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Doctor Zhivago (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)

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Characters Discussed

Yuri Andreievich Zhivago (YEW- ree ahn-DREH-yeh-vihch zhih-VAH-goh), the protagonist. When Zhivago’s mother dies at the beginning of the novel, he becomes practically an orphan because his father, a wealthy man ruined by alcohol, already has abandoned his family. Yuri Zhivago is then reared by a maternal uncle, Nikolai Vedeniapin, a liberal journalist and intellectual who is the first character to express something like Christian idealism. Later, in his school years, Yuri lives in the home of Alexander Gromeko, a chemistry professor with a wealthy,...

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