Okudzhava Bulat Shalvovich (1924-1997) - Soviet and Russian poet, prose writer and screenwriter, bard and composer. The most prominent representative of art song in the USSR. Based on his own poems and the folk epic of the Caucasus, he composed more than 200 original and pop songs.

Childhood

Bulat was born on May 9, 1924 in the famous Moscow maternity hospital named after Grauerman. The family where the boy was born was Bolshevik. His father, Shalva Stepanovich Okudzhava, was sent from Tiflis to the Moscow Communist Academy for party studies. My father was Georgian by nationality, and my mother, Nalbandyan Ashkhen Stepanovna, was Armenian.

On Moscow's Arbat, in a five-room apartment, the family was allocated two rooms. Six months after the birth of Bulat, Shalva Okudzhava was again called to Georgia in connection with party work. His wife with their little son and nanny remained in Moscow.

Bulat was mainly raised by a nanny, since his mother worked in the party apparatus. As an adult, Okudzhava recalled that dad was so distant, as if drawn, and mom was almost a ghost who appeared only in the evenings. A tired woman came home when her baby was already asleep, hugged the warm little bundle tightly to her, and continued to think about her party affairs.

When the boy was 5 years old, his father came to Moscow. But a year later he was appointed to a new position - first secretary of the Tiflis city party committee. This time the Okudzhavas all left for Georgia together.

Youth

Bulat began his studies at the Tiflis Russian School. Since he had perfect pitch by that time, he was additionally sent to study at a music school.

My father did not stay long at party work in Georgia, as he had a conflict with Beria, and Shalva Okudzhava himself turned to Ordzhonikidze to be transferred to work in Russia.

In 1932, the family moved to Nizhny Tagil, where Bulat’s father led the construction of the largest Ural carriage plant. The Okudzhavas now lived far from the center of the USSR, and in Leningrad it was at this time that the wheel of political terror had already begun to spin. Everything was calm in Bulat’s family; in 1934, his brother Victor was born.

But in 1937 this bloody wheel reached Nizhny Tagil. Shalva Stepanovich was arrested, and his wife and two sons moved to Moscow again. She was expelled from the party and soon arrested. Bulat recalled how he was afraid then that he and his brother would not be sent to an orphanage. But the boys were taken in by their grandmother maternal line Maria Vartanovna.

All the relatives helped as much as possible, but there was still not enough food. The grandmother devoted all her strength to looking after little Vitya, and 13-year-old Bulat was completely left to his own devices. He grew up as an ordinary “red” boy, idolized the pilot Chkalov and the Spanish communist Dolores Ibarruri, dreamed of becoming a hero of the Arctic, rejoiced at the successes of socialism, and was sure that he lived in the best advanced camp in the world. And I didn’t know that by that time my father had already been shot.

Since it was difficult for the grandmother with two boys, Bulat was taken to her mother’s sister Sylvia in Tbilisi. On summer holidays he visited there often, but now he moved to a permanent place of residence and went to a Georgian school in the fall.

By this time, the young man had already begun to write poetry. My uncle, having listened to his works, jokingly said that it was time to publish him, like Pushkin. The naive boy believed and went to the publishing house. The secretary listened carefully to the boy and said that he would be happy to publish his poems, but, unfortunately, the publishing house had run out of paper.

And then there was no time for paper: the war began. Bulat Okudzhava volunteered for it. He was wounded near Mozdok and ended up in the hospital. Having recovered, Bulat returned to the front, but the wound was constantly tormenting him, and he was demobilized in 1944.

Okudzhava returned to Georgia, graduated as an external student high school and became a student of the Faculty of Philology at the university.

Creative path

In 1950, having received a diploma and assignment, Bulat and his wife Galya went to the village of Shamordino Kaluga region, they were sent there to teach in a rural school.
He didn’t like working at school at all, and Okudzhava suffered from it. But he didn’t have to work in the village for long: he was soon transferred to Kaluga. After working there as a school teacher for a while, Bulat got a job at a local newspaper.

In 1956, N.S. Khrushchev came to power, many were rehabilitated, including Bulat’s parents. Dad was posthumous, and mom returned from Siberia to Moscow and received a two-room apartment on Krasnopresnenskaya embankment. Bulat with his wife and younger brother Let's go to see my mother in Moscow.

There he started labor activity at the Molodaya Gvardiya publishing house, then headed the poetry department at Literaturnaya Gazeta. At evenings at Literaturka, Bulat performed songs based on his own poems with a guitar for a close circle. Colleagues predicted a great future for him and repeatedly persuaded him to go on stage. But he didn't attach much importance to their words.

Soon Bulat Okudzhava’s family was given a dacha in Sheremetyevo. Living at the dacha, they developed a certain ritual: in the evenings, neighbors, colleagues and friends gathered around the fire and listened to the poet’s poems and songs. The Moscow intelligentsia began vying with each other to invite him to their homes for evenings, and songs were recorded on tape reels. So the author and performer of songs came out to the people. Okudzhava himself was still poorly known, but half the country was already singing the songs. " Grape seed" and "Prayer" were copied on paper by hand from each other.

Only in 1961 Okudzhava’s first solo concert took place. The Leningrad Hall was overcrowded.

In 1965, the first record with Bulat's songs was released.

In 1967, Bulat received the Golden Crown at a poetry festival in Yugoslavia for the poem “My Son’s Tin Soldier.” His performances in Paris and Germany were a great success, but in the Soviet Union he did not give big concerts, he performed in cultural centers, institutes and libraries.

But in 1970, Okudzhava gained all-Union fame after the release of the film “Belorussky Station”, where his song “Birds Don’t Sing Here...” was performed.
For my creative life Bulat wrote songs for many popular Soviet and Russian films:

• “Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha”;
• "White Sun of the Desert";
• "Straw Hat";
• “Aty-baty, the soldiers were coming”;
• "Star of Captivating Happiness";
• "The Pokrovsky Gate";
• "Legitimate marriage";
• "Turkish gambit".

Personal life

Okudzhava was very amorous in his youth. The girls also did not pass by the brown-eyed man handsome guy with a mop of black curls. He was charming in himself, and he treated girls with such respect that they were immediately captivated. But the most important thing, why there were always crowds of girls around him, was that he sang amazingly with a guitar.

At the age of 23, he began a stormy relationship with Galya Smolyaninova, who studied with him at the same faculty. Bulat and Galya got married, then he no longer lived with his uncle and aunt, but rented a room in a communal apartment.

In 1954, the couple had a son, Igor. In 1962, Bulat and Galya separated.

When Okudzhava was 38 years old, he met Olga Artsimovich, who later became his second wife and gave birth to a son in 1964, named Bulat after his father.

In 1997, Okudzhava and his wife went on a trip to Europe. He did not like to stay in Moscow for his birthday, as he hated all these celebrations. They visited Germany, then went to Paris to visit friends. There he fell ill with the flu, the poet was admitted to the hospital, but they could no longer help, he died on June 12, 1997.

Secondary school No. 2 in Rossoshi

Essay

on the topic of:

“The life and work of Bulat Okudzhava”

Completed by: Bastrygin Alexander,

student of class 6 "A"

Rossosh

2016

Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava (1924 - 1997) is one of the most original Russian poets of the 20th century, the recognized founder of the art song.

Until 1940 he lived on Arbat. Both the date and place of the poet’s birth acquired a symbolic character over time. May 9 was the day of the end of the most terrible and inhumane war, about which front-line soldier Okudzhava managed to say a new word in his songs. Arbat, in the poet’s lyrical system, became a symbol of peace, goodness, humanity, nobility, culture, historical memory - everything that opposes war, cruelty and violence. A significant part of Okudzhava’s lyrics were written under the impressions of the war years. But these songs and poems are not so much about war as against it: “War, you see, is an unnatural thing, taking away from a person the right to life given by nature. I am wounded by it for the rest of my life, and in my dreams I still often see dead comrades, ashes of houses, the earth torn apart by craters... I hate war.” Before last day, looking back, admiring the victory, proud of the participants in the Great Patriotic War, the poet never ceased to hope that we, people, will learn to do without blood when solving our earthly affairs. Okudzhava’s last poems contain the lines:

The soldier is coming with a rifle, he is not afraid of the enemy.

But here’s the strange thing going on in his soul:

He hates guns, and he is not happy about wars...

Of course, if it’s not a bast shoe, but a soldier.

And yet: “The war has become so ingrained in me that it is difficult for me to get rid of it. We would all probably be glad to forget about the war forever, but, unfortunately, it does not subside, it follows on our heels... How long will we, people, defeat this war?

Bulat's life was not easy. In 1937, the poet's father, a major party worker, was arrested and then shot. The mother was sent to a camp. Bulat Okudzhava himself barely managed to avoid being sent to an orphanage as the son of an “enemy of the people.” From the ninth grade of a Moscow school, he went to the front, where he was a mortar man, a machine gunner, and, after being wounded, a heavy artillery radio operator. From 1945 to 1950, Okudzhava studied at the Faculty of Philology at Tbilisi University. That’s when his first song “Fierce and stubborn, burn, fire, burn...” was born.

In this small, but extremely dynamic and rich text, one can see a kind of grain of the genre, which will then receive widespread development. What is striking here is the combination of external simplicity, apparent artlessness with the depth of thought and experience. What is the song about? Yes, about everything in the world: about the inexhaustible mystery of life, about the fullness of being that we comprehend only on the path of tragic trials. The most serious things are spoken here with artistic ease, almost carelessness. The song creates an atmosphere of sincerity, trust, and inner freedom. The song was born among students, but its author was not yesterday’s schoolboy, but a man wise with life and military experience, who knew not from books what “the most terrible judgment” was. It is no coincidence that today, so many years later, Okudzhava’s first song is not at all outdated; its romantic and philosophical mood is still close to many. Both the poet himself and the knights of the author’s song who followed him carried this “fierce” and “stubborn” fire through the decades.

After graduating from university, Okudzhava worked as a teacher of Russian language and literature in a rural school near Kaluga. In 1956, his first poetry collection “Lyrics” was published in Kaluga. Okudzhava moves to Moscow, where his mother returned after rehabilitation. Soon, many of the poet’s songs, which he first performed in friendly circle, and since about 1959 - publicly. In the 60s, the need for a genre that would later be called the “art song” turned out to be extremely great. The pattern of its appearance, its natural entry into the culture of that time was accurately expressed by David Samoilov:

Former defenders of the state,

We missed Okudzhava.

Bulat Okudzhava is the recognized founder of the original song. Success came to Okudzhava because he addressed not the masses, but the individual, not everyone, but each individual. The subject of poetry in his world became ordinary, everyday life.

He began writing poetry in childhood. Okudzhava's poem was first published in 1945 in the newspaper of the Transcaucasian Military District "Fighter of the Red Army" (later "Lenin's Banner"), where his other poems were published during 1946. In 1953-1955, Okudzhav’s poems regularly appeared on the pages of Kaluga newspapers. In Kaluga, in 1956, the first collection of his poems, “Lyrics,” was published. In 1959, Okudzhava’s second collection of poetry, “Islands,” was published in Moscow. In subsequent years, Okudzhava’s poems were published in many periodicals and collections, books of his poems were published in Moscow and other cities.

Okudzhava owns more than 800 poems. Many of his poems are born together with music; there are already about 200 songs.

For the first time he tries himself in the song genre during the war. In 1946, as a student at Tbilisi University, he created the “Student Song” (“Furious and stubborn, burn, fire, burn...”). Since 1956, he was one of the first to act as the author of poetry and music, songs and their performer. Okudzhava’s songs attracted attention. Tape recordings of his performances appeared, which brought him widespread popularity. Recordings of his songs were sold throughout the country in thousands of copies. His songs were heard in films and plays, in concert programs, in television and radio broadcasts. The first disc was released in Paris in 1968, despite the resistance of the Soviet authorities. Noticeably later, discs were released in the USSR.

Currently, the State Literary Museum in Moscow has created a collection of tape recordings of Okudzhava, numbering over 280 storage units.

Professional composers write music to Okudzhava’s poems. An example of luck is V. Levashov’s song to Okudzhava’s poems “Take your overcoat, let’s go home.” But the most fruitful was Okudzhava’s collaboration with Isaac Schwartz (“Drops” Danish king", "Your Honor", "Song of the Cavalry Guard", "Road Song", songs for the television film "Straw Hat" and others).

Books (collections of poems and songs): "Lyrics" (Kaluga, 1956), "Islands" (M., 1959), "The Cheerful Drummer" (M., 1964), "On the Road to Tinatin" (Tbilisi, 1964), "Magnanimous March" (M., 1964) 1967), "Arbat, my Arbat" (M., 1976), "Poems" (M., 1984, 1985), "Dedicated to you" (M., 1988), "Favorites" (M., 1989), " Songs" (M., 1989), "Songs and Poems" (M., 1989), "Drops of the Danish King" (M., 1991), "Grace of Fate" (M., 1993), "Song about My Life" (M., 1995), "Tea Party on Arbat" (M., 1996), "Waiting Room" (Nizhny Novgorod, 1996).

Since the 1960s. Okudzhava works a lot in the prose genre. In 1961, his autobiographical story “Be Healthy, Schoolboy” (published as a separate edition in 1987), dedicated to yesterday’s schoolchildren who had to defend the country from fascism, was published in the almanac “Tarussky Pages”. The story received a negative assessment from supporters of official criticism, who accused Okudzhava of pacifism.

In subsequent years, Okudzhava constantly wrote autobiographical prose, compiling the collections “The Girl of My Dreams” and “The Visiting Musician” (14 short stories and novellas), as well as the novel “The Abolished Theater” (1993), which received the International Booker Prize in 1994 as the best novel of the year Russian language.

At the end of the 1960s. Okudzhava turns to historical prose. In 1970-80 The stories "Poor Avrosimov" ("A Sip of Freedom") (1969) about the tragic pages in the history of the Decembrist movement, "The Adventures of Shipov, or Ancient Vaudeville" (1971) and the novels "The Journey of Amateurs" (1971) were published in separate editions. Part 1. 1976; Part 2. 1978) and “Date with Bonaparte” (1983).

Books (prose): “The Front Comes to Us” (M., 1967), “A Breath of Freedom” (M., 1971), “Lovely Adventures” (Tbilisi, 1971; M., 1993), “The Adventures of Shipov, or Ancient Vaudeville” (M. , 1975, 1992), “Selected Prose” (M., 1979), “Travel of Amateurs” (M., 1979, 1980, 1986, 1990; Tallinn, 1987, 1988), “Date with Bonaparte” (M., 1985 , 1988), “Be healthy, schoolboy” (M., 1987), “The Girl of My Dreams” (M., 1988), “Selected Works” in 2 vols. (M., 1989), “The Adventures of a Secret Baptist” (M., 1991), “Tales and Stories” (M., 1992), “Visiting Musician” (M., 1993), “Abolished Theater” (M., 1993), 1995).

Okudzhava's performances took place in Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Great Britain, Hungary, Israel, Spain, Italy, Canada, Poland, USA, Finland, France, Germany, Sweden, Yugoslavia, Japan.

Okudzhava’s works have been translated into many languages ​​and published in many countries around the world.

Books of poetry and prose published abroad (in Russian): "Song about Fools" (London, 1964), "Bless you, Schoolboy" (Frankfurt am Main, 1964, 1966), "The Merry Drummer" (London, 1966), "Prose and Poetry" (Frankfurt am Main) , 1968, 1977, 1982, 1984), “Two Novels” (Frankfurt am Main, 1970), “Poor Avrosimov” (Chicago, 1970; Paris, 1972), “Lovely Adventures” (Tel Aviv, 1975), "Songs" in 2 volumes (ARDIS, vol. 1, 1980; vol. 2, 1986 (1988).

Dramatic performances were staged based on Okudzhava’s play “A Sip of Freedom” (1966), as well as his prose, poetry and songs.

Productions : “A breath of freedom” (L., Youth Theater, 1967; Krasnoyarsk, Youth Theater named after Lenin Komsomol, 1967; Chita, Drama Theatre, 1971; M., Moscow Art Theater, 1980; Tashkent, Russian dram. Theater named after M. Gorky, 1986); "Mercy, or ancient vaudeville" (L., musical comedy theater, 1974); “Be healthy, schoolboy” (L., Youth Theater, 1980); "Music of the Arbat Courtyard" (Moscow, Chamber Musical Theatre, 1988). Films: cinema and television.

Since the mid-1960s. Okudzhava acts as a film playwright. Even earlier, his songs began to be heard in films: in more than 50 films, more than 70 songs based on Okudzhava’s poems were heard, of which more than 40 songs were based on his music. Sometimes Okudzhava acts in films himself.

Film scripts:

“Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha” (1967; co-authored with V. Motyl; Production: Lenfilm, 1967);

“The Private Life of Alexander Sergeich, or Pushkin in Odessa” (1966; co-authored with O. Artsimovich; film not produced);

Songs in films (most famous works):

to your own music:

"Sentimental March" ("Zastava Ilyich", 1963)

“We will not stand behind the price” (Belorussky Station, 1971)

"Wish to Friends" ("Untransferable Key", 1977)

"Song of the Moscow Militia" ("The Great Patriotic War", 1979)

"Happy Draw" ("Legitimate Marriage", 1985) to the music of I. Shvarts:

"Drops of the Danish King" ("Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha", 1967)

"Your Honor" ("White Sun of the Desert", 1970)

"Song of the Cavalry Guard" ("Star of Captivating Happiness", 1975) songs for the film "Straw Hat", 1975

"Road Song" ("We were not married in church", 1982) to the music of L. Schwartz

"The Cheerful Drummer" ("My Friend, Kolka", 1961) to the music of V. Geviksman

"Old Pier" ("Chain Reaction", 1963) to music by V. Levashov

“Take your overcoat, let’s go home” (“From Dawn to Dawn”, 1975; “Aty-Bati, the soldiers were walking...”, 1976).

Books:

"Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha..." (M., 1968)

"Drops of the Danish King". Film scripts and songs from films (M.: Kinotsentr, 1991).

Works in the frame:

Feature (fiction) films:

"Ilyich's Zastava" ("I am twenty years old"), Film Studio named after. M. Gorky, 1963

"The key without the right of transfer", Lenfilm, 1977

"Legitimate Marriage", Mosfilm, 1985

"Keep me safe, my talisman", Film Studio. A.P. Dovzhenko, 1986

Documentaries:

"I remember wonderful moment"(Lenfilm)

"My contemporaries", Lenfilm, 1984

"Two hours with bards" ("Bards"), Mosfilm, 1988

"And don't forget about me", Russian television, 1992

His life became a legend. No tape recording will convey the full richness of the intonations of his wonderful voice, although, of course, there is nothing elaborate or pretentious in his voice. Bulat Okudzhava's poems and songs reflect Big world human values ​​that exist both in time and in space; it would be more accurate to say - universal human values.

On June 12, 1997, tragic news came from France to Russia - Bulat Okudzhava died. A decade later, any brief Internet encyclopedia will give every curious person dry information: “Poet, prose writer, film scriptwriter. Author and performer of songs, founder of the art song movement.” But then it was immediately clear to several generations of people - another great era became only a "property".

Bulat Okudzhava pitied everyone in his songs: both good and bad. He felt sorry for himself, the tired travelers, the girls, the girls, married women and grandmothers, he felt sorry for the “blue ball”, the infantry, the boys, again himself, again the women, and finally, his soul.

Soviet and Russian poet and prose writer, composer Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava was born on May 9, 1924 in Moscow into a family of party workers. His father, Shalva Okudzhava, was Georgian by nationality, and his mother, Ashkhen Nalbandyan, was Armenian.

In 1934, he moved with his parents to Nizhny Tagil, where his father was appointed first secretary of the city party committee, and his mother was appointed secretary of the district committee.

In 1937, Okudzhava's parents were arrested. On August 4, 1937, Shalva Okudzhava was shot on false charges, Ashkhen Nalbandyan was exiled to the Karaganda camp, from where she returned only in 1955.

After the arrest of his parents, Bulat lived with his grandmother in Moscow. In 1940 he moved to relatives in Tbilisi.

Since 1941, since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, worked as a turner at a defense plant.

In 1942, after finishing ninth grade, he volunteered for the front. He served on the North Caucasus Front as a mortar operator, then as a radio operator. He was wounded near Mozdok.

As a regimental singer, in 1943 at the front he composed his first song, “We couldn’t sleep in the cold heated vehicles...”, the text of which has not survived.

In 1945, Okudzhava was demobilized and returned to Tbilisi, where he passed his high school exams as an external student.

In 1950 he graduated from the philological faculty of Tbilisi state university, worked as a teacher - first in a rural school in the village of Shamordino, Kaluga region and in the regional center of Vysokinichi, then in Kaluga. He worked as a correspondent and literary employee for the Kaluga regional newspapers "Znamya" and "Young Leninist".

In 1946, Okudzhava wrote the first surviving song, “Furious and Stubborn.”

In 1956, after the publication of the first collection of poems "Lyrics" in Kaluga, Bulat Okudzhava returned to Moscow and worked as deputy editor for the literature department in the newspaper " TVNZ", editor at the Molodaya Gvardiya publishing house, then head of the poetry department at Literaturnaya Gazeta. He took part in the work of the Magistral literary association.

In 1959, the poet’s second collection of poetry, “Islands,” was published in Moscow.

In 1962, having become a member of the USSR Writers' Union, Okudzhava left service and devoted himself entirely to creative activity.

In 1996, Okudzhava’s last collection of poetry, “Tea Party on the Arbat,” was published.

Since the 1960s, Okudzhava has worked a lot in the genre of prose. In 1961, his autobiographical story “Be Healthy, Schoolboy” (published as a separate edition in 1987), dedicated to yesterday’s schoolchildren who had to defend the country from fascism, was published in the almanac “Tarussky Pages”. The story received a negative rating official criticism, who accused Okudzhava of pacifism.

In 1965, Vladimir Motyl managed to film this story, giving the film the title “Zhenya, Zhenechka and the Katyusha.” In subsequent years, Okudzhava wrote autobiographical prose, compiling collections of stories “The Girl of My Dreams” and “A Visiting Musician,” as well as the novel “Abolished theater" (1993).

At the end of the 1960s, Okudzhava turned to historical prose. The stories “Poor Avrosimov” (1969) about the tragic pages in the history of the Decembrist movement, “The Adventures of Shipov, or Ancient Vaudeville” (1971) and the novels “The Journey of Amateurs” (1976 - the first part; 1978) were published in separate editions - second part) and "Date with Bonaparte" (1983).

Okudzhava’s poetic and prose works have been translated into many languages ​​and published in many countries around the world.

Since the second half of the 1950s, Bulat Okudzhava began to act as the author of poetry and music, songs and their performer, becoming one of the generally recognized founders of the art song. He is the author of more than 200 songs.

The earliest known songs of Okudzhava date back to 1957-1967 (“On Tverskoy Boulevard”, “Song about Lyonka Korolev”, “Song about the Blue Ball”, “Sentimental March”, “Song about the Midnight Trolleybus”, “Not tramps, not Drunkards", "Moscow Ant", "Song about the Komsomol Goddess", etc.). Tape recordings of his performances instantly spread throughout the country. Okudzhava’s songs were heard on radio, television, films and performances.

Okudzhava's concerts took place in Bulgaria, Austria, Great Britain, Hungary, Australia, Israel, Spain, Italy, Canada, France, Germany, Poland, USA, Finland, Sweden, Yugoslavia and Japan.

In 1968, the first disc with Okudzhava’s songs was released in Paris. Since the mid-1970s, his discs have also been released in the USSR. In addition to songs based on his own poems, Okudzhava wrote a number of songs based on poems by the Polish poetess Agnieszka Osiecka, which he himself translated into Russian.

The performer gained nationwide fame from Andrei Smirnov’s film “Belorussky Station” (1970), in which the song was sung to the words of the poet “Birds don’t sing here...”.

Okudzhava is the author of other popular songs for such films as “Straw Hat” (1975), “Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha” (1967), “White Sun of the Desert” (1970), “Star of Captivating Happiness” (1975). In total, Okudzhava’s songs and his poems are heard in more than 80 films.

In 1994, Okudzhava wrote his last song, “Departure.”

In the second half of the 1960s, Bulat Okudzhava acted as a co-author of the script for the films “Loyalty” (1965) and “Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha” (1967).

In 1966, he wrote the play “A Breath of Freedom,” which a year later was staged in several theaters.

IN last years life Bulat Okudzhava was a member of the founding council of the newspaper "Moscow News", "Obshchaya Gazeta", a member of the editorial board of the newspaper "Evening Club", a member of the Council of the "Memorial" society, vice president of the Russian PEN center, a member of the commission on pardons under the President of the Russian Federation (since 1992 ), member of the commission for State Prizes of the Russian Federation (since 1994).

On June 12, 1997, Bulat Okudzhava died in a clinic in Paris. According to his will, he was buried at the Vagankovskoye cemetery in Moscow.

Okudzhava was married twice.

From his first marriage to Galina Smolyaninova, the poet had a son, Igor Okudzhava (1954-1997).

In 1961, he met his second wife - the niece of the famous physicist Lev Artsimovich - Olga Artsimovich. The son from his second marriage, Anton Okudzhava (born in 1965), is a composer and his father’s accompanist at creative evenings in recent years.

In 1997, in memory of the poet, a decree of the President of the Russian Federation approved the regulations on the Bulat Okudzhava Prize, awarded for the creation of works in the genre of art songs and poetry that contribute to Russian culture.

In October 1999, the State memorial museum Bulat Okudzhava in Peredelkino.

In May 2002, the first and most famous monument to Bulat Okudzhava was unveiled in Moscow near house 43 on Arbat.
The Bulat Okudzhava Foundation annually organizes the “Visiting Musician” evening in the Concert Hall named after P.I. Tchaikovsky in Moscow. Festivals named after Bulat Okudzhava are held in Kolontaevo (Moscow region), on Lake Baikal, in Poland and in Israel.

The material was prepared based on information from open sources

Soviet literature

Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava

Biography

OKUDZHAVA, BULAT SHALVOVICH (1924−1997), Russian poet, prose writer. Born on May 9, 1924 in Moscow into a family of party workers, he spent his childhood on Arbat. He lived with his parents in Nizhny Tagil until 1937, when his father was arrested and shot, and his mother was sent to a camp, then into exile. In 1942, Okudzhava, a ninth-grader, volunteered to go to the front, where he was a mortarman, a machine gunner, and, after being wounded, a radio operator. In 1945 he worked in Tbilisi as a turner and graduated from the tenth grade of evening school. In 1946-1950 he studied at the Faculty of Philology of Tbilisi University, after which he worked as a teacher of Russian language and literature in a rural school near Kaluga, then in Kaluga, where he collaborated in regional newspapers. Okudzhava’s first book was published in Kaluga; the poems included in it and the poem about Tsiolkovsky were not included by the author in later collections. In 1956 he moved to Moscow, worked as an editor at the Molodaya Gvardiya publishing house, and headed the poetry department at Literaturnaya Gazeta. Having joined the Writers' Union in 1962, he focused entirely on creative work.

Okudzhava composed his first song - Furious and Stubborn... - while still a student, in 1946, and in the second half of the 1950s he created songs (Midnight Trolleybus, Vanka Morozov, The King, Goodbye, Boys, Song about the Black Cat, etc. ), which immediately gained wide popularity. These songs were first performed by the author in friendly companies, then publicly, tape recordings were distributed throughout the country. Okudzhava is one of the creators and recognized patriarch of the genre, which later received the name “art song”. Okudzhava himself never saw a fundamental difference between his song-poems and non-song poems, had a distinctly literary (and even “literary-centric”) self-awareness, and was guided in his work - both poetic and prosaic - by the spiritual tradition of the 19th century.

Okudzhava's first prose work is the story Be Healthy, Schoolboy! - was published in 1961 in the almanac “Tarusa Pages”. Like many of Okudzhava’s songs, it was condemned in the press for “pacifism” and lack of “heroic” pathos. Okudzhava’s independent civic behavior, his sympathetic attitude towards his colleagues persecuted by the authorities (in particular, signing letters in defense of A.D. Sinyavsky and Yu.M. Daniel, A.I. Solzhenitsyn) created his reputation as an “unreliable” writer. Not being an active political fighter by nature, Okudzhava convincingly expressed in many poems and songs the feelings and thoughts of the radical intelligentsia, and also, continuing the tradition of Yu. N. Tynyanov, creatively comprehended the conflict of a freethinker with the authorities in his historical prose, which he began working on since the late 1960s.

During the years of “perestroika,” Okudzhava’s popularity was accompanied by official recognition; he actively participated in public life, works on the Commission on Pardons under the President of the Russian Federation. He was awarded the USSR State Prize (1991), the Booker Prize (1994) for the autobiographical novel Abolished Theater. In the 1990s, Okudzhava closely followed the events taking place in Russia, worried about the fate of democracy, and condemned the war in Chechnya.

Okudzhava’s poetry goes back to different and even heterogeneous folklore and literary sources. This is the creatively transformed tradition of urban romance, and Nekrasov’s line of prosaic verse, and Russian symbolism with its extreme polysemy of key images, and the poetics of V. Mayakovsky with its speech shifts and accented verse (which Okudzhava transforms into melodious rhythms). Okudzhava is characterized by the poetics of a harmonized shift, when the courage and paradox of the technique becomes imperceptible in the general flow of sincere and trusting intonation.

Okudzhava’s world is both intimate and cosmic. This effect is achieved by a consistent expansion of meaning, which underlies the lyrical composition. The midnight trolley bus becomes a ship, and the passengers become sailors. The blue ball flies away and returns, having had time to visit the globe. Arbat appears as a whole “fatherland” and even a “religion”. Real, earthly Vera, Lyuba and Nadya-Nadya turn into the symbolic triad Faith - Hope - Love. Okudzhava’s individual poetic phraseology (“on duty in April,” “little orchestra of hope,” “let’s join hands, friends,” etc.) became part of the national language.

Okudzhava the prose writer owns the novels A Sip of Freedom (Poor Avrosimov; 1965−1968), Mercy, or Shipov's Adventures. Vintage Vaudeville (1969−1970), Travel of Amateurs (1971−1977), Date with Bonaparte (1983). Resorting to linguistic and figurative-subject stylization, the author paradoxically pits the destinies of “big” and “small” people against each other, becoming more and more skeptical about the possibility of a radically volitional intervention of the individual in history. In the unfinished family chronicle, The Abolished Theater (1990−1993), this idea develops as a sober and critical assessment of Bolshevik romanticism, a debunking of the illusory ideals of “commissars in dusty helmets.” Okudzhava's novels and short stories: Individual failures among continuous successes (1978), The Adventures of a Secret Baptist (1984), The Art of Cutting and Living (1985), The Girl of My Dreams (1985), Around Rivoli, or the Whims of Fortune (1991) are highly autobiographical and fulfilling fruitful critical reflection, witty self-irony. These are also the Autobiographical Anecdotes published in Novy Mir (1997, No. 1) and which became Okudzhava’s last lifetime prose publication. Okudzhava wrote the scripts for the films Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha (1967) in collaboration with V. Motyl and Vernost (1965) together with Todorovsky, he wrote theatrical dramatizations of his prose works, songs for theater and cinema. Okudzhava died in Paris on May 12, 1997.

Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava, Russian poet, was born on May 9, 1924 in Moscow in the family of the famous communist figure Shalva Okudzhava. In 1937, Okudzhava’s father was shot on erroneous charges; in 1938, Bulat’s mother was arrested and taken to the Karaganda camp.

In 1942, the young poet went to the front as a volunteer, taking part in battles on the North Caucasus front as a mortar operator, and later as a radio operator. After the war, the poet worked as a turner at a factory, and in 1946 Okudzhava entered the philological faculty of Tbilisi State University, and after graduation he worked as a teacher in a rural school in the city of Shamordino, Kaluga region.

In 1956, Okudzhava worked with the newspaper “Young Leninist”, made his debut in the literary field with the poetry collection “Lyrics”, and performed his songs in front of listeners. Later he worked as an editor at the Molodaya Gvardiya publishing house, then headed the poetry department at Literaturnaya Gazeta. In the same year, after the political rehabilitation of his relatives, he joined the Communist Party. At the same time, Okudzhava has an extremely negative attitude towards Stalin, and later criticizes the CPSU.

In 1961, he published the autobiographical story “Be Healthy, Schoolboy,” and a year later he became a member of the Writers’ Union. Okudzhava is becoming one of the most famous representatives genre of Russian bard song, which became popular after the advent of tape recorders. Okudzhava also writes songs for films; in collaboration with Isaac Schwartz, he creates more than 30 songs. During the period of “perestroika,” the poet contributed to the political development of the country, took a democratic position, and in 1990 left the ranks of the Communist Party.

Okudzhava’s poetry harmoniously combines the traditions of urban romance, clear images of Russian symbolism, passing through the poetic work the line of Nekrasov’s prose of verse. The world created by Okudzhava’s poetry is intimate and cosmic, this effect is achieved by expanding the meaning of his images. Okudzhava is known not only as a brilliant poet, but also as a prose writer; his works describe the tragedy of the Decembrist coup.

Bulat Okudzhava died on June 12, 1997 in Paris. Just before his death, he was baptized and took the name John.

BULAT OKUDZHAVA – POET-SYMBOL

With name Bulat Okudzhava There are many legends associated with it. It’s not surprising, because such personalities appear in the poetic and musical world infrequently and deservedly become legendary.

His poems have been analyzed into quotes, his songs have become iconic and symbolic for the era of the sixties, and he himself Bulat Shalvovich was the brightest representative of his generation.

Unenviable childhood

It just so happens in nature that the fate of talented people is full of personal tragedies, struggles, searches, wanderings and other adversities. Probably, only a person who has experienced and experienced a lot can create works that last for centuries. Only then are they filled with true meaning, deep and meaningful, penetrating into souls and finding a response there. Such was fate Bulat Okudzhava.

His life coincided with an era of change, the globality and consequences of which only a few could understand and appreciate. born 1924 in Moscow. His parents came to the capital to study under the party line. Father Bulat was Georgian, and his mother was Armenian. At the same time, they named their son Dorian in honor of the famous literary hero.

Two years later, the whole family returned to the capital of Georgia, where Shalva Stepanovich was moving up the party ladder. Then he had a conflict with Lavrentiy Beria, after which his father Bulat Okudzhava asked to be sent to work in Russia. This is how the family ended up in Nizhny Tagil.

Thunder struck (as it did for many families of that bloody period of Soviet history) in 1937, when Shalva Stepanovich was arrested on a false denunciation about his allegedly counter-revolutionary Trotskyist work. Then came the verdict and execution. The same fate befell his father's siblings. In 1939, his mother was also arrested. Okudzhava- Ashkhen Stepanovna. First she was sent to the camps of the Karaganda region, and ten years later she was sentenced to eternal settlement in the vast expanses of Krasnoyarsk Territory. Bulat My grandmother moved me and my brother Victor to Moscow, and then my aunt from Tbilisi took me in for upbringing.

First successes

He graduated from school in Georgia, worked at a factory as a turner's apprentice and was looking forward to coming of age to go to the front. In August 1942, he was sent to a mortar division, in which he participated in battles, and in 1943 he was wounded near Mozdok. Okudzhava demobilized and sent to the rear. He passed the exams as an external student, received secondary education and entered the philological department of Tbilisi University.

After graduating from high school, he went to work as an ordinary teacher of Russian language and literature in the most ordinary Kaluga village. At home after work, he tried to write poetry, although he took his hobby completely frivolously, but over time, the poetic style Bulat became brighter and more confident. Some of his poems even began to be published in the newspaper, and after Stalin’s death in 1953, he was offered to head the propaganda department in the regional newspaper. It was there, in Kaluga, at Okudzhava The first small book of poems was published.

The young poet had no creative competitors in the provincial town, so his first successes made him dizzy. Later Bulat Shalvovich he said that his poems were mostly imitative, but the awareness of his own success in the literary field gave him strength to move forward.

Bard Bulat Okudzhava

In 1956, after the famous XX Congress of the CPSU, parents Okudzhava leucorrhoea rehabilitated. Myself Bulat even joined the party, and in 1959 he moved to Moscow. There he met young poets - Andrei Voznesensky and others. It was then that he first picked up a guitar (paradoxically, but musical education Okudzhava did not have and did not even know musical notation) and began to accompany his poems. This is how his bardic creativity began, or rather, he became one of the founders of the art song.

When he already had several such songs behind him, Bulat Friends and simple acquaintances began to invite them to their homes to perform these original songs. If there was a tape recorder in the house, singing Okudzhava Be sure to write it down. In this way, Moscow quickly became acquainted with his work.

He continued to work in newspapers, write poetry and try himself in other literary genres. Konstantin Paustovsky included his story “Be Healthy, Schoolboy” in the literary almanac, and director Vladimir Motyl later made a film based on this work - “Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha.”

Bulat Shalvovich became popular in narrow circles of people who understand and think. During that period of time, he wrote the songs “Midnight Trolleybus”, “Not Tramps, Not Drunkards”, “Sentimental March”, “Song about Lenka the Queen” and others.

System counteraction

Soon creativity Bulat Okudzhava became interested in the “competent authorities”; his songs with a guitar turned out to be too unusual for many. They began to publish custom-made feuilletons about him in newspapers, which means his poems did not leave anyone indifferent. Indignation, irritation, rejection are also reactions to Okudzhava, the main thing is that there was no indifference.

Myself Bulat I experienced this period in a difficult way, rushing about in search of the right solution, but he understood that now he was on the right path and was doing something extraordinary, interesting, exciting, which was encountering a wave of opposition from the system. Then he realized that art requires a lot of patience and endurance, only in this way will time put everything in its place, leaving in people’s memory the most powerful creative works, and the weak ones will be relegated to the background of history.

Took up Bulat and in the Writers' Union of the USSR. His songs were mercilessly criticized, believing that such art was not appropriate for Soviet heroic youth and did not reflect their ideals, aspirations, and aspirations. Criticism also attacked his novels “Poor Avrosimov” and “The Adventures of Shipov,” but the intelligentsia, on the contrary, showed genuine interest in them. But it was his membership in the Writers' Union that allowed him to publish several books of his poems. His songs began to be performed by some other singers (there were not many of them, because often artistic the council did not release to the masses musical works inaccessible to its understanding).

However, for some reason the author himself did not like this, just as he did not like speaking in front of a large audience. He was a chamber singer; all he needed was a hall with 200 seats, in which he could see the eyes of every spectator who came to listen to him. Sometimes he complained that while on tour in different cities, officials and their wives who did not understand anything about his work came to his concert, which made him feel awkward.

Your Honor Bulat Okudzhava

Many at that time were annoyed by the non-publicity Bulat Okudzhava, he had no signs of star fever, he did not pursue fame. Despite membership in the CPSU Bulat Shalvovich did not experience euphoria from the activities of the party, allowed himself some freethinking, but did not speak too critically of the leadership. He was never among the dissidents, although his whole family suffered grief from the Soviet regime. The officials did not like him, but it is likely that they secretly listened to his songs, as was the case with. With his decency, he seemed to challenge the existing system, he never caved in to the system, but could have worked on the stage, received decent fees, written songs to order, scripts for films.

with his first wife Galina

Finest hour Bulat Okudzhava struck when the film “Belarusian Station” was released, in which his shrill march “We need one victory” was heard. Screenwriter Vadim Trunin suggested including this so-called trench song in the film. Okudzhava presented the composition to the judgment of director Andrei Smirnov and composer Alfred Schnittke. The reaction of the two masters was radically different - Smirnov did not like the melody at all, but Schnittke heard it in the tune Okudzhava future military movie hit. Schnittke wrote an orchestral version of this march and insisted that on the record that was released after the film, the authorship of the music should be assigned to Bulat Shalvovich.

"And don't forget about me"

After such a confession Okudzhava were allowed to go on tour abroad. There he began releasing records, and then he began to try his hand at prose works. So it began white stripe his literary life, when he could publish what he wrote. Five of his historical novels and several collections of poetry were published, he created scripts for four films, and released several records with new songs. This allowed Bulatu Okudzhava to feel happy, having gone through years of trials, maintaining humanity, integrity, self-esteem, and his hoarse voice to become one of the symbols of a bygone era.

with his second wife Olga

Songs “Your Honor, Lady Luck” (from the film “White Sun of the Desert”), “Take your overcoat, let’s go home” (from the film “Aty-Bata soldiers were walking”), compositions from the films “Pokrovsky Gate”, “Dirk”, “ Straw Hat", "The Adventures of Pinocchio" and others were made Bulata Okudzhava everyone's favorite. But his first records appeared in his homeland only in the mid-1970s, although before that they were released in Poland and France.

During his tours abroad, he was often offered to stay forever in European countries, but he loved Moscow and could not imagine his life in another city or outside the country in which his ancestors lived. Only once did he decide to stay in France to improve his failing health. There he died in a military hospital in the suburbs of Paris in 1997 after suffering from the flu.

He was idolized, envied and hated. This is a typical situation for the outstanding person that he was. Time judged everyone and (as he himself said) preserved his best works for people. He managed to capture the hearts of several generations and gave hope to many with his prayerful poetry.

with Natalia Gorlenko

DATA

The famous song “The Prayer of François Villon” Okudzhava dedicated to his first wife Galina, whom he left for another woman. Galina died of cancer, and Bulat Blamed himself for her illness.

At his dacha, which has now become a museum, he collected bells. They occupied the entire ceiling of the room. The collection was started by the poetess, who brought an exquisite bell from a distant country. Since then, all guests periodically brought Bulat Shalvovich precisely these ringing objects.

Updated: April 8, 2019 by: Elena