. But, for Pasternak Ivinskaya was his love, muse, life... But, not enough for him to leave his wife (perhaps coz divorces weren't so common as now?) for her.
Makes you wonder if love was an illusion each created to suit themselves? Or is the concept of love as being pure, sacrificing, worth giving everything for -unpractical' or archaic or 'just a concept far removed from reality'?
Some books have a soul that shine so brightly. Some spill over with love. Some mesmerise you. Some keep you tied till you read the very last word. Some make you wonder. Some make you dream. Some make you wistful. This one isn't any of them. It's a chronicle of some events of Pasternak-Ivinskaya's life that Ivinskaya has chosen to write about.
Ivinskaya could have been honest about 'her years with Pasternak' instead of being guarded as she is. One does wonder if the use of 'years' rather than 'life' is intentional as that does sum up the book.
Read the book for excerpts of poetry/ books written by Pastrenak coz they are brilliant. Better still, read Pasternak. May be I'll take out that dog eared copy from Dad's library, if it has survived and reread Dr Zhivago.
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