67 years ago today, on October 31, 1958 (September 19, 1958 in the lunar calendar), Bastelnak refused to accept the Nobel Prize. Bastelnak On October 31, 1958, Soviet writer Boris Bastelnak was forced to refuse the Nobel Prize in Literature. Although he said in a letter to the Swedish Academy that he "voluntarily refused," Westerners believe that the Soviet government forced him to refuse. His novel "Doctor Zhivago" is set during the Russian Revolution and criticizes Soviet ideology. Bastelnak, 68, is a popular poet and translator. After he finished writing Doctor Zhivago in early 1958, he went to find a Soviet publisher to publish it, but due to political reasons, the publisher refused to publish it for him. Bastelnak later published the book in an Italian publishing company. What the book describes is basically a love story that praises the ethics of Christianity. On this day, at a conference in Moscow, a Communist Youth League leader called Basternak a "pig."