Boris Pasternak’s contemporary Leon Trotsky once remarked that anyone desiring a life away from the public eye should not have been born in the 20th century. This was particularly true in his Soviet Union, when private life became inseparable from the affairs of the state. Pasternak’s moving, decorative prose was deemed stylistically incompatible with the Soviet spirit, and that was before he turned political, having become increasingly disillusioned with Stalin’s regime. His masterpiece was unquestioningly Dr. Zhivago, a tragic tale of a man and his mistress attempting to lead a private life in the middle of the Russian revolution.

On this day, October 23, in 1958, as a result of an elaborate effort by the West to recreate his book, which was banned by the Soviet authorities, Boris Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.

Pasternak was of two minds about the award: ardently wishful for recognition, while at the same time dreadfully afraid of the Soviet reaction. Indeed, after the nomination was announced, the Kremlin made Pasternak’s students denounce him and stage a “spontaneous” demonstration. He was threatened with imprisonment; his wife with the gulag. Pasternak had no choice but to decline the honor.