ROME, MARCH 03 – Sergio D’Angelo, the man who made Boris Pasternak’s masterpiece, Doctor Zhivago, died at the age of 100 on October 30, despite his own an author who under heavy pressure from the Soviet regime tried to take a step back, with Feltrinelli who ignored his second thoughts. D’Angelo died in his home in San Martino al Cimino. There will be no religious ceremonies. He lets ANSA know about his daughter Francesca. The novel was published in the Italian translation in 1957, but in November of the previous year D’Angelo himself had taken it out of the Soviet Union, secretly to allow the writer to overcome the censorship that had seen him reject the book he did not hide criticism of communism. Giangiacomo Feltrinelli was expelled from the PCI for this, Pasternak was expelled from the union of writers but the book began the road to an extraordinary success later also consecrated by the five Oscars won by the film that was based on it in 1965. Born in Rome, D’Angelo in the fifties he went to work as a journalist at Radio Moscow and brought his whole family there, his wife Giulietta and their two children. A very brilliant, witty man, he considered the adventure of Pasternak and Feltrinelli “the adventure of his life and he had always talked about it all his life”, explained his daughter Francesca on the occasion of the centenary. After the events in Hungary he had distanced himself from the party, moving towards the centre. A true friendship was born with Pasternak, in the name of which the writer decided to entrust him with the manuscript, recommending that he make it known to the world. “This is Doctor #381;ivago”, said Pasternak to Sergio D’Angelo, “who goes around the world”. To then add, after handing him the typescript: “As of now, you are all invited to my shooting.” It was May 20, 1956: that afternoon the spark was lit that flared up in an international literary case, destined to involve the CPSU and the communist parties of half of Europe. Censored in the Soviet Union because it went against the dictates of the regime, the book was published by Feltrinelli in 1957. (ANSA).
(ANSA)
