Doctor Zhivago (novel)/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Banned in China: Pasternak's book was originally banned in the Soviet Union. A Dutch secret agent managed to get his hands on a Russian copy and he distributed it to his contacts at the CIA. They produced (technically pirated because an Italian publishing house held the original rights) thousands of copies of the original book and gave them to unsuspecting Soviet tourists at the 1958 World's Fair who smuggled them back to the USSR.
    • And the movie wasn't shown in Russia until 1994.
    • Soviet authorities forbade country musician Roy Clark from even playing the theme song from the movie during a tour in Russia in the 1970s.
  • Defictionalization: Later editions include excerpts of Yuri's poetry.

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