Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (1890–1960) was a Russian poet, writer, and translator. Konstantin Fedin and Boris Pasternak met in the mid-20s, when both writers had already been writing for some time and seen their work in print. They happened to be published in the Krug writers’ association almanac, of which Fedin was a board member. It would appear that their friendship, which would last for many years, stemmed from this time. They were housemates in Lavrushinsky Lane in Moscow and in summer cottages in the Peredelkino writers’ village near Moscow.

There is a small book of poems by Boris Pasternak entitled 1905, published in 1927 and donated by the author to Fedin in June 1928, on display at the exhibition. The author wrote the following on the half-title (the half-title is the page preceding the title page): ‘To the writer Konstantin Fedin, who turned me into a real reader, as in childhood, with understandable gratitude and love. B. Pasternak. 14.VI.28.’

Pasternak felt something akin to his own experience of the world in the work of Fedin. ‘I am afraid (your world is so close to mine) that you will suspect me of imitating you when you read the autobiographical notes, already half written for Zvezda, because the material is so amazingly similar at times: Germany, music, training as a composer, and the story of a generation. So be it, ” Pasternak wrote in a letter to Fedin dated 9 September 1928, sharing his impression of the novel Brothers. They were peers (Pasternak was 2 years older than Fedin), and they had passed through the same dramatic events at the same age.

Pasternak and Fedin spent their childhoods in different cities, but the revolutionary unrest of 1905 affected both of them. This is reflected in their work. The description of the Black-Hundred pogroms in the novel Brothers is based on the personal experience of Fedin, who had to save his music teacher from an angry crowd. And on 25 October 1905, Pasternak felt the sting of Cossack whips as a fifteen-year-old teenager after running into protesters in the street. This personal experience also makes it into the works of Pasternak. The book given to Fedin, 1905, includes two poems, ‘1905’ (1925–1926) and ‘Lieutenant Schmidt’ (1926–1927), that employ a language new to Pasternak the lyricist. For these works, he would choose an epic style, which he considered more suited to the theme, over a lyrical one. According to the poet himself, however, it was not easy to do.