Boris Pasternak's extraordinary and tragic story reflects the passionate intensity of artistic life in Russia. He grew up in a world where literary endeavour was an act of solidarity as well as defiance and where art was indissolubly linked with violence. Boris Pasternak, who in his own lifetime became known not only as a great national poet but as the conscience of Russia, steadfastly refused to compress himself into an ideological strait-jacket. His world-famous novel, Dr Zhivago, was banned in his own country and he was forced to decline the Nobel Prize for Literature under threats of expulsion from Russia.