CIA orchestrated Dr. Zhivago's Nobel Prize to embarrass the Kremlin

[DoYouEverWonder]

London, Jan 15 (ANI): Nearly 50 years after Russian novelist Boris Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for his epic 'Doctor Zhivago', it has emerged that British intelligence and the CIA secretly facilitated the accolade to embarrass the Kremlin, which had banned the novel.

A new book by a respected Moscow researcher has said that US and British intelligence led a covert operation to publish a Russian language version of 'Doctor Zhivago' to comply with the Nobel committee rules that required works to be considered in their original language.

"I have no doubt whatsoever that the CIA played a key role in ensuring Pasternak received the Nobel Prize," the Times quoted Ivan Tolstoy as saying.

<snip>

According to a letter from a former CIA agent, which Tolstoy had discovered, the agency aided by the British, stole a copy from a plane that was forced to land in Malta.

While passengers waited for two hours, agents took the manuscript from a suitcase, photographed it and then placed it back.

http://www.dailyindia.com/show/103493.php/CIA-orchestrated-Dr-Zhivagos-Nobel-Prize-to-embarrass-the-Kremlin

[Crunchy Frog]

1. One if the more benign things they've ever done, overall.

BTW, I have a Soviet Russian language edition of that. It was produced during the brief period between the time glasnost allowed its publication, and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. Benign?

Read the rest of the story. They just about ruined the writer's life with their little operation.

[Crunchy Frog]

4. I didn't say "benign", I said "more benign".

The less benign things that they've done have involved deaths and torturings, sometimes in the millions.

Whatever the role of the CIA, I think the book deserved the recognition. As for ruining the writer's life, I hold the Kremlin responsible for that. It is very tragic, what happened to Olga Ivinskaya and her daughter.

[Captain Hilts]

5. No, the Soviet Government did. nt

[Gman]

3. Ivan Tolstoy comes from a very prominent Russian family

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolstoy

[davhill]

6. Sounds like the Kremlin embarassed itself

The CIA just gave it a little push.

[Igel]

7. Interesting,

but I don't know that I buy it.

In 1957 the book was published by Feltrinelli in Milan, not anonymously. The US edition was in 1958. Hardly simultaneous publication. Pasternak wanted Feltrinelli to return the manuscript he had. This implies that either the CIA acted as Pasternak's agent, or the CIA's role is much inflated.

Here's one report at the time, between publications. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,810175,00.html Whether or not Feltrinelli was, indeed, a communist, I don't now. Of course, one could say that this is revised to support the usual history, but it would be far too embarrassing for archived copies to be at odds with the on-line version.


I have no evidence that Ivan Tolstoy is any relation to the famous Tolstoys from the 18-20th centuries. 'Tolstoy' is a common enough name, a dialectal version of the word for 'fat' or 'thick'. In my preferred transliteration (which would have the writer's name rendered 'Tolstoj') the usual word is 'tolstyj'. If the reporter had provided his patronymic we'd perhaps have a clue.

My first response, given the documentation for the traditional version of events that I. Tostoy disputes, is to ask to see the letter from the CIA agent and have it validated. If not, we're left with somebody saying there's a single anonymous report that the other documentation is wrong. This merely smacks of yet another effort to say anything embarrassing or bad that happened to the USSR/Russia was the result from the all-knowing all-powerful CIA. There's certainly no shortage of that in Russia nowadays.