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Part 4: Imminent Inevitabilities
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Doctor Zhivago, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
History and Agency
Destiny
Social Differences and Social Change
Love and Responsibility
Russian Culture and Christianity
Summary
Analysis
The town that Yuri , Lara, and Galliulin find themselves in is called Meliuzeevo. Meliuzeevo is buzzing with activity, both from the war and the revolution, and Yuri is unable to secure a place on a train back to Moscow. He writes letters to Tonya, but his description of Lara and their tangled history provokes a histrionic response—Tonya angrily insists he follow Lara off the Urals. Yuri attempts to disabuse Tonya of her suspicions, insisting there is nothing between Lara and himself. Meanwhile, the countryside around Meliuzeevo continues to rise up against the government. A group of deserters proclaim a people’s republic in the village of Zybushino—the revolutionaries, socialist Christian mystics, claim to have restored a deaf and dumb man’s speech. Loyalist troops suppress the revolt, but the deserters take control of a nearby railway junction.
Yuri, Lara, and Galliulin remain in the same hospital, now revealed to be in the town of Meliuzeevo. Even here, in a small provincial town, the revolution has upended life and inspired normal people to take power into their own hands. The ongoing economic crisis and the Provisional Government’s unpopular decision to continue fighting in World War I magnifies the chaos of social upheaval. Massive unrest continued from the February to the October Revolutions, with all kinds of political groups and movements fighting the government, the Axis powers, and each other. Yuri, for his part, is more concerned with his family, whom circumstances keep him removed from.
Themes
The hospital is located in the former estate of a provincial aristocrat who donated it to the war effort. Two of the aristocrat’s staff remain: her French governess, Mademoiselle Fleury, and her cook, Ustinya. An incorrigible gossip, Mademoiselle attempts to play matchmaker with Lara and Yuri . Ustinya is more concerned with supporting the revolution, angrily arguing in favor of the Zybushino deserters at town meetings.
At the beginning of World War I there was a great outpouring of social enthusiasm, prompting the aristocracy to materially support the war effort. The wealthy Russian aristocracy would keep large staffs and reliably employed western European governesses to educate their children.
Themes
While preparing his papers to leave town, Yuri meets the new commissar, Gintz, sent to prepare soldiers for the latest offensive. Gintz, an arrogant young man quickly promoted to leadership, is confident he can convince the deserters to stand down and refuses to call in Cossacks to disarm the rebels. Gintz speechifies and proclaims, heedless of the warnings he’s been given that the deserters will be unmoved by his lofty ideas and odes to freedom and national salvation. Yuri is bored by this scene and slips out to say his goodbyes to Lara. Moved by the poetic power of the warm summer night, Yuri decides to put off his goodbyes a little longer and watch the town meeting instead, during which Gintz is booed and jeered by the audience, especially Ustinya.
Gintz is typical of the enthusiastic supporters of the Provisional Government, often from liberal elite backgrounds, who tried to reignite the people’s enthusiasm for the war with little success. Gintz is a professional officer motivated by a strong sense of honor and completely fails to understand why the deserters will not be sympathetic to his appeal. Yuri watches this with his characteristic ironic remove, as he finds the war abhorrent but is equally wary of the deserters and does not see any way that he can meaningfully intervene to deescalate the situation in Meliuzeevo and Zybushino.
Themes
The next day Yuri finds Lara in the laundry room. They discuss the situation in town, and Yuri advises her to leave before it escalates. He expounds on his theory of a national awakening in Russia, one that stems from much deeper and more spiritual roots than the revolution or socialism alone. Yuri gets carried away and accidentally divulges the depths of his feelings for Lara and his worries on her behalf amidst the chaos of revolution. Lara, who accidentally burns the clothes she is ironing while listening to him, insists he speak no more of his passion. One week later, with no further intimate conversations between them, she departs.
The state of unrest in Meliuzeevo reflects the mood nationwide, as growing discontent with the Provisional Government—and with the war specifically—threatens another revolution, or even civil war. Yuri is moved by this idea, but in an abstract or philosophical way, not as a political opportunity. Yuri’s poetic inclinations often lead him from one powerful idea to another, and he easily slips from speaking about his love of Russia to his budding love for Lara—who, for her part, keeps her feelings more tightly disciplined.
Themes
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Soon it is Yuri’s time to leave too. The night before a powerful storm comes over the town, waking Mademoiselle Fleury in fright. Mademoiselle, convinced someone is angrily knocking on the hospital door, goes looking for help. Galliulin is already gone, having escaped after chaos broke out at the railway junction, resulting in Gintz’s death, though the arrival of fresh troops prevented an uprising in town. Mademoiselle wakes up Yuri to see who is knocking, but they discover to their relief that it is only a broken window shutter.
This chapter moves through events out of chronological order, narrating Yuri and Mademoiselle’s night alone in the hospital before Gintz’s demise. The storm and the knocking noises at the window offer a metaphor for the state of Russia itself, as the menacing possibilities that the future holds become harder and harder to ignore.
Themes
Gintz’s death is widely blamed on a telegraphist who failed to communicate Galliulin’s order that Gintz refrain from approaching the deserters alone. Meanwhile, the arriving Cossacks surround the deserters. Gintz enters their camp to address them directly, but his speech is poorly received, and soon even the Cossacks begin to doubt their loyalty to him. Gintz is advised to leave, but as he walks off, making little effort to escape quietly, several deserters follow him. Gintz runs toward the train station but refuses to hide the telegraph station. Instead, he jumps on a barrel and addresses the deserters again, who are so surprised by his bravery that they lower their weapons—until he falls into the barrel, which is full of water, causing the soldiers to burst into laughter and then shoot him in the head.
The telegraph miscommunication reveals the chaotic state of the Provisional Government’s army, which continued to suffer major defeats at the hands of the Germans and Austrians. Gintz attempts to communicate with the deserters as if they share his values, failing to realize they are from entirely different social backgrounds and that the idea of Russia’s honor means much less to them than safety, food, and freedom. Still, his own suicidal courage impresses them if only by its boldness. When that courage turns to comedy, however, he loses any value in their eyes.
Themes
Yuri is finally able to leave, fighting his way through the crowd milling around the station waiting for trains. As he travels, he observes the total breakdown of the overcrowded and disorganized railways but is able to successfully transfer to a train to Moscow overnight. Onboard, Yuri finds himself sharing a compartment with a strange young man dressed in hunting gear and carrying several shot game birds, as well as his dog. The young man speaks with a strange, implacable accent or speech disorder. Later, when they put out the lights, Yuri speaks to the man, who ignores him—when he lights a match, however, the young man politely responds to him once again.
The Russian economy depends on the train networks crisscrossing the vast country, which by now are in shambles; passenger trains are given last priority after the military and the government, and individual passengers must find more and more elaborate ways to get onboard. Because of his chaotic experience on the first train, Yuri is surprised to find only one cabinmate on the second. He is even more surprised to find someone seemingly engaged in a leisure pastime like hunting, an activity far removed from this time of revolution and war.
Themes
Overnight, Yuri muses on the awesome and catastrophic changes of recent years and the mysterious destiny that awaits Russia and his own family. The new future includes both suffering and freedom—and Lara. Yuri wakes to find the train approaching Moscow, and resumes his conversation with the strange young man, an aristocratic dandy turned nihilistic revolutionary. Finally, the young man, Pogorevshikh, explains that he is deaf and has learned to speak by lip-reading—indeed, he is the very same deaf man who inspired the rebellion in Zybushino, which for Pogorevshikh was a laboratory for his revolutionary theories.
Yuri’s philosophical wanderings foreshadow the great personal conflict that will define the coming years of his life, in the shadow of the great political conflict between the Reds and the Whites: the conflict between his growing love for Lara and the new possibilities she offers him, and his commitment to his own family and their future. In yet another coincidence, Pogorevshikh turns out to be behind the uprising that killed Gintz, as he allowed the deserters to believe that he gained the power of speech through divine inspiration and not lip-reading.
Themes
Yuri criticizes Pogorevshikh’s recklessness, but Pogorevshikh dismisses his objections as naïve. Yuri is disturbed and turns to watch the approaching suburbs, experiencing a sudden clarity about life, history, and his place in the world. Pogorevshikh gives him a duck as a parting gift, insisting Yuri take it home to his wife (Tonya).
For Yuri, Pogorevshikh is the worst kind of revolutionary, someone who is unwilling to take responsibility for his actions and indeed revels in the chaos that they cause. For Pogorevshikh, Yuri remains trapped in the old way of thinking, though his old-fashioned, aristocratic manner and his insistence that Yuri take the very traditional gift of a hunted duck home with him give his assertion an ironic twist.
Themes
