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1890
Born to painter Leonid Pasternak and pianist Rozaliya Kaufman
in Moscow, where he lived most of his life
1903-9
Studies music with Scriabin
1908-13
Studies philosophy at Moscow University
1909
Translates Rilke
1912
Travels to Germany to study Neo-Kantianism at Marburg University
with Hermann Cohen
1913
Makes debut with the Lirika poetic group
1914
Publishes first collection Twin in the Stormclouds; joins
Sergei Bobrov's Futurist group Tsentrifuga; meets Mayakovsky
in the spring
1917
Second collection Over the Barriers published
1922
Publishes My Sister Life, even though the verses
had circulated since 1917 and had already earned him a strong
reputation. This cycle contain lush and powerful imagery,
which contrasts with the disciplined quatrain metrics and
often idiomatic language; publishes prose piece "Zhenya
Luver's Childhood"; marries Evgeniya Lurie
1923
Publishes collection Themes and Variations; joins
the Lef group, but only for a short time
1924
Publishes "Aerial Ways," his first piece critical
of the Revolution, a movement he initially supported
1926
Reconstructs own memories and publishes The Year 1905
(see left)
1927
Publishes Lieutenant Schmidt, also set in 1905, describes,
in anapestic verse, the hero in Christ-like manner, a symbol
that appears throughout his later poetry
1931
Publishes Spektorsky, on which he had worked since
1924, a novel in verse describing his own life before the
revolution; writes Safe Conduct, an autobiographical
record of those who had influenced his artistic development,
was criticized by orthodox proletarian critics for its bourgeois
individualism; divorces Lurie and takes up with Zinaida
Neigauz, with whom he traveled to Georgia, where he met
and developed friendships with a number of Georgian writers
1932
Georgian experience influences collection Second Birth,
in which Pasternak strove toward a new simplicity in his
verse
1934
Is a leading speaker at the First Congress of Writers
1935
Travels to Paris as part of Soviet delegation
1943
Publishes On Early Trains
1945
Publishes Breadth of Earth
1953
Publishes translation of Goethe's Faust
1955
Completes novel Doctor Zhivago, which contains a
cycle of poetry, ostensibly the work of the novel's hero,
at its conclusion
1957
Zhivago is published in Italy after having been rejected
for publication by Soviet censors; publishes more transparent
verse collection When the Weather Clears
1958
He is awarded the Nobel
Prize for Literature and forced to refuse the prize
by officialdom; he endures a terrible slander campaign and
is sentenced to internal exile
1960
Dies in Peredelkino and thousands attend his funeral
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