Subject
Pasternak
From
Date
Body
Alright.
Two corrections, however.
1. VN held PAsternak's poetry in higher respect than has been
suggested here, and "applauded" P's nomination, in 1953, for the Nobel
Prize on the strength of his poetry.
2. Pasternak was never pronounced "heir to Mayakovsky". On the
contrary: Mayakovsky, still in disfavour four years after his suicide, was
suddenly pronounced by Stalin as "the best and the most gifted poet of the
epoch" after the 1st COngress of the SOviet Writers in 1934, at which
Pasternak's name was bandied alarmingly by communists with some taste,
which made Pasternak rightly worried for his very life. So much so that he
wrote Stalin a letter thanking him for the Mayakovsky formula that
relieved him of the dubious and dangerous "leadership", however shortlived
and ill-reasoned, once and for all.
Gennady Barabtarlo
451 GCB University of Missouri
Columbia, MO 65211
573-882-9454 Fax 573-884-8456
Two corrections, however.
1. VN held PAsternak's poetry in higher respect than has been
suggested here, and "applauded" P's nomination, in 1953, for the Nobel
Prize on the strength of his poetry.
2. Pasternak was never pronounced "heir to Mayakovsky". On the
contrary: Mayakovsky, still in disfavour four years after his suicide, was
suddenly pronounced by Stalin as "the best and the most gifted poet of the
epoch" after the 1st COngress of the SOviet Writers in 1934, at which
Pasternak's name was bandied alarmingly by communists with some taste,
which made Pasternak rightly worried for his very life. So much so that he
wrote Stalin a letter thanking him for the Mayakovsky formula that
relieved him of the dubious and dangerous "leadership", however shortlived
and ill-reasoned, once and for all.
Gennady Barabtarlo
451 GCB University of Missouri
Columbia, MO 65211
573-882-9454 Fax 573-884-8456