The text was considered miraculous”. Magic Words in.pdfVIP

POZNAŃSKIE STUDIA SLAWISTYCZNE NR 4/2013 Rebecca Jane Stanton rstanton@ „The text was considered miraculous”. Magic Words in Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago ABSTRACT. Stanton Rebecca Jane, «The text was considered miraculous». Magic Words in Pasternak’s “Doctor Zhivago”. „Poznańskie Studia Slawistyczne” 4. Poznań 2013. Adam Mickiewicz University Press, pp. 165–176. ISBN 978-83-232-2525-6. ISSN 2084-3011. In Doctor Zhivago , Pasternak brings scientific and political discourses into dialogue with magical ones. In an emblematic episode, two soldiers from opposing sides each wear a th protective amulet containing the „miraculous” text of the 90 Psalm. One dies; one survives. While this discrepancy is easily traced to scientific and socioeconomic causes, the episode is designed to foreground the least rational explanation: that done right, magic actually works. Embodying Pasternak’s interest in the interrelationships among science, politics, poetry, and magic, the textual amulet is especially significant because it represents a magical power that is reserved for words. This article finds that Pasternak’s novel contains numerous examples of such efficacious „magical” texts – from the Gospels to peasant songs, from political slogans to Zhivago’s poems – and argues that reading Doctor Zhivago by the light of these „magic words” yields insights into the aesthetics and design of the novel. Keywords: Pasternak; Doctor Zhivago ; magic; politics; poetics; fairy tale; socialist realism. A curious incident occurs a little over halfway through Boris Paster- nak’s Doctor Zhivago . The novel’s protagonist, Iurii Zhivago, is caught in