Boris Pasternak's epic love story is set in the years around the First World War and the Russian Revolution of 1917. Yuri Zhivago is a young doctor and rising poet, about to be married to Anna. He meets Lara (the teenage mistress of a politician) whe... (more)n she tries to kill herself. Lara marries the Bolshevik Antipov, and as the Great War unfolds Yuri and Lara go off to war to tend the wounded, fall in love and lead a passionate affair as the old régime collapses.