PASTERNAK BORIS (1890-1960) Doctor Zhivago. Milan: Feltrinelli editore, 1957. - [4], 566, [2] p.; 22x14 cm.

In publisher's cardboard binding. In satisfactory condition. Fragments of the dust jacket are pasted into the block, the spine is reinforced with tape, the block is loose, with signs of wear, dirt, ownership marks on the title page and other pages, and a personal portrait inserted. In the spring of 1956, Boris Pasternak submitted the manuscript of his just-completed novel to two leading literary magazines, "Novy Mir" and "Znamya," as well as the anthology "Literaturnaya Moskva." In the summer of 1956, Pasternak, not expecting a prompt publication of the novel in the USSR, entrusted a copy of the manuscript to the Italian publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli through journalist Sergio D'Angelo. In November 1957, "Doctor Zhivago" was first published in Milan by Feltrinelli, "despite all the efforts of the Kremlin and the Italian Communist Party" (for this, Feltrinelli was later expelled from the party). The release of "Doctor Zhivago" in the West and the subsequent awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature to the author marked the beginning of the persecution of Boris Pasternak in his homeland. Under pressure from the Soviet authorities, he was forced to decline the awarded prize. This is the first edition of the novel in Russian.