Abstract

This study examines the socio-economic disorders in the lives of ordinary people in Russia generated due to the revolution in 1917 and the consequent civil war illustrated in the historical fiction Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, a prominent Russian poet and novelist. History and literature are inextricably linked. Literature, especially fiction, provides a detailed picture of people’s  lives in a society. So, fiction can be a living document of the society it has   been written on. Moreover, Boris Pasternak actively participated in the reality of that time. The Russian revolution had left a profound impact on Russian society and the other parts of the world. The word ‘Revolution’ always makes people thrilled. It has a call for unknown romanticism and dreams of change. But a ‘revolution’ does not affect everyone’s life similarly. This paper finds  out the impacts of the October revolution of 1917 and the Russian Civil War— how the myth of revolution paradoxically backfired in the lives of the common mass, bringing social disorders and trauma to the greatest extent in the lives of Russian people portrayed in Doctor Zhivago.