My sister is life

Pasternak himself conveyed the story of the book: “When I finished“ Over the Barriers ”, the girl with whom I was in love asked me to give her this book. I felt that this was impossible - at that time I was fond of cubism, and she was raw, unspoiled - and then I began to write another for her on top of this book - “My sister is life” was born, she never found out about this substitution . "

The girl in question is Elena Aleksandrovna Vinograd, married to Dorodnov (1899-1987), and the words “on top of this book” meant literally sticking sheets in the publication “Over the Barriers” and replacing them with new, manuscript ones. On the cover of “Over the Barriers”, the manuscript of most of the poems that subsequently made up the book was donated to Elena Vinograd in June 1917, before her departure from Moscow to the Saratov province .

Twice during the summer-autumn of 1917, Pasternak came to Elena Vinograd in Balashov and Romanovka , which not only reflected on the love theme of the book, but also revealed to Pasternak the situation in which the country was in the fourth year of the war. The insistent demand for changes in that revolutionary summer was perceived by Pasternak as the natural voice of nature, when "it seemed that roads, trees and stars rallied and orated with people . " The endowment of inanimate nature with the qualities of an interlocutor and accomplice of his experiences has since become not only a distinctive feature of Pasternak's work, but also was one of the reasons for the disorder of his relationship with Elena Vinograd, who saw the world differently.

On the other hand, her image of a person trying to compromise neither with conscience nor with her own fate was associated with Pasternak with a revolution in which he saw the desire to end humiliation and injustice and the natural desire of a person to speak in his own voice. The image of the offended woman, thus, becomes for Pasternak a poetic symbol of the revolution.

A separate theme of the book is Lermontov’s, reflected in her dedication to Lermontov and in the poem that opens her first cycle - “In Memory of the Demon”. In addition to the obvious similarities with the “age of Lermontov” (Pasternak turned 27 in 1917), it is noteworthy that it was Lermontov for Pasternak at that time “personification of creative courage and discoveries, the foundation of everyday free poetic affirmation of life”.

The book was finalized in 1922 with the subtitle “Summer of 1917” in Moscow and Berlin by Z. I. Grzhebin publishing house, which consists of the following cycles:

• This is not the time for birds to sing
• Steppe book
• Favorite Fun
• Philosophy
• Songs in verse, so as not to miss
• Romanovka
• An attempt to separate the soul
• Return
• Elena
• Afterword

The book has been reprinted several times both during Pasternak's life and in recent decades. Immediately after the publication, she received approving reviews of O. Mandelstam (see his Notes on Poetry, 1923), M. Tsvetaeva , V. Bryusov, and other modern writers and critics. Pasternak himself, however, subsequently critically approached everything he had written before 1940, and to the Sister, in particular: “My hearing was spoiled by freaks and the fragility of everything familiar that reigned around. Everything normal said bounced off me. ”

In the minds of the general reader, “My sister is life” personifies early Pasternak.

• Zamyatin Dmitry . Internal geography of space. The Geonomics of Love in Boris Pasternak’s book “Sister My Life” // New Youth . - 2008. - No. 82 .