PASTERNAK, Boris Leonidovitch. Kogda Razguliaetsia (= When the weather clears). Paris, Edition des amateurs de la poésie de Pasternak, 1959.
8vo [206 x 141 mm] of 49 pp., (3) pp. and 1 loose leaf. Handwritten corrections on pp. 13, 15, 35 and 42. Preserved in original wrappers, as published, with the printed cover. Contemporary binding.
Rare first edition of Pasternak’s poetical masterpiece, printed in Paris in only 100 copies, and not intended for sale. It is Pasternak’s most sought-after work.
When the weather clears is Pasternak’s (1890-1960) most accomplished poetical collection. This collection of thirty poems resumes the author’s favourite themes: nature, the poet and his poetry, praise of womankind, his friends’ fate and his relation with God. The work starts with a quote from Proust: « Un livre est un grand cimetière où sur la plupart des tombes on ne peut plus lire les noms effacés. »
Doctor Zhivago was published in November 1957, in Italy. He was awarded by the Nobel Prize committee for this work in 1958, but he was forced to decline the Prize in order to protect his circle and himself. Actually, Russian authorities considered that this reward proved that the poet and writer was “a capitalist, anticommunist and unpatriotic agent of the West”. It is in this collection that pasternak includes the poem Nobelevskaia premiia (= The Nobel Prize), which describes his feelings following this event.
