Pasternak Prize

Pasternak Prize
Name	Pasternak Prize
Awarded for	Literary achievement in poetry and prose
Country	Russia
Year	1988
Presenter	Unofficial committees, cultural institutions, foundations

Pasternak Prize The Pasternak Prize is a literary award established in the late 20th century to honor achievements in lyric and narrative writing associated with the legacy of Boris Pasternak, Yevgeny Pasternak, Marina Tsvetaeva, Osip Mandelstam, and other figures linked to the Russian Silver Age. It emerged amid cultural debates involving the Nobel Committee, the Union of Soviet Writers, the European Cultural Foundation, and émigré circles in Moscow, London, Paris, New York, and Berlin during the 1980s and 1990s.

History

The award was conceived in the context of dissident networks around Anna Akhmatova, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Joseph Brodsky, Andrei Sakharov, and Viktor Shklovsky, and gained visibility after interactions with institutions such as the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Nobel Foundation, the International PEN Club, and the London School of Economics. Early organizers included activists linked to the Moscow Helsinki Group, Memorial, the Sorbonne, Columbia University, Harvard University, and the University of Oxford; patrons involved branches of the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Carnegie Corporation, and the Gulbenkian Foundation. Public announcements and ceremonies often took place in venues associated with the British Council, Goethe-Institut, Institut français, and the Jewish Museum in New York. The prize’s formation reflected tensions arising from the Cold War, glasnost under Mikhail Gorbachev, perestroika debates, and the collapse of the Soviet Union alongside cultural programs supported by UNESCO, the European Commission, and the Council of Europe.

Purpose and Criteria

The prize aims to recognize literary work resonant with the poetic, philosophical, and ethical dimensions associated with Boris Pasternak, Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva, Alexander Blok, and Vladimir Nabokov. Eligibility criteria were debated by jurors drawn from institutions including the Russian Academy of Sciences, the British Academy, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Académie française, and the PEN International board. Specific criteria referenced stylistic achievement akin to the work of Arthur Rimbaud, T. S. Eliot, Rainer Maria Rilke, Pablo Neruda, and W. H. Auden, and sometimes celebrated cross-cultural trajectories involving translators and publishers such as Penguin Books, Faber and Faber, Random House, Columbia University Press, and Yale University Press. Nomination practices invoked scholars from St. Petersburg State University, Moscow State University, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, and the University of California, Berkeley.

Notable Recipients

Recipients have included writers whose careers intersect with Anna Akhmatova, Joseph Brodsky, Marina Tsvetaeva, Vladimir Nabokov, Isaac Babel, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Andrei Bely, and Daniil Kharms. Other laureates came from the same literary circles as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Venedikt Erofeev, Bella Akhmadulina, Yulia Drunina, and Viktor Pelevin. Several awardees maintained ties to institutions such as the Russian State Library, the National Library of Russia, the British Library, the Library of Congress, and the Hermitage Museum. International recipients included authors connected to the works and reputations of Samuel Beckett, Jorge Luis Borges, Günter Grass, Seamus Heaney, and Wisława Szymborska, often represented by publishers like FSG, Canongate, and Seagull Books.

Controversies and Political Context

The prize has been entangled with disputes involving the Nobel Committee, the Union of Soviet Writers, the KGB, the Kremlin, and dissident groups associated with the Moscow Helsinki Group and Memorial. Controversies involved reactions from cultural ministries in Moscow, diplomatic protests from embassies in Washington, London, Paris, and Bonn, and public statements by figures such as Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin, Sergey Lavrov, and Anatoly Chubais. Accusations of politicization linked the award to émigré organizations in New York, Paris, and Tel Aviv, to human rights campaigns by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and to debates in journals such as Novy Mir, Znamya, Literaturnaya Gazeta, The New Yorker, The Times Literary Supplement, and The New York Review of Books. Legal challenges involved courts in Moscow, Strasbourg, and The Hague, and sparked commentary from commentators affiliated with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Voice of America, and the BBC.

Selection Process and Administration

Administration often combined informal committees with oversight from foundations and academic departments at Columbia University, Princeton University, King’s College London, the University of Toronto, and the European University at St. Petersburg. Selection panels have included members of PEN International, the British Council, the Swedish Academy, the Royal Society of Literature, and the International Literary Council. Nomination procedures ran through cultural attachés at embassies in Moscow, London, Paris, Berlin, and Washington, as well as through the editorial offices of Novaya Gazeta, Ogonyok, The Moscow Times, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, and Corriere della Sera. Funding sources involved private philanthropists, the Soros Foundation, the Yeltsin Center, and patron networks tied to museums such as the Pushkin Museum, the Tretyakov Gallery, and the Russian Museum.

Impact and Legacy

The award contributed to the rehabilitation and internationalization of writers linked to the Silver Age, influencing scholarship at institutions like Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, and the University of Chicago, and affecting translations published by Penguin Classics, the Everyman’s Library, and Modern Library. It shaped curricula in departments such as Slavic Studies at Columbia, Stanford, the University of Michigan, the University of Illinois, and Indiana University, and informed exhibitions at the British Museum, the Louvre, and the Jewish Museum. The prize’s legacy is visible in reference works produced by Routledge, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and in documentary projects by the BBC, Arte, NHK, and PBS. Its controversies and laureates remain topics in symposia at the Salzburg Festival, the Edinburgh International Book Festival, the Hay Festival, the Moscow International Book Fair, and academic conferences at the International Congress of Slavists.

Category:Russian literary awards