Olga Vsevolodovna Ivinskaya (Russian: Ольга Всеволодовна Ивинская; June 16, 1912, in Tambov – September 8, 1995, in Moscow) was a Soviet poet and writer.

She is best-known as friend and lover of Nobel Prize-winning writer Boris Pasternak during the last 13 years of his life and the inspiration for the character of Lara in his novel Doctor Zhivago (1957).

[1] She met Boris Pasternak in October 1946, in the editorial office of Novy Mir, where she was in charge of the new authors department.

While she was translating the Bengali language poet Rabindranath Tagore, Pasternak advised her, to "1) bring out the theme of the poem, its subject matter, as clearly as possible; 2) tighten up the fluid, non-European form by rhyming internally, not at the end of the lines; 3) use loose, irregular meters, mostly ternary ones.

[5] Doctor Zhivago was published in Italy in 1957 by Feltrinelli, with Ivinskaya conducting all negotiations on Pasternak's behalf.

[1] Ivinskaya was one of nine "prisoners of conscience" featured in Persecution 1961, a book by Peter Benenson that helped launch Amnesty International.

She was accused of being Pasternak's link with Western publishers in dealing in hard currency for Doctor Zhivago.

The Supreme Court of Russia ended up ruling against her on the ground that "there was no proof of ownership" and "papers should remain in the state archive".

[5] Her daughter, Irina Emelianova, who emigrated to France in 1985, published a book of memories of her mother's affair with Pasternak.