Stalin personally protected Pasternak from persecution. People around him, including his mistress, were arrested but the writer himself wasn’t touched. None of the great Russian writers were hurt in any way during Stalinism. The only exception was Osip Mandelshtam. Jewish like Pasternak, he had an even greater poetic gift. The only untalented poem he ever wrote made vicious fun of Stalin’s physical appearance. As a result, Mandelshtam died in the camps.
Other than that, Stalin made no attempt to destroy the Russian literature. Even the great Russian modernists survived when modernism was banned.
Almost all of the Ukrainian writers, on the other hand, were executed during the Stalinist era. Stalin was a true Russian nationalist in spite of not being Russian and not speaking the language well. It happens.
Clarissa's Blog 
“in spite of not being Russian and not speaking the language well.”
Or perhaps precisely because he was not Russian and did not speak the language well [Stalin’s thick Georgian accent as well as his lack of sophisticated Russian syntax were notorious]. He had something to prove.
Nationalism – unlike patriotism, which is selfless – is a form of narcissism. Hitler was a rabid German nationalist in spite of being Austrian: how sick is that?
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