Doctor Zhivago
Doctor Zhivago
by Boris Pasternak

Nikolai Nikolaevich Vedenyapin Character Analysis

Nikolai Nikolaevich Vedenyapin is the brother of Marya Nikolaevna Zhivago and the uncle and caregiver of Yuri Andreevich Zhivago. A former priest, Nikolai Nikolaevich is a Christian mystic-socialist and prolific writer who becomes an important figure in the revolutionary movement. Exiled after the 1905 Revolution, he returns in 1917 as a supporter of the Bolsheviks, despite the incongruity of his Christianity with their atheistic interpretation of communism.

Nikolai Nikolaevich Vedenyapin Quotes in Doctor Zhivago

The Doctor Zhivago quotes below are all either spoken by Nikolai Nikolaevich Vedenyapin or refer to Nikolai Nikolaevich Vedenyapin. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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).

Part 6: The Moscow Encampment Quotes

His friends had become strangely dull and colorless. None of them had held on to his own world, his own opinion. They were much brighter in his memories. Apparently he had overestimated them earlier.

As long as the order of things had allowed the well-to-do to be whimsical and eccentric at the expense of the deprived, how easy it had been to mistake for a real face and originality that whimsicality and right to idleness which the minority enjoyed while the majority suffered.

But as soon as the lower strata arose and the privileges of the upper strata were abolished, how quickly everyone faded, how unregretfully they parted with independent thinking, which none of them, evidently, had ever had!

Related Characters: Nika Dudorov, Nikolai Nikolaevich Vedenyapin, Yuri Andreevich Zhivago, Misha Gordon
Page Number and Citation: 204
Explanation and Analysis:
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Nikolai Nikolaevich Vedenyapin Character Timeline in Doctor Zhivago

The timeline below shows where the character Nikolai Nikolaevich Vedenyapin appears in Doctor Zhivago. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part 1: The Five O’Clock Express
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...son to burst into tears. The boy, Yuri Andreevich Zhivago, is comforted by his uncle, Nikolai Nikolaevich Vedenyapin , the only other family member present. Nikolai Nikolaevich and Yuri stay overnight in the... (full context)
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Sometime later, in the summer, Yuri and Nikolai Nikolaevich are riding in a carriage through a field, on their way to visit the prominent... (full context)
Part 2: A Girl from a Different Circle
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...Gavrilovna, but they only narrowly escape when the protest is violently put down by Cossacks. Nikolai Nikolaevich watches the same demonstration from his window, recognizing Dudorov in the crowd. Nikolai Nikolaevich has... (full context)
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...a professor married to Anna Ivanovna, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist from the Urals. Nikolai Nikolaevich has been exiled, but Yuri is kept entertained by the Gromekos’ love of culture; Anna... (full context)
Part 3: The Christmas Party at the Sventitskys’
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...useful work. He writes poetry on the side, expressing his more esoteric interests in verse. Nikolai Nikolaevich , who now lives in Switzerland, has become a prominent advocate of socialist Christian mysticism.... (full context)
Part 6: The Moscow Encampment
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...Tonya discuss their plans for surviving the coming winter before she gives him important news: Nikolai Nikolaevich has returned to Russia. (full context)
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...being. Gordon remains resolutely moralistic. Dudorov, now a professor, speaks in a dull, academic register. Nikolai Nikolaevich has become a dedicated Bolshevik, prompting a fierce political debate with Alexander Alexandrovich. Even Shura... (full context)
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...One day later in the fall, Yuri is struggling with the family’s defective stove when Nikolai Nikolaevich enters with important news: supporters of the Bolsheviks and the Provisional Government are fighting in... (full context)
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While the Zhivagos, Nikolai Nikolaevich , and Gordon are trapped inside by the fighting, Sashenka gets sick. Yuri treats him... (full context)
Part 13: Opposite the House with Figures
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...returns home to find Lara listening to Simushka Tuntseva, who is a philosophical admirer of Nikolai Nikolaevich . Simushka explains her theory that human life can be divided into two categories: God... (full context)