The Russian poet and prose writer Boris Pasternak was born in Moscow, in an art-oriented family. His mother was a concert pianist, the father a painter who also illustrated the books of his friend Leo Tolstoy. Boris Pasternak studied music during his schooldays, under strong influence of the composer Skryabin. He changed, however, to studying philosophy at the universities in German Marburg and Moscow, concentrated on poetry from 1913, and became a member of the futurist group "Centrifuga".