Who is Boris Paternak?

     First clue: he's an author
     Second clue: he is a poet.
     Third clue: he wrote a famous novel that was made into a movie starring Julie Christie and Omar Sharif.
      Fourth clue: the novel was smuggled to a French printer/publisher for publication.
Ans.
     He's the famous Russyan writer of the 20th century Who was recognized by Josef Stalin for his poetry, thereby avoiding banishment to some god-forsaken gulag work camp.  His famous work is, of course,  Doctor Zhivago.  Yes, it was banned in the old Soviet Union because it was perceived to be anti-state, anti-communist, anti-everything.  Despite his recognition by the old King Commie, Pasternak had to make an attempt at following the party line.  When he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, he did not travel to Sweden to receive his prize.  He was rightly afraid that if he left, he would not be allowed to return to the largest country in the world.
     However, his wife was not so lucky.  She was arrested and put on trial for the usual charges: subversion of the state.  She was questioned at length in that famous rat hole called a prison, Llubyanka.  Despite her pregnant condition, she was still held in solitary for months.  She lost that child due to conditions there.
    Why are we talking about old Boris?  Well, a documentary film has been produced that explains his life in a modern context and the effect his work had on the culture of the nation, a nation that only managed to survive for 70 years before imploding in 1989.   Thanks to Mikhail Gorbachev,, the transition was bloodless, and a new nation emerged that had high hopes.  Unfortunately, things have gone down hill of late as the Putin dictatorship continues to regress back to the former years when Russyans were subjects of the repressions of Communism and all its horrors.
    The film will be aired on Acorn TV, Monday night.  Like history?  watch it.