The first in Russia monument to the Nobel Prize-winning Russian poet and writer Boris Pasternak to open in Perm.
The monument to Boris Pasternak was created in Moscow by a famous artist Yelena Munz and delivered to Perm on June 8. It is set up in the Theater Park (near the Opera and Ballet Theater) and will officially be opened on June 12 (the Day of the City) at 9:30 am.
"So far, the Perm monument is the only commemoration of the poet's memory in Russia, apart from the tombstone (Peredelkino graveyard in Moscow) and a memorial plaque in Lavrushinskiy lane (Moscow), where the poet lived for along time," says Yuryatin Foundation Chairman Vladimir Abashev. The Moscow monument to Boris Pasternak is planned to be set up near the Pushkin museum in 2010.
In the West, Pasternak is best known for his epic novel Doctor Zhivago, a tragedy whose events span the last period of Tsarist Russia and the early days of the Soviet Union. It was first translated and published in Italy in 1957. In Russia, however, Boris Pasternak is most celebrated as a poet. My Sister Life, written in 1917, is arguably the most influential collection of poetry published in the Russian language in the 20th century.
Pasternak lived in Perm region in 1916, during World War I. He taught and worked at a chemical factory in Vsevolodovo-Vilve near Perm, which undoubtedly provided him with material for Dr. Zhivago many years later. Perm became the prototype of Yuryatin, the center town of the novel where the main characters met. Pasternak also celebrated Perm in a number of poems.
