Don’t Forget Dr. Zhivago
Oppose Putin because Russia is a nation of great culture and people
I never understood Russia until I read Boris Pasternak’s magnificent book, Dr. Zhivago. Then watched the film adaptation of the novel two or three times in a row, the version starring the great Omar Sharif and Julie Christie.
It is a tale of Russian history and struggle set in the middle of a changing nation. The country is on the cusp of the revolution, trying to step firmly beyond its monarchial past and into the modern era where a more egalitarian society tries to form.
Dr. Zhivago is also the story of Yuri Zhivago, a physician, and a poet, in a nation of some of the world’s great poets. I am a lawyer and a poet so I immediately identified with Yuri’s ability to create, love, and suffer heartache but also not be afraid to sink himself into the lives of ordinary people in his country as a public servant.
It is a universal story and an important piece of history. This is the beginning of the new Russia, the country that became America’s arch-enemy, but also, a nation seemingly on the move in the world in a positive way after the empire came apart in 1991.
But we know right now Russia is being led right now by an egotistical leader — Vladimir Putin, who has little regard for humanity. There is hardly anything memorable about Putin though he is a man of great intelligence and nerve.
And don’t be fooled. Vladimir Putin is not Russia and cannot diminish the people of Russia, the ordinary people. He does not represent the epic Russian culture and its long history of struggle and beauty.
He has nothing to do with Pushkin or Akhmatova. He has nothing to do with Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Gorky, or Gogol. He has nothing to do with Baryshnikov, the Bolshoi Ballet, or the multitude of great ballet dancers the country has produced. He has nothing to do with Anna Pavlova, for example.
Do I have to tell you that George Balanchine, the great American dancer, choreographer, and founder of the American Ballet School was born in St. Petersburg, Russia? The great internationalist novelist, Vladimir Nabokov was also born in St. Petersburg. And of course, there is Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the great dissident, and Nobel laureate, a Russian by birth.
There are so many others I could name here.
When my daughter was five years of age she began studying classic Russian ballet under the tutelage of Sandra Fortune Green, the first African American ballerina to compete in Russia’s annual international ballet competition. My child thrived in the practice and even danced for a year in a Russian dance company in Michigan. She is now in a graduate-level dance program because of this early exposure to Russian dance.
That’s why I know the people of Russia are great with a rich culture. It is celebrated and respected all over the world. Theirs has been a highly developed, highly educated, and cultured society of great diversity. That is not what we see or hear about these days.
Russia’s problem always has been leadership, authoritarian rule, and delusions of being a world empire. They are in the throes of another deep digression to the dark side.
The nation and a people that gave the world Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago, two of the greatest stories ever written deserve better than Putin. Just like when Chile got Pinochet, I was rooting for the people, for the culture, and the beauty of humanity to rid themselves of the worst of it.
More writings
Doctor Zhivago and the Tradition of National Epic Author(s): F. T. Griffiths and S. J. Rabinowitz Source: Comparative Literature , Winter, 1980, Vol. 32, №1 (Winter, 1980), pp. 63–79