Pasternak turned down the Nobel prize as he had been informed that if he travelled to Stockholm to collect it, he would not be allowed back into the Soviet Union. He wrote to the Soviet Premier, Nikita Krushchev, to explain the quandary in which he found himself. He was criticised by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, both for refusing the prize and for writing the letter. Pasternak's lover, Olga Ivinskaya (said to be the inspiration for Doctor Zhivago), later blamed herself for persuading him to take both of these actions.
After Pasternak's death in 1960, Ivinskaya was arrested for her part in getting Doctor Zhivago published in the West. She was released in 1964, and in 1988 she was "rehabilitated" (i.e. returned to the state of acquittal). Pasternak's family were able to collect the prize in the same year.
Olga Ivinskaya died of cancer in 1995.
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