Why did Strelnikov shoot himself? "Doctor Zhivago" main characters

The novel begins with an episode of the funeral of Yuri Zhivago's mother; the story about the hero's life ends with a description of his funeral. Between these episodes is the path of knowledge.

On your own earth immortal life after death, the hero lives in creativity. His poems are discovered in the papers of the late Zhivago. They constitute the seventeenth and last part of the novel - “Poems of Yuri Zhivago”. Already the first - “Hamlet” - is in tune with the theme of the novel. In the image of Hamlet, Pasternak saw not the drama of spinelessness, but the drama of duty and self-denial, which connects Hamlet’s fate with the mission of Christ. Hamlet renounces his right to choose in order to do the will of the One who sent him, that is, the “stubborn plan” of the Lord. In Hamlet's prayer, "If it be possible, Abba Father,

Carry this cup past,” sounds the word of Christ spoken in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Abba Father! All things are possible for You; carry this cup past me.” The theme of Hamlet correlates with the theme of the last poem, “The Garden of Gethsemane,” which expresses the idea of the novel: way of the cross inevitable as a guarantee of immortality; Christ, having accepted the cup of trials, giving himself up as a sacrifice, says: “Come to me for judgment, like the barges of a caravan,

Centuries will float out of the darkness." The hero of the poem “Dawn” also takes on the burden of human worries: “I feel for them all,

It’s like being in their shoes.”

Such penetration of personality into human destinies, immersion in human vanity, in everyday life - a covenant from above (“All night I read Your covenant”). For Christian Pasternak, it is valuable that Christ explained Divine truth with parables from everyday life. In “Dawn” the image of poetry is “omnivorous”; it expresses not only the secrets of the universe, but also the little things of life. The subject of poetry is life itself. Zhivago’s poems are dedicated to her: “March”, “On Passion”, “ White Night”, “Spring thaw”, “Wind”, “Hops”... He equally sings of the “heat of temptation” (“ Winter night"), and household chores: "The currant leaf is rough and clothy.

There is laughter in the house and the glass is clinking" ("Indian Summer").

After completing Doctor Zhivago, B. Pasternak began an autobiographical essay, People and Positions, in which he questioned the idea of creating new poetic means expressions. Aesthetic positions B. Pasternak are focused on classical literary language. Arguing with aesthetic concepts A. Bely and V. Khlebnikov, he wrote that the most amazing discoveries in creativity were made “in the old language.” Thus, Pasternak’s idol Scriabin “using the means of his predecessors renewed the feeling of music to its foundation,” and Chopin said his stunning word in music “in the old Mozart-Field language.” In moments creative discoveries the content overwhelms the artist and does not give him time to think about innovation in form. Pasternak drew attention to some aspects of psychology and culture that accompany discoveries. For example, Scriabin’s ideas about the superman are “a primordially Russian craving for extremes,” and it is this extremeness, this craving for infinity that underlies the creation of not only “supermusic,” but also everything that the artist creates. In the fate of Blok, Pasternak highlighted “everything that creates a great poet” - fire and tenderness, a whirlwind of impressionability; among these definitions there is also “one’s own image of the world” - that which shaped Pasternak’s work. Remembering S. Yesenin, B. Pasternak identified a sign of artistry, in other words, the highest Mozartian principle.

These aesthetic criteria - extremeness, one's own image of the world, the Mozartian principle - were organic to the work of B. Pasternak, but they contradicted the aesthetic norms of official literature of the 1950s, and therefore B. Pasternak experienced internal drama, which he expressed in a poem in 1959 “ Nobel Prize": "I disappeared like an animal in a pen.

Somewhere there are people, will, light.” In one of his letters in 1924, B. Pasternak conjectured that Russia notices and singles out people in order “to then slowly strangle and torture them” (5, 158). Zhivago - image creative personality, endowed with talent and slowly suffocating. In his hero, Pasternak, by his own admission, imprinted himself, and Blok, and Yesenin, and Mayakovsky.

The desire to affirm and reveal one’s own image of the world, which was in many ways different from what Soviet, fundamentally atheistic, philosophy and literature offered, determined the content of the poems of 1956-1959, which made up the cycle “When it clears up.”

Moving away from conflict modern life, B. Pasternak created his inner world on the principles of harmony and peace. It was as if he lived not according to the law of the country, but according to the canon of the universe. In the poem “When it clears up,” the temple became the model:

It’s as if the inside of the cathedral is the expanse of the earth, and through the window the distant echo of the choir is sometimes given to me to hear. Nature, the world, the hiding place of the universe, I will serve you for a long time, Embraced by a hidden trembling, I will stand in tears of happiness.

The novel begins with an episode of the funeral of Yuri Zhivago's mother; the story about the hero's life ends with a description of his funeral. Between these episodes is the path of knowledge.

On earth, the hero lives his immortal life after death in creativity. His poems are discovered in the papers of the late Zhivago. They constitute the seventeenth and last part of the novel - “Poems of Yuri Zhivago”. Already the first - “Hamlet” - is in tune with the theme of the novel. In the image of Hamlet, Pasternak saw not the drama of spinelessness, but the drama of duty and self-denial, which connects Hamlet’s fate with the mission of Christ. Hamlet renounces his right to choose in order to do the will of the One who sent him, that is, the “stubborn plan” of the Lord. In Hamlet's prayer, "If it be possible, Abba Father,

Carry this cup past,” sounds the word of Christ spoken in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Abba Father! All things are possible for You; carry this cup past me.” The theme of “Hamlet” correlates with the theme of the last poem “The Garden of Gethsemane”, which expresses the idea of the novel: the way of the cross is inevitable as a guarantee of immortality; Christ, having accepted the cup of trials, giving himself up as a sacrifice, says: “Come to me for judgment, like the barges of a caravan,

Centuries will float out of the darkness." The hero of the poem “Dawn” also takes on the burden of human worries: “I feel for them all,

It’s like being in their shoes.”

Such penetration of personality into human destinies, immersion in human vanity, in everyday life is a covenant from above (“All night I read Your covenant”). For Christian Pasternak, it is valuable that Christ explained Divine truth with parables from everyday life. In “Dawn” the image of poetry is “omnivorous”; it expresses not only the secrets of the universe, but also the little things of life. The subject of poetry is life itself. Zhivago’s poems are dedicated to her: “March”, “On Passion”, “White Night”, “Spring thaw”, “Wind”, “Hops”... He equally sings of the “heat of temptation” (“Winter Night”), and household chores: “The currant leaf is rough and clothy.

There is laughter in the house and the glass is clinking" ("Indian Summer").

After completing Doctor Zhivago, B. Pasternak began an autobiographical essay, People and Positions, in which he questioned the idea of creating new poetic means of expression. B. Pasternak's aesthetic positions are focused on classical literary language. Arguing with the aesthetic concepts of A. Bely and V. Khlebnikov, he wrote that the most amazing discoveries in creativity were made “in the old language.” Thus, Pasternak’s idol Scriabin “using the means of his predecessors renewed the feeling of music to its foundation,” and Chopin said his stunning word in music “in the old Mozart-Field language.” In moments of creative discovery, the content overwhelms the artist and does not give him time to think about innovation in form. Pasternak drew attention to some aspects of psychology and culture that accompany discoveries. For example, Scriabin’s ideas about the superman are “a primordially Russian craving for extremes,” and it is this extremeness, this craving for infinity that underlies the creation of not only “supermusic,” but also everything that the artist creates. In the fate of Blok, Pasternak highlighted “everything that creates a great poet” - fire and tenderness, a whirlwind of impressionability; among these definitions there is also “one’s own image of the world” - that which shaped Pasternak’s work. Remembering S. Yesenin, B. Pasternak identified a sign of artistry, in other words, the highest Mozartian principle.

These aesthetic criteria - extremeness, his own image of the world, the Mozartian principle - were organic to the work of B. Pasternak, but they contradicted the aesthetic norms of official literature of the 1950s, and therefore B. Pasternak experienced an internal drama, which he expressed in a poem in 1959 “Nobel Prize”: “I was lost like an animal in a pen.

Somewhere there are people, will, light.” In one of his letters in 1924, B. Pasternak conjectured that Russia notices and singles out people in order “to then slowly strangle and torture them” (5, 158). Zhivago is an image of a creative personality, endowed with talent and slowly being suffocated. In his hero, Pasternak, by his own admission, imprinted himself, and Blok, and Yesenin, and Mayakovsky.

Moving away from the conflict of modern life, B. Pasternak created his inner world on the principles of harmony and peace. It was as if he lived not according to the law of the country, but according to the canon of the universe. In the poem “When it clears up,” the temple became the model:

There are books that should be read slowly, as slowly as possible, because they make you think about every sentence and admire entire pages. These books have a special spirit, their own soul. “Doctor Zhivago” by B. Pasternak is one of these books. Novel...

It is no coincidence that the brilliant lines of this poem became a symbol of the entire work of B. L. Pasternak. They concentrate the main thing that formed the basis of worldview wonderful artist words: the pricelessness and beauty of the human personality, abandoned...

ZHIVAGO is the hero of B. Pasternak’s novel “Doctor Zhivago” (1946-1956). About J.’s prototype, Pasternak himself reported the following in 1947: “I am now writing a large novel in prose about a man who forms some resultant between Blok and me (and Mayakovsky,...

In my opinion, even the very history of the creation of this work, the history of its writing and the history of its publication is an indicator of the confrontation between two elements. On the one hand, there is the element of creative inspiration that captured the author and subjugated it...

Antipov... Under this name the hero is introduced to readers on the pages of the novel “Doctor Zhivago”. Initially, he is a person with a pure soul and wonderful thoughts. He is kind and sympathetic. In all situations he tried to express the good; mutual assistance was no stranger to him. He was always attracted to changing the world in better side. Why did Pasternak give Antipov a second surname during the development of the plot? Why did he become Strelnikov!?

Boris Leonidovich did not choose his second surname by chance. As the revolution swept through innocent people, much changed in the country. Values have become different, thoughts, feelings, people’s attitudes towards each other... Strelnikov, under the influence of the revolutionary struggle for truth, without noticing it, begins to change. He tries in vain to find something that will lead people to the light, to a new life. Where is this true!? Instead of the kind and gentle fellow who loved Larisa with all his heart, a different hero appears before the readers.

Now he is inspired by the ideas of rebuilding the whole world. For him, the result of actions aimed at combating those who do not want to put up with the impending disaster is important. The hero becomes cruel and rude towards people.

It turns out that the character can be viewed from two completely different sides. From the first, Antipov is active, inquisitive, always tries to come to the rescue, sacrifice himself if necessary. On the other hand, Strelnikov is extremely dangerous for people with his incorrect, false judgments about the revolution. He is ready to forcibly convince the people that this element is for good, that it will bring happiness and carefree joy. However, this is not really the case.

Because of revolutionary actions, Antipov became a cruel, callous egoist. They beat him up a lot... The character's consciousness was re-evaluated, and fetters became entwined. The hero soon became completely confused in his choice life path. It seemed that the elements were what could save humanity from imminent death. However, it was she who brought most troubles And suffering, and separation from loved ones, and terrible troubles...

Parsnip in own work showed a real “iron” fighter. The author showed readers what such an incredible phenomenon can do to anyone... Revolution... It is this that changes a person completely. It destroys people's destinies and brings misfortune. She drives Antipov-Strelnikov to suicide... Like this...

Essay by Pavel Antipov (Strelnikov)

In the novel "Doctor Zhivago" the author described a number of heroes, each of whom performed special role. Key hero book is Pavel Strelnikov, who also bears the surname Antipov. Strelnikov is described as young man, who was born into the family of a railway worker. The hero is educated and different good mind and an inquisitive nature. Strelnikov is capable of self-sacrifice and mutual assistance. Since childhood, Pavel has had sympathy for Larisa, who was older than him. A few years later, Larisa herself proposes to get married.

Strelnikov is the opposite of Doctor Zhivago, despite the similarity of fate. The marriage of Pavel and Larisa was going well. Between Yuri Pavel and Larisa a love triangle. A little later, Pavel realized that he felt only compassion for Larisa. Then a revolution suddenly began in the country. Like an element of force, the revolution swallowed up the souls and thoughts of the common population. Many of the country's residents considered the revolution to be a deliverance from all problems. One of these people was Strelnikov. Antipov completely surrendered to the revolution, which killed many human lives. Strelnikov began to forcibly convince people that the revolution would only bring benefits. During the revolution in the country, the hero's character changes. The good-natured Strelnikov turns into the callous and cruel Antipov with an overestimation of self-awareness.

The enthusiastic Strelnikov became a real revolutionary and commissar, who actually dreamed of avenging Larisa’s suffering. So the revolution completely overshadows Antipov’s thoughts. So the hero loses his nobility and completely dissolves in lawlessness. His soul was filled with indifference, cruelty and greed. The revolution has led the hero to a dead end. Antipov completely changed his views. He was preoccupied fresh ideas and thoughts about the revolution. The family faded into the background.

At the end, Antipov came to Yuri Zhivago’s house. At that time, Larisa divorced Pavel and married Zhivago. Strelnikov talked with the doctor for a long time and said that he had made many mistakes and taken the lives of many people because of the revolution. The hero realized that revolution is not the path leading to human happiness. At the very end, Antipov decides to commit suicide, avoiding a worse fate.

Several interesting essays

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Now my school is ordinary, but in the future it will be different. I think that there will be special doors in it to pass through using special keys; electronic textbooks and notebooks. The classrooms will have new equipment

The image and characteristics of Platonov in the story by Yama Kuprin, essay
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There is no such person who has never experienced the feeling of love. It is embedded in us from birth and goes with us through life.

The image and characteristics of the Stranger in the story Sunstroke by Bunin essay
One of the key characters of the work is the beautiful Stranger, without name, age, address, with whom main character found on the deck of a ship.

System of images. In accordance with the ideological and thematic content, a system of images of the novel is built, in the center of which is the main character - Yuri Andreevich Zhivago. It is often called the author’s alter ego and compared to lyrical hero poems. On the other hand, they see him as a continuation of that type of Russian hero literature of the 19th century century, which is usually called " extra person" Both of these positions have their justifications. Pasternak himself, according to the recollections of his close friend Olga Ivinskaya, said that in the image of Yuri Andreevich he combined the personality traits of Blok, Yesenin, Mayakovsky and himself. It is also indicative that he trusts the hero not only to express his views, thoughts, reflections on the most important issues, but even “gives” him the true masterpieces of his lyrics. But still, Zhivago is a novel hero, in which the author embodied the traits of a certain personality of that era. This is a typical intellectual, a smart, educated person, endowed with a sensitive soul and a creative gift. Caught in a whirlpool historical events, it’s as if he “stands above the fray”, cannot completely join any camp - neither the whites nor the reds. Zhivago wants to shout to both the white, high school student, still almost a boy, and the red, Bolsheviks, “that salvation does not lie in fidelity to forms, but in liberation from them.” The fight scene is amazingly powerful. partisan detachment, in which Yuri Andreevich found himself against his will. He finds the texts of Psalm 90 sewn into the clothes of both the killed partisan and the high school student who fought against the partisans. They shot at each other, but cried out for help and protection from the one Savior.

Later, Zhivago discovers that maintaining his isolation, separation from the “herd” is becoming increasingly difficult. “What prevents me from serving, healing and writing?” - he thinks and comes to a striking conclusion: “... not deprivation and wandering, not instability and frequent changes, but the prevailing spirit of a crackling phrase today.” Sometimes it seems that he is really “superfluous”, a weak-willed person who has not been able to find his place in his new life, unlike his youthful friends Dudorov and Gordon. Everything he does is emphatically everyday, prosaic, and his hesitations, doubts, and indecision are sometimes annoying. But this is only an external slice, behind which one can see what makes Zhivago the hero of the novel: in conditions of general impersonality, he remains an individual, amid the extreme cruelty that the revolution brings with it and Civil War, he maintains kindness and humanity. He is capable of both sympathizing with the people's troubles and realizing the inevitability of what is happening. In Pasternak’s general historical and philosophical concept, it is precisely such a person who is able to comprehend the essence of events, and being a creative person, he can express it in his poems, helping others understand the world around them. In this case, he himself becomes a victim of time - it is not for nothing that he dies in 1929, which is called the year of the “great turning point.” A. Blok once said that Pushkin was “killed by the lack of air,” and Pasternak literally implements this metaphor. In that atmosphere of complete lack of freedom, the triumph of mediocrity, the severance of cultural and spiritual ties, a person like Yuri Zhivago cannot live. But many years later, his friends remember him. Bending over a tattered notebook of Zhivago’s poems, they suddenly feel “happy tenderness and tranquility”, “freedom of the soul”, which never came even after the Great Patriotic War, although everyone expected it, but which the long-dead Yuri Zhivago carried through his life and managed to convey in his poems. These final lines are a statement of the originality of the hero of the novel, the fruitfulness of his existence and the indestructibility and immortality of the great culture, eternal truths and moral values, which formed the basis of his personality.

The antipode of Zhivago in the novel is Antipov-Strelnikov. He is the embodiment of the type of “iron fighters” of the revolution. On the one hand, it is inherent enormous strength will, activity, readiness for self-sacrifice in the name of a great idea, asceticism, purity of thoughts. WITH

on the other hand, he is characterized by unjustified cruelty, straightforwardness, the ability to dictate to everyone what he perceives as a “revolutionary necessity”, and to force “drive” into new life even those who do not at all strive to fit into it. His fate turns out to be tragic. Pavel Antipov, turning from a timid, romantic young man, in love with Lara and confessing humanistic ideas freedom, equality and brotherhood, in the cruel fighter, punisher Strelnikov, turns out to be a victim of a false, deadening revolutionary idea, which, according to the author, contradicts the natural course of history and life itself. Lara, who well understands the internal motivation of her husband’s actions, notes: “With some kind of youthful, misdirected pride, he was offended by something in life that one doesn’t take offense at. He began to sulk at the course of events, at history. ... He is still settling scores with her to this day. … He is heading towards certain death because of this stupid ambition.”

As a result, Antipov, in the name of the fight for the revolution, abandons his wife and daughter, everything that in his mind interferes with the “work of life.” He even takes a different name - Strelnikov - and becomes the embodiment of the brutal force of the revolution. But it turns out that in fact he is weak-willed and powerless in his desire to control the course of history. “Remake your life! - Yuri Zhivago exclaims. - This is how people can reason... who have never known life, who have not felt its spirit, its soul. ...But life is never a material, a substance. She… herself is always remaking and transforming, she herself is much higher than our stupid theories.” As a result, Antipov-Strelnikov comes to complete hopelessness and commits suicide. Thus, the author shows that fanatical service to the revolution can only lead to death and is essentially opposed to life.

The embodiment of life, love, and Russia in the novel is Lara, Zhivago’s beloved. She is between two antipodean heroes - Zhivago and Antipov-Strelnikov. Pasternak wrote about the prototype of Lara in a letter to R. Schweitzer in 1958, noting that Olga Vsevolodovna Ivinskaya “is the Lara of my work,” “the personification of cheerfulness and self-sacrifice.” In an interview with an English journalist in 1959, the writer stated: “In my youth there was not one, only Lara... But the Lara of my old age is inscribed in my heart with her (Ivinskaya) blood and her prison.” As in the fate of the author, so in the fate of the hero, there are two beloved women, necessary for him, who determine his life. His wife Tonya is the personification of unshakable foundations: home, family. Lara is the embodiment of the elements of love, life, creativity. This image continues the tradition of the best Russian heroines classical literature(Tatiana Larina, Natasha Rostova, Olga Ilyinskaya, “Turgenev girls”, etc.). But its fate also turns out to be inextricably linked with the fate of Russia. D.S. Likhachev claims that in the novel Lara is a symbol of Russia and life itself. At the same time, this is a very specific image, with its own destiny, which constitutes one of the main storylines. It is significant that she is a sister of mercy who helps the wounded during the First World War. It organically combines the spontaneous, natural principle and a subtle sense of culture; best poems Zhivago. Her love for Yuri Andreevich was suffered and gained through severe trials of sin, a humiliating relationship with Komarovsky, an influential lawyer who embodies the complete unprincipledness, cynicism, dirt and vulgarity of bourgeois society. Lara goes into a loveless marriage with Antipov in order to free herself from Komarovsky. She is initially connected with Yuri by love, which is the embodiment of the joy of life, its personification. They are united by a sense of freedom, which is the key to immortality. Although their love is forbidden from the point of view of generally accepted norms (Zhivago is married to Tonya, and Lara is married to Antipov, although the relationship with Zhivago develops at the moment when Lara considers her husband dead), for the heroes it turns out to be sanctified by the entire universe. Here, for example, is how Lara speaks of their love at Zhivago’s tomb: “They loved each other not out of inevitability, not “scorched by passion,” as is falsely portrayed. They loved each other because everyone around them wanted it that way: the earth below them, the sky above their heads, the clouds and the trees.” In the finale, Lara, who happened to attend Yuri Zhivago’s funeral, mourns him, but this scene shocks not only with the depth of feeling expressed in folk poetic traditions, but also with the fact that the heroine addresses the deceased as if he were alive (“Here we are together again, Yurochka. ... What a horror, think! ... Think!”). It turns out that love is life, it stronger than death, more important than “perestroika” globe”, which in comparison with the “mystery of life, the mystery of death”, human genius is just “petty world squabbles”. Thus, the finale once again emphasizes the main ideological core of the novel: the opposition of the living and the dead and the affirmation of the victory of life over death.

The artistic features and genre-compositional originality of the novel from the moment of its first publication to this day have been the subject of heated discussions and debates. After the publication of the novel in 1988 in Novy Mir, a lively debate unfolded on the pages of Literaturnaya Gazeta, one of the key issues of which was the determination of the genre nature of this work. It was stated that in in this case“to define a genre means to find the key to the novel, its laws.” Several points of view were expressed, which continue to be discussed at the present time: “this is not a novel, but a kind of autobiography”, “a novel is lyric poem"(D.S. Likhachev); “novel-life” (G. Gachev); “not only poetic and political, but also philosophical novel"(A. Gulyga); “symbolic novel (in the broad, Pasternak sense)”, “novel-myth” (S. Piskunova, V. Piskunov); “a modernist, highly subjective work” that only outwardly preserves “the structure of a traditional realistic novel” (Vyach. Vozdvizhensky); “poetic novel”, “metaphorical autobiography” (A. Voznesensky); “novel-symphony”, “novel-sermon”, “novel-parable” (R. Gul).

The compositional structure of the work is also the subject of lively debate. Many critics consider the novel to be too “made”, schematic, and the structural components clearly stick out. Others, without denying this, see in such a construction a special artistic technique, allowing the author to convey main idea a novel about the interconnectedness of all things in the world, not only through words, images, descriptions and dialogues, but also through the composition of the work itself. This technique is often used in poetry, especially modernist poetry of the 20th century, and is somewhat akin to musical forms. This also applies to cross-cutting figurative and thematic motifs (the above-mentioned image of a snowstorm, blizzard, memory motif, etc.), plot-shaped parallels of the natural and human world, history and eternity, etc. Thus, in a scene on the battlefield of the First World War, five characters: “The deceased, mutilated, was private reserve Gimazetdin, the officer screaming in the forest was his son, second lieutenant Galiullin, his sister was Lara, Gordon and Zhivago were witnesses, they were all together, they were all nearby, and some did not recognize each other, others never knew , and one remained forever unidentified, the other began to wait for discovery until the next case, until new meeting" “Waiting to be discovered” and unintentional, but turned out to be fateful, meetings of the main characters in Moscow. It is in the room in which the burning candle so struck Yuri, without knowing it, that he settles in last days his life, and accidentally goes there

Lara, discovering a coffin with the body of her lover, whom she had long ago lost at the crossroads of life. In the epilogue of the novel there is the last compositional node: in the summer of 1943, on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, Gordon and Dudorov meet, remembering Yuri Zhivago, and accidentally discover the linen worker Tanya Bezchereeva, raised in an orphanage, who turns out to be the daughter of the late Yuri Andreevich and who was accidentally found a little earlier by his brother Major General Zhivago.

Critic N. Ivanova argues that the composition of the novel, built on a musical-symphonic principle, is based on the core leitmotif railway, which branches into many separate motifs, lines, subthemes. This is how the first “knot” is tied near the railway: the episode of Yuri’s father’s suicide, around which several characters are grouped, mostly or to a lesser extent participating in the subsequent action (Komarovsky, Misha Gordon, future revolutionary Tiverzin; from a distance they see a stopped train, not yet knowing about terrible event, who called him, Yura Zhivago himself, his uncle Nikolai Nikolaevich Vedenyapin, who came to visit Duplyanka, where Nika Dudorov was at that time). In an armored carriage, the most important meeting for the further plot of Yuri Andreevich and Strelnikov takes place. Near the railway there is a booth in which Lara Marfa's former servant lives. It was she who ended up with the daughter of Zhivago and Lara Tanya, who many years later tells Dudorov and Gordon scary story murder of Marfa Petenka's son. It is significant that the death of Yuri Zhivago occurs near the rails - at a tram stop. Thus, through the meta-image of the railway, which embodies the inexorability of time and the deadening force, the main ideological and compositional Axis of the novel is realized: the opposition of the living and the dead.

Such a construction of the work gives the impression of a certain theatricality, but not understood in a straightforward manner, but as the embodiment of the Universal drama of existence. Hence such artistic features the novel as a diversity of linguistic forms, including the entire richest palette: from biblical and philosophical vocabulary, literary and poetic tradition to colloquial vernacular forms, street language, and village dialect. "One of artistic forces... the novel is the power of details,” points out R.B. Gul. “The whole novel rests on them, on this imagery, on this Russian word.” As other critics have noted, the theatricality of the novel is also correlated with its widespread use of extensive comparisons, metaphors, and personifications. In Pasternak’s own words, metaphor “is a natural consequence of man’s fragility and the long-planned enormity of his tasks, his spirit.” That's why beloved poetic device the writer so organically enters into his novel and allows him to realize his main idea on a stylistic level: to bring together the disparate poles of existence and overcome the forces of destruction, defeat death and gain immortality.

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This novel is the writer’s final book, a hard-won book. Speaking about his plan and the tasks that the Master set for himself (and this was expressed in letters), B.L. Pasternak emphasized: “This is my first real work. In it I want to give a historical image of Russia over the last forty-five years, and at the same time, sides of my plot: this thing will be an expression of my views on art, on the Gospel, on human life in history:”

The novel is based on the fate of Yuri Zhivago from the moment when he, still a boy, buries his mother in 1902, until 1929, when the hero himself dies of a broken heart on a Moscow street. Pasternak paints a world in which the intelligentsia of his generation was formed. In her youth, she expected and welcomed the revolution, still having little idea of what it was. Then dreams collide with the truth of life, and the unexpected is revealed: the world is multifaceted. Christian and revolutionary ideals do not coincide in him; individuality is suppressed by the categorical nature of time. The novel does not give us a description of political events, social clashes, it is fundamentally philosophical: we ponder with interest the reflections and disputes of the heroes about life, about the destiny of man, we realize the fate of a creative personality in the revolution.

In his youth, to the hero of B. Pasternak, as well as to the author himself, the revolution seemed to be the highest act of justice; there seemed to be “something evangelical” in it. The disappointment was all the more bitter. “I was very revolutionary, but now I think that you can’t take anything by force. You need to attract good with good,” this is how Yu.A assesses the outcome of spiritual quests. Zhivago. If at first the hero saw the revolution as a panacea for ulcers, a medicine for healing society, then, having lost the illusion, he sees first of all inhumanity. Love, mercy, compassion disappear from life.

Doctor Zhivago stands between the two camps. He does not understand this division, does not recognize the normal existence of “generally reds”, as well as “generally whites”. Behind this “in general” there are specific people, individuals. Christian and revolutionary morality collide, the latter is rejected because it forces a person to “stop being himself.” Zhivago does not want to lose himself; he remains “above the fray.” Inhumane times drag people into a whirlpool of bloody carnage. The doctor is also carried away by this whirlpool, no matter how much he resists. The hero is not a fighter, but nevertheless participates in the civil war on one side or the other. Finding himself in a partisan detachment, he peers into the faces of the advancing whites. It seems to him that these are familiar people, that they met somewhere. They have the same roots, culture, upbringing, and they are forced to shoot at each other. Zhivago is a doctor, he took the Hippocratic Oath, he is called upon to save people, and by conviction the doctor is a humanist. He doesn't even have a weapon. But here it is handed to him. Yuri Zhivago starts shooting like everyone else, but he shoots at the charred tree standing in front of him. “But horror! No matter how careful the doctor was: he touched and wounded two, and it cost the third unlucky man, who fell not far from the tree, his life.”

Thus, in times of murder and bloody atrocities, a person becomes a criminal against his will. The position “above the fray” does not save the hero; he must take his place in the battle of the two sides. But even after killing a person, Zhivago remains himself. He honestly lives his life, without betraying the calling of a true Russian intellectual.

Antipode of Yu. Zhivago - Antipov - Strelnikov. There is already a contradiction in the names of the characters. Zhivago - life, living, eternal. Antipov changes his last name to Strelnikov. The vernacular sound of the real surname emphasizes the cold cruelty of the pseudonym. And the life of Lara’s husband, or rather, the end of it, is suicide, a gunshot. Only twice, and both times, Yuri Zhivago and Pavel Strelnikov meet by chance. For the first time, when Strelnikov is omnipotent, the lives and deaths of people depend on his words alone in cruel times. He speaks mockingly to Zhivago, but lets him go. The second meeting with the doctor ends with Strelnikov’s suicide. He is already a hunted man, persecuted by his former comrades. If after the first meeting, Pavel, remembering his family, thinks: “This is from a completely different life. We must first end this new one before returning to that interrupted one,” then summing up his life, Pavel Pavlovich bitterly says to Zhivago: “ : it seemed to me that not all freedom has been won yet. Now I will get it first, and then I belong entirely to them / my wife, my daughter /, my hands are untied. And: all my constructions have gone to dust. Tomorrow they will grab me: They will seize me and will not give me make excuses." The tragedy of the fate of Antipov - Strelnikov is shocking: from a funny boy, a young man in love, a talented teacher to an active participant in the revolution, a cruel commander, the embodiment of will, energy, mercilessness to a man crushed by the same revolution.

The heroes of Zhivago and Strelnikov are not only opposed (one is a nobleman, the second is a worker; one is a doctor, the other is a mathematician; Zhivago is a poet, Strelnikov is a commissar), but also compared. They are, as the novel says in the words of Shakespeare, “in the book of fate on one line.” They are both connected with Lara, who stands between them and loves both equally. Both are sincere, both die. But they die differently. And the point here is not in the specific circumstances of death, but ultimately in life. The hero's earnest readiness to actually carry out the revolution, to be its instrument, led to devastation of the soul and suicide. This is Antipov's fate. Zhivago did not lose himself, did not abandon the main thing in himself, did not accept any of the roles alien to him. A broken tram, in which there is nothing to breathe, is the last symbol characterizing Zhivago’s relationship with the world. The heart could not stand it, but the physical death of the hero does not mean the cessation of existence. According to the hero himself, no one disappears in the world. What remains are the poems of Doctor Zhivago - and this new form life.