The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle Over a Forbidden Book
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Author:
Finn, Peter
Author:
Couvée, Petra
Published:
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group 2014
Format:
Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Status:
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Description

Drawing on newly declassified government files, this is the dramatic story of how a forbidden book in the Soviet Union became a secret CIA weapon in the ideological battle between East and West.
 
In May 1956, an Italian publishing scout took a train to a village just outside Moscow to visit Russia’s greatest living poet, Boris Pasternak. He left carrying the original manuscript of Pasternak’s first and only novel, entrusted to him with these words: “This is Doctor Zhivago. May it make its way around the world.” Pasternak believed his novel was unlikely ever to be published in the Soviet Union, where the authorities regarded it as an irredeemable assault on the 1917 Revolution. But he thought it stood a chance in the West and, indeed, beginning in Italy, Doctor Zhivago was widely published in translation throughout the world.
 
From there the life of this extraordinary book entered the realm of the spy novel. The CIA, which recognized that the Cold War was above all an ideological battle, published a Russian-language edition of Doctor Zhivago and smuggled it into the Soviet Union. Copies were devoured in Moscow and Leningrad, sold on the black market, and passed surreptitiously from friend to friend. Pasternak’s funeral in 1960 was attended by thousands of admirers who defied their government to bid him farewell. The example he set launched the great tradition of the writer-dissident in the Soviet Union.
 
In The Zhivago Affair, Peter Finn and Petra Couvée bring us intimately close to this charming, passionate, and complex artist. First to obtain CIA files providing concrete proof of the agency’s involvement, the authors give us a literary thriller that takes us back to a fascinating period of the Cold War—to a time when literature had the power to stir the world.
(With 8 pages of black-and-white illustrations.)

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Subjects

Subjects
Biography & Autobiography
History
Politics
Nonfiction

More Details

Street Date:
06/17/2014
Language:
English
ISBN:
9780307908018
ASIN:
B00HKVE1K2

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Citations

APA Citation (style guide)

Peter Finn. (2014). The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle Over a Forbidden Book. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Peter Finn. 2014. The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle Over a Forbidden Book. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Peter Finn, The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle Over a Forbidden Book. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2014.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Peter Finn. The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle Over a Forbidden Book. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2014.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.

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Shared Digital Collection11
East Hampton Public Library00

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Date Added:
Dec 14, 2020 08:23:02
Date Updated:
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Last Metadata Check:
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Last Metadata Change:
Jan 27, 2025 05:57:44
Last Availability Check:
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Last Availability Change:
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Last Grouped Work Modification Time:
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OverDrive Product Record

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The Zhivago Affair
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Drawing on newly declassified government files, this is the dramatic story of how a forbidden book in the Soviet Union became a secret CIA weapon in the ideological battle between East and West.
 
In May 1956, an Italian publishing scout took a train to a village just outside Moscow to visit Russia’s greatest living poet, Boris Pasternak. He left carrying the original manuscript of Pasternak’s first and only novel, entrusted to him with these words: “This is Doctor Zhivago. May it make its way around the world.” Pasternak believed his novel was unlikely ever to be published in the Soviet Union, where the authorities regarded it as an irredeemable assault on the 1917 Revolution. But he thought it stood a chance in the West and, indeed, beginning in Italy, Doctor Zhivago was widely published in translation throughout the world.
 
From there the life of this extraordinary book entered the realm of the spy novel. The CIA, which recognized that the Cold War was above all an ideological battle, published a Russian-language edition of Doctor Zhivago and smuggled it into the Soviet Union. Copies were devoured in Moscow and Leningrad, sold on the black market, and passed surreptitiously from friend to friend. Pasternak’s funeral in 1960 was attended by thousands of admirers who defied their government to bid him farewell. The example he set launched the great tradition of the writer-dissident in the Soviet Union.
 
In The Zhivago Affair, Peter Finn and Petra Couvée bring us intimately close to this charming, passionate, and complex artist. First to obtain CIA files providing concrete proof of the agency’s involvement, the authors give us a literary thriller that takes us back to a fascinating period of the Cold War—to a time when literature had the power to stir the world.
(With 8 pages of black-and-white illustrations.)

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Drawing on newly declassified government files, this is the dramatic story of how a forbidden book in the Soviet Union became a secret CIA weapon in the ideological battle between East and West.
 
In May 1956, an Italian publishing scout took a train to a village just outside Moscow to visit Russia’s greatest living poet, Boris Pasternak. He left carrying the original manuscript of Pasternak’s first and only novel, entrusted to him with these words: “This is Doctor Zhivago. May it make its way around the world.” Pasternak believed his novel was unlikely ever to be published in the Soviet Union, where the authorities regarded it as an irredeemable assault on the 1917 Revolution. But he thought it stood a chance in the West and, indeed, beginning in Italy, Doctor Zhivago was widely published in translation throughout the world.
 
From there the life of this extraordinary book entered the realm of the spy novel....

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