The Character Vasia in Boris Pasternack's Doctor Zhivago

The Character Vasia in Boris Pasternack's Doctor Zhivago

The character Vasia Brykin, in the novel Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternack, is created and developed as a symbol of the rampant and chaotic times during the turbulent Russian Revolution. His significance in relation to the overall plot is minor because of his only two sub-chapter appearances, but thematically he works to show the breakdown of the Russian economic and social infrastructure in the country, and the lasting effects it has on the generation of lives that were swept up in its political turmoil.

Vasia is introduced in chapter seven, on the train to the Urals, where Yurii Andreievich Zhivago learns of his depressing story. Vasia Brykin's father was killed in the war, and his mother had sent him to be apprenticed to his uncle at age sixteen. One day his uncle was called in by the local soviet authorities to answer some questions, and accidentally walked into the Bolshevik's labor recruitment office, where he was conscripted into forced labor and herded off to a train. Vasia and his aunt went to say farewell the next day, and his uncle pleaded with the guard, Voroniuk, to let him out of the car to see his wife for one last minute. Voroniuk, fearing for his own position, allowed him to leave only if Vasia stayed in his place for insurance. Vasia's uncle never returned, and he cried and pleaded with Voroniuk, but it was to no avail.

Physically, Vasia appeared "an attractive boy with regular features who looked like a royal page or an angel of God in a picture" (223). He has red hair, and an unspoiled innocent look to him. On the external, he is a very enthusiastic person, full of compassion and emotion, especially when he speaks of his family and life back in his home village of Veretenniki:

That's what I say-Buisky-Buisky village. Of course I know it, that's where you get off the main road, you turn right and right again. That's to get to us, to Veretenniki. And your way must be left, away from the river, isn't it? You know the river Pelga? Well, of course! That's our river. You keep following the river, on and on, and away up on the cliff...(224-225)