How It All Goes Down
When we first meet Doctor Yuri Zhivago, he isn't a doctor yet. In fact, he's just a little boy at his mother's funeral. His father has deserted him, and with his mother gone, he feels like he has nothing left. The only person to take care of him is his beloved uncle Nikolai, a published social thinker who raises Yuri to always be independent and to think for himself.
As Zhivago gets older, he leaves his uncle and goes to live with the Gromeko family. While growing up there, he gets married to Tonya Gromeko, and the two of them have a son. Right after his son is born, however, Yuri gets called away to work as a doctor for the Russian army in World War I.
While serving in the war, Zhivago meets a nurse named Lara Antipova and falls in love with her. Lara's husband Pasha has gone missing in the war and is presumed dead. But rather than have an affair with Lara, Zhivago stays true to his wife Tonya and heads back home when the fighting is over. Meanwhile, the Bolshevik Revolution has taken hold of Russia, and the entire country is turned upside down.
When it becomes almost impossible to survive the Moscow winter, Yuri and his family move to the Ural Mountains to go stay on Tonya's old family property at Yuriatin. But the property has been seized by the Bolsheviks (the group of Communists who eventually took over), and since Zhivago and Tonya both come from rich families, they're not very well liked by the Communist Party. They try to live as quietly as possible without letting anyone know they're living there.
One day, Zhivago gets kidnapped by a band of merry men and is forced to work as a doctor for them as they wage war on the remaining "Whites"—the dudes who are trying to fight the Communists for control of Russia. After spending years away from his family, Zhivago finally escapes and heads back to Yuriatin, only to find that his family has gone back to Moscow. But guess who's still living in Yuriatin when he gets back? Yup, his old flame Lara Antipova.
Zhivago and Lara have an affair that keeps Zhivago from going to his family in Moscow. As time passes, though, it becomes clear that Lara and Zhivago are both in deep trouble with the Communist authorities. They move out into the woods to avoid arrest. But soon enough, they know they'll be found. Zhivago tricks Lara into leaving for a safer place by saying that he'll be right behind her. But he stays right where he is.
Eventually, Zhivago moves back to Moscow. His family, though, has been deported to Paris, so he spends the rest of his days suffering from heart trouble and writing as much poetry and philosophy as he can. One day, his heart finally gives out while he's riding a streetcar, and he dies. Two of his buddies find his old notebooks and organize them for publication. The final section of the book gives us a look at 25 poems that Zhivago wrote throughout his life.
Russian Names For the Win
Every Russian has a first name, a last name, and something called a patronymic, which is just a fancy way of saying "middle name based on the name of your father." Patronymics all end in -ich or -vich for men and -ovna or -evna for women.
Let's look at Zhivago, for example. His first name is Yuri, his last name is Zhivago, and his patronymic is Andreevich (which means "son of Andrei"). All together, it's Yuri Andreevich Zhivago. Our heroine's full name is Larisa Fyodorovna Antipova ("Fyodorovna" means "daughter of Fyodor").
Bear with us now. When Russians are in formal situations (like where you might call someone Mr. or Ms. So-and-So), they use the first name and patronymic. So if someone calls our protagonist "Yuri Andreevich," you know they're being formal with him. Same goes for "Larisa Fyodorovna." You don't address your friends or family members that way, unless they're way older than you are.
Unfortunately, you don't use your friends' or family members' first names, either. You use something called a diminutive. It's a lot like English, really. If your brother's name is Robert, chances are you call him Rob or Bobby, or something like that. Same goes here. Yuri Zhivago's friends and family members call him Yura or Yurochka. Lara is the diminutive of Larissa, so that's why Zhivago always calls her Lara.
Have you got all that straight in your head? Great, now try doing that for the dozens of other characters in this book. Believe it or not, Russian readers would be totally used to this sort of thing because it's normal to call people by lots of different names in Russian. If you read anything by Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, you'll find the same thing.
Phew.
P.S. In case you were wondering, that "zh" in "Zhivago" (and in any other Russian word) is pronounced like the "s" in "pleasure."