“I don’t write a commissioned play, but something of my own”: the play “The earthly world” by Boris Pasternak as a milestone on the way to the novel “Doctor Zhivago”

The article discusses poorly studied drama by B. Pasternak “The Earthly World” (1942), which was a step on the writer’s creative path to the novel “Doctor Zhivago”. Pasternak thought to name the creating novel (1947) by the name of the main character of the drama - “Innokentiy Dudorov”. Poetics of the title indicates the relationship between “The Earthly World” and “Doctor Zhivago”. The research provides an overview of the transformation of the characters images, that appeared in the drama (Druzyakina / Bezocheredeva), when they were transferred to the novel. Dudorov’s opinion about revolution and the Great Patriotic War reveal Pasternak’s worldview in the years immediately preceding “Doctor Zhivago”. Similar lexical and stylistic techniques in the depiction of heroes from common people, close mythopoetic and biblical motives bring together “The Earthly World” and “Doctor Zhivago”. Based on the research, the existence of plot invariants in “Patrick’s notes, “The Earthly World” and “Doctor Zhivago” is proved. The image of Innokenty Dudorov is considered in the process of evolution in the three mentioned works. The research proposes to consider the alternate change of the titles of the novel “Boys and girls”, “Innokenty Dudorov” and “Death will not happen” in the line of the shift of emphasis from the fate of the Pasternak generation of the 1890s to the immortality of creativity. The article first time publishes excerpts from P. Vasiliev’s letter from the front to B. Pasternak (1944).