Claim: Doctor Zhivago's protagonist is Yuri Zhivago, a physician and poet.

Doctor Zhivago -LRB- До́ктор Жива́го , Doktor Zhivago -LSB- ˈdoktər ʐɨˈvaɡə -RSB- -RRB- is a novel by Boris Pasternak , first published in 1957 in Italy . The novel is named after its protagonist , Yuri Zhivago , a physician and poet , and takes place between the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the Civil War .   Due to its independent minded stance on the October Revolution , Doctor Zhivago was refused publication in the USSR . At the instigation of Giangiacomo Feltrinelli , the manuscript was smuggled to Milan and published in 1957 . Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature the following year , an event which embarrassed and enraged the Communist Party of the Soviet Union .   The novel was made into a film by David Lean in 1965 , and since then has twice been adapted for television , most recently as a miniseries for Russian TV in 2006 .