The life and work of Bulat Okudzhava

Report on literature Danilov Pavel

I think that everyone has heard the name Bulat Okudzhava. I ask: "Who was he?" Someone will answer me: "poet". Someone: "prose writer". Someone else: "screenwriter." Even the one who says: "the author and performer of songs, the founder of the direction of the author's song" will still not be mistaken.

Here is what Bulat Shalvovich himself told about his life to Ogonyok correspondent Oleg Terentyev:

Well what can I tell you. I was born in Moscow, on the Arbat in the 24th year. I am Georgian by origin. But, as my Moscow friends say, Georgians of the Moscow style. My native language is Russian. I am a Russian writer. My life was ordinary, the same as the life of my peers. Well, except for the fact that in 1937 my father - a party worker - was destroyed here, in your wonderful city (Sverdlovsk). I lived in Nizhny Tagil for three years. Then he returned to Moscow. Studied at school. After the ninth grade, at the age of seventeen, he voluntarily went to the front. Fought. Was an ordinary. Mortar. Was injured. Stayed alive. He studied at the university at the Faculty of Philology. Graduated. He left for a village school in the Kaluga region. Worked as a teacher. He taught Russian language and literature. Well, like most, he wrote poetry. He took it lightly, of course. But gradually, gradually, it all intensified in me. Began to be published in the "Kaluga newspaper" regional. Then, when Stalin died, and the norms of democratic normal life began to improve in our country, I was offered to work in the regional newspaper Komsomolskaya Gazeta. I was in charge of the propaganda department. And there, in Kaluga, I published my first little book of poems. But since there were no other poets in Kaluga, I was considered the best. I was very dizzy. I was very arrogant. It seemed to me that I had already reached the highest heights. Although these verses were very weak, imitative. Devoted mainly to holidays, seasons. Then I moved to Moscow. There he got into one literary association. There were very strong young poets who beat me hard. At first, in the first minutes, I thought it was them out of envy. Then I realized that it was my fault. For about a year I wrote nothing in desperation. But then nature took over. Began to write. Good or bad - not for me to judge. But the way I write until today. At the end of 1956, that is, exactly thirty years ago, in the autumn of 1956, I picked up the guitar for the first time and sang my humorous poem to the accompaniment. Thus began the so-called songs. Then there were more of them, and, finally, when there were already six or seven of them, they began to be heard ... And at that time the first tape recorders appeared. And at work - I worked at the publishing house "Young Guard" - calls began to ring, and people invited me home to sing their songs. I gladly took the guitar and drove to an unknown address. About thirty quiet intellectuals gathered there. I sang these five songs of mine. Then I repeated them again. And he left. And the next evening I went to another house. And so it went on for a year and a half. Well, gradually - tape recorders worked - it all spread very rapidly, quickly. Well, there were people who found it necessary to fight me. Now I understand that these songs were very unusual after what we used to sing. Some people thought it was dangerous. Well, as always, the Komsomol was a skirmisher. The first feuilleton about me was published in the Leningrad newspaper Smena on instructions from Moscow. But since it was hastily made, there was a lot of humor in it. Well, for example, there was such a phrase: “A suspicious person came out on the stage. He sang dirty songs with the guitar. But girls will not follow such a poet. The girls will follow Tvardovsky and Isakovsky." This is a way to determine the quality of literature - who the girls will follow. Now it all sounds funny, but then, believe me, it was not very funny. It was very difficult. So, there were many incidents, absurdities. I tossed. I felt that I was doing something interesting, but met with opposition. Once I was invited to a very high authority. And I had such one of the first songs - “The Song about Lenka the Queen”. Maybe you have heard. Well, I was told in a high authority, a man who was burdened with great knowledge about culture, he said that this song should not be sung, because it incorrectly orients the youth. “What is wrong with her orientation?” I asked. - “But you have such lines there: “he went to fight and died, and there is no one to mourn his life.” How, that is, no one? After all, the people remained, all sorts of organizations ... "

But I did not believe the taste of this man and continued to sing this song. Three years later I got the song "About Fools". This man invited me again and said to me: “Listen! You also had a wonderful song about Lenka Koroleva. Why do you sing about fools?” Well, I realized that time does its job. This is the best judge. It removes the weak things, leaving the good things. Therefore, we do not need to fuss, judge, decide. Everything will be decided by itself. Art is such a thing. Long-suffering. Well, then, after these feuilletons and all sorts of noise began to appear, my friends in the Writers' Union decided to discuss me. There was a very lively discussion. And I was accepted into the Writers' Union. But after that, it became a little easier for me, books of poetry began to come out. Some singers began to sing my songs. Although a very small number, because the songs were unusual, and they had to go through the artistic council. And the artistic councils were afraid of these songs and rejected them. But some people sang. Then these songs sounded in films, in some, in performances. Then they got used to it more. I began to travel around the country to perform. Then they sent me abroad. I performed abroad. I started getting records. Then I began to write prose... And they got used to me so much that even one summer day, when, according to tradition, tenth-graders go out at night to the embankments of Moscow to say goodbye to school, there was such a case. The television car rushed to the embankment to record the songs of these young people. We went to one group. There is rock and roll. We drove up to another group - there is also something of this type. They began to rush about. And finally they saw - near St. Basil's Cathedral there is such a small group with a guitar, and they sing my song. They were so happy to hear theirs that they recorded it and broadcast it. And so I was legitimized. Here you go. And then came the normal period of literary life. And now I have five novels and several books of poetry and records under my belt. And now the disc with new songs should be released. So I am a happy person in my literary life, because I went through fire, and water, and copper pipes. And resisted. And he remained himself, as far as my character allowed me. And I continue to work. Alive and well.

short biography

Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava was born on May 9, 1924 in Moscow into a family of party workers (father is Georgian, mother is Armenian). He lived on the Arbat until 1940. In 1934 he moved with his parents to Nizhny Tagil. There, his father was elected first secretary of the city party committee, and his mother was elected secretary of the district committee. In 1937 the parents were arrested; father was shot, mother was exiled to the Karaganda camp. O. returned to Moscow, where, together with his brother, he was brought up by his grandmother. In 1940 he moved to relatives in Tbilisi.

In his school years from the age of 14 he was an extra and a stage worker in the theater, worked as a mechanic, at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War - a turner at a defense plant. In 1942, after graduating from the ninth grade of high school, he volunteered for the war. He served in the reserve mortar division, then after two months of training he was sent to the North Caucasian Front. He was a mortar operator, then a heavy artillery radio operator. He was wounded near the city of Mozdok. In 1945 he was demobilized.

He graduated from high school as an external student and entered the Faculty of Philology of Tbilisi University, where he studied from 1945 to 1950. After graduating from the university, from 1950 to 1955 he taught in the village of Shamordino and the district center of Vysokinichi, Kaluga Region, then in one of the secondary schools in Kaluga . There, in Kaluga, he was a correspondent and literary contributor to the regional newspapers Znamya and Molodoy Leninets.

In 1955, the parents were rehabilitated. In 1956 he returned to Moscow. Participated in the work of the literary association "Magistral". He worked as an editor at the Young Guard publishing house, then as the head of the poetry department at the Literaturnaya Gazeta. In 1961 he leaves the service and devotes himself entirely to free creative work.

Lived in Moscow. Wife - Olga Vladimirovna Artsimovich, a physicist by education. Son - Bulat Bulatovich Okudzhava, musician, composer.

Last interview

The last interview given by Okudzhava to a student of the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University Denis Levshinov in the spring of 1997 and published in Izvestia on June 14 of the same year.

Bulat Shalvovich, how do you feel about your popularity?

You know, I'm not a vain person, but an ambitious one. A vain person tries to be known, and an ambitious person tries to be. I've never been interested in the buzz around my name. But as an author, of course, I am pleased to know that they treat me well.

Many consider you almost a folk hero.

If I lived on a desert island, I would do the same - this is my profession, my vocation. I can’t live otherwise, and then, real admirers of my work, thinking and serious people, they don’t throw up their hands at the sight of me. Some, especially earlier, when I started performing with the guitar, they perceived me as a pop performer - they made noise, squealed, but quickly calmed down and went to other halls, and not very many remained with me, but very faithful and thinking people.

Are you writing anything now, I see you have drafts of poems scattered everywhere?

I write all the time and work all the time.

Do you write music?

Music, in the full sense of the word, I have never written: I do not know the notes. And now I've lost all interest in it.

I don’t know, maybe because the performance of my poems was not the main profession, but a hobby - I liked it, my friends liked it, well, I sang. Then I never learned to play the guitar, maybe this is due to the lack of professional interest, or maybe it’s due to age. In any case, I came up with the last song about two years ago. I can’t say that I worked very actively in this area before - out of a hundred poems that I wrote, a maximum of five turned into songs.

So you are first and foremost a poet?

First of all, I am a person who writes poetry, and I don’t know whether I am a poet or not.

Do you have any special education, musical or literary?

No, no, I am a philologist, Russianist, graduated from the Faculty of Philology. Once upon a time, as a child, I was sent to a music school, but that was all.

What is your relationship with cinema now?

So there were circumstances that I was involved in cinema, I had wonderful friends who were directors, I was connected to writing scripts, I wrote scripts mostly clumsily, tormented, resorting to the help of friends. Some things worked out well. But then I returned home, stayed alone and wrote my novels and poems, and that was the main thing.

Now I am out of this circle. There was a time - they offered me, I refused, that time was over. I fulfilled my mission, I did what I could. Then they stopped using songs of this genre, this style in the cinema. In general, art began to change. Everywhere the level of a restaurant, but a restaurant song is a restaurant song, and God bless her, in a restaurant you will not listen to Cavaradossi's aria. But when this music becomes leading, it's terrible. Recently, some mediocre, voiceless, grimacing performers have appeared, they are called stars, they take it seriously about themselves, this restaurant vulgarity is bad. But I think it will pass.

Bulat Shalvovich, do you like Yuri Shevchuk or Boris Grebenshchikov?

I don't know anything about rock music. I do not want to say that this is bad, but I do not understand anything about this, I am an old-fashioned person. As for Grebenshchikov, I have known him for a long time, and he is of interest to me primarily as a poet, he has several things that simply fascinated me. The same goes for Yuri Shevchuk. A gifted man, bright, original, but I perceive only his poems.

Doesn't it annoy you when actors or musicians suddenly become businessmen or politicians?

No, I don’t care at all and it doesn’t touch me in any way, it’s just that sometimes I feel sorry for them. An actor should not be a politician. You can participate in public life, but only at the level of a citizen. But to be elected somewhere, to be re-elected, to climb into deputies - this is all ridiculous and many have already understood this.

What is, in your opinion, an intelligent person?

An intelligent person is, first of all, one who strives for education. This is a person who is against violence. It happens that an academician is a redneck, and a worker is an intellectual. They say that Lenin is an intelligent person. He has never been an intellectual, because an intellectual is against violence.

What meaning do you put in the concept of "freedom"?

Freedom is, first of all, something that is unknown in Russia. When people say freedom in Russia, they mean will. What does will mean? Do what you want, and freedom is the will within the law. We either have free will or complete servility, which is why we are suffering now. Freedom is above all respect for the individual. I live within the limits of my own destiny, but I will never allow myself to disturb the peace of a neighbor or the lifestyle of another person for my own sake - this is freedom. We are now shouting - democracy, freedom, but we do not have any democracy, democracy is a state of blood, it is developed not even for decades, but for generations, this should be inside a person.

Are you a religious person?

I am Orthodox by my ancestors. But in my heart I am an absolute atheist and today I will not dissemble. And I must say that I am not in awe of our Orthodox Church, because it is on the same level as our society, I do not like it. Although I have nothing against the church, I know priests - brilliant people. Here is my wife a true believer, I sincerely respect her passion for faith.

As far as I know, your wife is a doll collector.

No, she is not a collector, she created the Moscow Museum of Dolls and she is surrounded by impoverished talented puppeteers.

Bulat Shalvovich, who are your friends now?

You know, I have never been a broad-minded person. Those who were my friends, those remained. However, now we see each other very rarely. This is age.

Tell me, Bulat Shalvovich, what is love?

I can't explain, I can see love and say - oh, this is love, but I can't classify.

Do you love people?

Good ones, yes, bad ones, no. It is impossible to love all people, there are subjects whom it is not a sin to hate. I have these lines in a poem: "I love not the people, but their individual representatives."

Bibliography

Poetry and songs

Poems began to write in childhood. For the first time, Okudzhava's poem was published in 1945 in the newspaper of the Transcaucasian Military District "Fighter of the Red Army" (later "Lenin's Banner"), where other of his poems were published during 1946. In 1953-1955, Okudzhava's poems regularly appeared on the pages of Kaluga newspapers. In Kaluga, in 1956, the first collection of his poems, Lyrica, was also published. In 1959, Okudzhava's second poetry collection, 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 wrote more than 800 poems. Many of his poems are born along with music, there are already about 200 songs.

For the first time he tries himself in the genre of song during the war. In 1946, as a student at Tbilisi University, he created the “Student Song” (“Furious and stubborn, burn, fire, burn ...”). Since 1956, one of the first begins to act as an author of poetry and music songs and their performer. Okudzhava's songs attracted attention. There were tape recordings of his speeches, which brought him wide popularity. Recordings of his songs were distributed throughout the country in thousands of copies. His songs were heard in films and performances, in concert programs, in television and radio programs. The first disc was released in Paris in 1968, despite the resistance of the Soviet authorities. Disks came out noticeably later in the USSR.

At present, the State Literary Museum in Moscow has created a fund of Okudzhava's tape recordings, numbering over 280 items.

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

Books (collections of poems and songs): "Lyric" (Kaluga, 1956), "Islands" (M., 1959), "Merry Drummer" (M., 1964), "On the road to Tinatin" (Tbilisi, 1964), "Magnanimous March" (M., 1967), "Arbat, my Arbat" (M., 1976), "Poems" (M., 1984, 1985), "Dedicated to you" (M., 1988), "Selected" (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 drinking on the Arbat” (M., 1996), “Waiting room” (N. Novgorod, 1996).

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

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

In the late 1960s Okudzhava turns to historical prose. In 1970-80s. 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 “Journey of Amateurs” written on historical material of the early 19th century ( Ch. 1. 1976; Ch. 2. 1978) and "Date with Bonaparte" (1983).

Books (prose): "The Front is Coming to Us" (M., 1967), "A Sip of Freedom" (M., 1971), "Charming Adventures" (Tbilisi, 1971; M., 1993), "The Adventures of Shipov, or Ancient vaudeville" (M., 1975, 1992), "Selected Prose" (M., 1979), "Journey 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., 1995).

Abroad

Okudzhava's performances were held 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), “Be healthy, schoolboy” (Frankfurt am Main, 1964, 1966), “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 ), "Charming Adventures" (Tel Aviv, 1975), "Songs" in 2 volumes (ARDIS, vol. 1, 1980; vol. 2, 1986 (1988).

Titles and awards

Member of the CPSU (1955-1990).

Member of the Union of Writers of the USSR (1962).

Member of the founding board of the Moscow News newspaper.

Member of the founding council of the General Newspaper.

Member of the editorial board of the Evening Club newspaper.

Member of the Board of the Memorial Society.

Founding member of the Russian PEN Center (1989).

Member of the pardon commission under the President of the Russian Federation (1992).

Member of the Commission on State Prizes of the Russian Federation (1994).

Medal "For the Defense of the Caucasus"

Order of Friendship of Peoples (1984).

Honorary Medal of the Soviet Peace Fund.

State Prize of the USSR (1991).

Prize "For Courage in Literature" A.D. Sakharov independent writers' association "April" (1991).

First prize and the prize "Golden Crown" at the poetry competition "Struzhsky Evenings" in Yugoslavia (1967).

Prize "Golden Guitar" at the festival in San Remo, Italy (1985).

Honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Norwich University in the USA (1990).

Penyo Penev Prize in Bulgaria (1990).

Booker Prize (1994).

The name of Okudzhava was given to a minor planet (1988).

Okudzhava's name was given to the Bulgarian-Russian Friendship Club in Yambol, Bulgaria (1989-90).

Honorary citizen of Kaluga (1996).

Drama performances were staged based on Okudzhava's play "A Sip of Freedom" (1966), as well as his prose, poems and songs.

Productions:

"A Sip of Freedom" (L., Youth Theater, 1967; Krasnoyarsk, Youth Theater named after Lenin Komsomol, 1967; Chita, Drama Theater, 1971; M., Moscow Art Theater, 1980; Tashkent, Russian Drama Theater named after M. Gorky, 1986);

"Merci, or an old vaudeville" (L., musical comedy theater, 1974);

“Be healthy, schoolboy” (L., Youth Theater, 1980);

“Music of the Arbat Yard” (M., Chamber Music Theatre, 1988).

Films: film and television

From the mid 1960s. Okudzhava acts as a screenwriter. Even earlier, his songs begin to sound in films: in more than 50 films, more than 70 songs based on Okudzhava's poems are heard, of which more than 40 songs are based on his music. Sometimes Okudzhava is removed himself.

Screenplays:

"The Private Life of Alexander Sergeyevich, or Pushkin in Odessa" (1966; co-authored with O. Artsimovich; the film was not staged);

Songs in films (most famous works):

to own music:

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

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

"Wishing Friends" ("Key without the right to transfer", 1977)

"Song of the Moscow militias" ("Great Patriotic", 1979)

"Lucky Lot" ("Legal Marriage", 1985)

to the music of I. Schwartz:

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

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

“Song of the Cavalier Guard” (“Star of Captivating Happiness”, 1975)

songs from the film "Straw Hat", 1975

“Road song” (“We were not married in the church”, 1982)

to the music of L. Schwartz:

"Merry Drummer" ("My friend, Kolka", 1961)

to the music of V. Geviksman:

"Old Pier" ("Chain Reaction", 1963)

to the music of V. Levashov:

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

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

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

Works in the frame:

Feature (feature) films:

"Zastava Ilyich" ("I'm twenty years old"), Film Studio. M. Gorky, 1963

"Key without the right to transfer", Lenfilm, 1977

"Legal marriage", Mosfilm, 1985

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

Documentaries:

"I remember a wonderful moment" (Lenfilm)

"My contemporaries", Lenfilm, 1984

"Two Hours with the Bards" ("Bards"), Mosfilm, 1988

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

Music editions of songs

The first musical edition of B. Okudzhava's songs was published in Krakow in 1970 (there were repeated editions in later years). Musicologist V.Frumkin was unable to “punch through” the release of the collection in the USSR, and, having left for the USA, he released it there. In the same year, we also released a large collection of songs. Individual songs were published many times in mass collections of songs.

Bulat Okudzhava. Songs / Musical recording, edition, compilation by V.Frumkin.- Ann Arbor, Michigan: Ardis, 1989.- 120 p.

Songs of Bulat Okudzhava. Melodies and texts / Compiled and author of the introductory article L. Shilov. - M .: Muzyka, 1989. - 224 p.; 100,000 copies (Musical material recorded by A. Kolmanovsky with the participation of the author)

gramophone records

The list does not include foreign discs (the most famous of them was released in Paris by Le Chant du Mond in 1968). In the 70s, a recording of his songs that Bulat liked very much was made by Polish dramatic actors with a very careful arrangement. Together with the book about our bards "Poets with a guitar" a CD of songs was released in Bulgaria ("Balkanton", Bulgaria, 1985. VTK 3804).

Songs of Bulat Okudzhava. "Melody", 1966. D 00016717-8

Bulat Okudzhava. "Songs". "Melody", 1973. 33D-00034883-84

Bulat Okudzhava. Songs (poetry and music). Performed by the author. "Melody", 1976. М40 38867

"Songs to the verses of Bulat Okudzhava". "Melody", 1978. М40 41235

Bulat Okudzhava. "Songs". "Melody", 1978. G62 07097

Bulat Okudzhava. "Songs". Performed by Bulat Okudzhava. "Melody", 1981. С60 13331

Bulat Okudzhava. Songs and poems about the war. Performed by the author. Recording of the all-Union recording studio and phonograms of films in 1969-1984. "Melody", 1985. М40 46401 003

Bulat Okudzhava. "New songs". Recorded in 1986 "Melody", 1986. С60 25001 009

Bulat Okudzhava. "A song as short as life itself..." Performed by the author. Recorded in 1986 "Melody", 1987. С62 25041 006

CDs

Bulat Okudzhava. "While the earth is still spinning." Notes by M. Kryzhanovsky 1969-1970 SoLyd Records, 1994. SLR 0008

Bulat Okudzhava. "And like first love..." Licensed from Le Chant du Mond, recorded 1968. SoLyd Records, 1997. SLR 0079

Compact cassettes

Bulat Okudzhava. "While the earth is still spinning." Notes by M. Kryzhanovsky 1969-1970 Licensed from Solyd Records. Moscow Windows LLP, 1994. MO 005

Bulat Okudzhava was born on May 9, 1924 in Moscow. He studied at school, and a year after the start of World War II, he volunteered for the front. After the war, he graduated from Tbilisi State University, Faculty of Philology.
The difficult trials of the war years had a decisive influence on the formation of B. Okudzhava as a poet.
The first collection "Lyrika" appeared in 1956.
The search for an original poetic form of expression, creative individuality, manifested itself in relief in Okudzhava's second book "Islands" (1959). This collection was followed by The Jolly Drummer (1964) and On the Road to Tinatin (1964), which were warmly received by poetry lovers. The book The Generous March (1967) turned out to be weaker than the previous ones: in preparing it, the poet uncritically approached the selection of poems previously published in the periodical press. But even in the so-called "weak" verses of a true poet, the reader often finds an expression of the innermost feelings of their creator.
The poet's poems were systematically published on the pages of many newspapers and magazines.
In the 60-70s, B. Okudzhava also wrote prose (“Poor Avrosimov”, “The Adventures of Shipov, or Ancient Vaudeville”, “Journey of Amateurs”). But even in prose genres, Okudzhava remains a poet, reflecting on something of his own, secretly personal.
Okudzhava's song poetry attracts the attention of the widest audience of readers and listeners. In the late 1950s, Okudzhava was the first to pick up the guitar to sing his poems to its accompaniment. Since then, the performance of his own melody to his own poems has become widespread. The songs-poems of B. Okudzhava performed by him are heard on the radio, from the concert stage, from the television and movie screens.
Controversy arose more than once around Okudzhava's poems. In these disputes, opponents tried to reveal the merits and weaknesses of Okudzhava's poems, to understand the originality of his poetic voice. Those critics are right who, speaking about the popularity of Okudzhava's poems and songs, put not the melody of the song in the foreground, but its content, lyricism, sincerity.
The fact that B. Okudzhava is a lyric poet remains indisputable. An optimist and a lover of life, he cannot remain indifferent to everything that is not poetic in reality. This is one of the reasons why, on the one hand, intonations of human grief and sadness are so tangible in his poetry, and on the other, irony and self-irony. So, in the piercing words “Oh, war, what have you done, vile”, one cannot but pay attention to the intonation of great human grief and sorrow. But it is hardly legitimate to consider Okudzhava a tragic poet. He also has lines that exude deep love of life and confidence in the future.
Bulat Okudzhava devoted many poems to Moscow. In one of them the poet exclaims:
My city bears the highest rank and the title of Moscow,
But he always comes out to meet all the guests himself.
The lyrical hero of Okudzhava is somewhat similar in character to this city: “Oh, this city, it is so similar to me ...”
The poet's poems often mention the Arbat, the Arbat courtyard, where many events take place. And this is no coincidence. Okudzhava's poetry is deeply personal. The poet has a lot to do with the Arbat: childhood, youth, scorched by the war, his comrades who did not return from the front, and finally, the place where the first ethical and moral criteria of the future poet were formed. Okudzhava writes:
Ah, Arbat, my Arbat,
You are my religion.
The poet's poems are bold, specific, deeply truthful.
However, it would be wrong to say that his world is narrowed down to the Arbat. So, in the “Song of the Falconers” the poet says:
We have grown like pines with our roots
To the country where we live.
In the lyrical world of Okudzhava's poetry, there is a lot of conventional, fabulous: here are the elements of the game, with which individual stanzas are sprinkled, here are unusual characters - the Merry Drummer, the Blue Man, ants, crickets. But in these verses one can feel the inextricable connection with reality, with modern life. It is carried out through a variety of motives (the motive of hope is one of the dearest for the poet). Okudzhava's poetry is characterized by the widespread use of introductory words, interjections, conjunctions, words of contrasting meaning ("laughing and crying", "hard and easy").

Bulat Okudzhava is a recognized founder of the author's song. Success came to Okudzhava because he turned not to the masses, but to the individual, not to everyone, but to each individual. The subject of poetry in his world was ordinary, everyday life.

Poems began to write in childhood. For the first time, Okudzhava's poem was 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 also published during 1946. In 1953-1955, Okudzhava's poems regularly appeared on the pages of Kaluga newspapers. In Kaluga, in 1956, the first collection of his poems, Lyrica, was also 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 wrote more than 800 poems. Many of his poems are born along with music, there are already about 200 songs.

For the first time he tries himself in the genre of song during the war. In 1946, as a student at Tbilisi University, he created the "Student Song" ("Furious and stubborn, burn, fire, burn ..."). Since 1956, one of the first begins to act as an author of poetry and music songs and their performer. Okudzhava's songs attracted attention. There were tape recordings of his speeches, which brought him wide popularity. Recordings of his songs were distributed throughout the country in thousands of copies. His songs were heard in films and performances, in concert programs, in television and radio programs. The first disc was released in Paris in 1968, despite the resistance of the Soviet authorities. Disks came out noticeably later in the USSR.

At present, the State Literary Museum in Moscow has created a fund of Okudzhava's tape recordings, numbering over 280 items.

Professional composers write music to Okudzhava's poems. An example of good luck is V. Levashov's song to Okudzhava's verses "Take your overcoat, let's go home." But the most fruitful was Okudzhava's collaboration with Isaac Schwartz ("Drops of the Danish King", "Your Honor", "Song of the Cavalier Guard", "Road Song", songs for the TV movie "Straw Hat" and others).

Books (collections of poems and songs): "Lyric" (Kaluga, 1956), "Islands" (M., 1959), "Merry Drummer" (M., 1964), "On the road to Tinatin" (Tbilisi, 1964), "Magnanimous March" (M., 1967), "Arbat, my Arbat" (M., 1976), "Poems" (M., 1984, 1985), "Dedicated to you" (M., 1988), "Selected" (M., 1989), "Songs" (M., 1989), "Songs and Poems" (M., 1989), "Drops of the Danish King" (M., 1991), "Grace of Fate" (M., 1993 ), "A song about my life" (M., 1995), "Tea drinking on the Arbat" (M., 1996), "Waiting room" (N. Novgorod, 1996).

Short biography of Bulat Okudzhava

Okudzhava, BULAT SHALVOVICH (1924-1997), Russian poet, prose writer. Born May 9, 1924 in Moscow in a family of party workers, spent his childhood on the 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, ninth-grader Okudzhava volunteered for the front, where he was a mortar, machine gunner, and after being wounded, a radio operator. In 1945 he worked in Tbilisi as a turner, graduated from the tenth grade of an 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 contributed to 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 Young Guard publishing house, and headed the poetry department at the Literaturnaya Gazeta. Having joined the Writers' Union in 1962, he fully focused on creative work.
Okudzhava composed his first song - Violent and Stubborn ... - while still a student, in 1946, and in the second half of the 1950s he created songs (Midnight trolleybus, Vanka Morozov, King, Goodbye, boys, Song about the Black Cat and etc.), which immediately gained wide popularity. These songs were first performed by the author in friendly companies, then publicly, tape recordings dispersed throughout the country. Okudzhava is one of the creators and recognized patriarch of the genre, which later received the name "author's song". Okudzhava himself never saw a fundamental difference between his poems-songs and non-song poems, he possessed an emphatically literary (and even "literary-centric") self-awareness, he was guided in his work - both poetic and prosaic - by the spiritual tradition of the 19th century.
The first prose work of Okudzhava - 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", the absence of "heroic" pathos. Okudzhava's independent civil 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 a reputation for him 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. since the late 1960s.
During the years of “perestroika”, Okudzhava’s popularity was accompanied by official recognition, he actively participated in public life, worked in the Pardon Commission under the President of the Russian Federation. He is awarded the State Prize of the USSR (1991), the Booker Prize (1994) for his autobiographical novel The 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 a creatively transformed tradition of urban romance, and Nekrasov's line of verse prose, and Russian symbolism with its extreme polysemy of key images, and V. Mayakovsky's poetics with its speech shifts and accent verse (which Okudzhava transforms into melodious rhythms). Okudzhava is inherent in the poetics of a harmonized shift, when the courage and paradoxicalness of the technique becomes imperceptible in the general stream of sincerely-confiding intonation.
The world of Okudzhava is both intimate and cosmic. This effect is achieved by a consistent expansion of the meaning that underlies the lyrical composition. The midnight trolleybus becomes a ship, and the passengers become sailors. The blue ball flies away and returns, having managed to visit the globe. The Arbat appears as a whole “fatherland” and even a “religion”. Real, earthly Faith, Lyuba and Nadya-Nadya turn into a symbolic triad Faith - Hope - Love. Okudzhava's individual poetic phraseology ("on duty in April", "hopeful little orchestra", "let's join hands, friends", etc.) became part of the national language.
Okudzhava, a prose writer, owns the novels A Sip of Freedom (Poor Avrosimov; 1965-1968), Mercy, or the Adventures of Shipov. Vintage vaudeville (1969-1970), Voyage of dilettantes (1971-1977), Rendezvous with Bonaparte (1983). Resorting to linguistic and figurative-subject stylization, the author paradoxically clashes the fates of “big” and “small” people, becoming more and more imbued with a skeptical view of the possibility of a radically volitional intervention of a person in history. In the unfinished family chronicle Abolished Theater (1990-1993), this idea is developed as a soberly critical assessment of Bolshevik romanticism, debunking the illusory ideals of "commissars in dusty helmets." Novels and short stories by Okudzhava Individual failures among solid successes (1978), The Adventures of a Secret Baptist (1984), The Art of Cutting and Living (1985), The Girl of My Dreams (1985), Near Rivoli, or the Whims of Fortune (1991) are highly autobiographical, performed fruitful critical reflection, witty self-irony. Such are the Autobiographical Anecdotes published in Novy Mir (1997, No. 1) and becoming 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 staging of his prose works, songs for theater and cinema. Okudzhava died in Paris on May 12, 1997.

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 live with relatives in Tbilisi.

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

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

“In the forty-second year, after the ninth grade, at the age of seventeen, I voluntarily went to the front. He fought, was a mortar, private, soldier. Basically - the North Caucasian front. Wounded near Mozdok from a German plane. And after the cure - the heavy artillery of the reserve of the High Command ...
That's all I was able to see.

I didn't make it to Berlin.

I was a very funny soldier. And, probably, there was a little sense from me. But I tried my best to make everyone happy. I shot when I needed to shoot. Although to be honest with you, I didn’t shoot with great love, because killing people is not a very pleasant thing. Then - I was very afraid of the front.

The first day I got to the front line. Both I and several of my comrades, just like me, seventeen years old, looked very cheerful and happy. And on the chest we hung machine guns. And we went forward to the location of our battery. And everyone already imagined in their imagination how we would now fight and fight beautifully.

And at the very moment when our fantasies reached their climax, suddenly a mine exploded, and we all fell to the ground, because we were supposed to fall. But we fell as expected, but a mine fell from us at a distance of half a kilometer.

Then everyone who was nearby walked past us, and we were lying. Everyone went about their business, and we were lying. Then we heard laughter at ourselves. They raised their heads. We knew it was time to get up. They got up and left too.

This was our first baptism of fire. That was the first time I knew that I was a coward. First time. By the way, I must tell you that before that I considered myself a very brave person, and everyone who was with me considered themselves the bravest.

And then there was the war. I learned and saw a lot ... And I also learned that everyone who was with me was also afraid. Some showed the view, others did not. Everyone was afraid. This was a little comforting.

The impression from the front was very strong, because I was a boy. And later, later, when I began to write poetry, my first poems were on a military theme. There were many poems. They made songs. From some. They were mostly sad songs. Well, because, I'll tell you, there's nothing fun about war."

Being a regimental leader, in 1943 at the front he composed his first song “We couldn’t sleep in cold cars ...”, the text of which has not been preserved.
Okudzhava: "There is nothing fun in war."
In 1945, Okudzhava was demobilized and returned to Tbilisi, where he passed the secondary school exams as an external student.
In 1950 he graduated from the Faculty of Philology of Tbilisi State University, worked as a teacher - first in a rural school in the village of Shamordino, Kaluga Region and in the district center of Vysokinichi, then in Kaluga.
He worked as a correspondent and literary employee of the Kaluga regional newspapers Znamya and Molodoy Leninets.

Okudzhava's first poem was published in 1945 in the newspaper of the Transcaucasian Military District "Fighter of the Red Army". Then the poet's poems were regularly published in other newspapers.

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

In 1956, after the release of the first collection of poems "Lyrika" in Kaluga, Bulat Okudzhava returned to Moscow, worked as deputy editor for the department of literature in the newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda", editor in the publishing house "Young Guard", then head of the department of poetry in the "Literary Gazette". ". He took part in the work of the Magistral literary association.

In 1959, the second poetic collection of the poet "Islands" was published in Moscow.

In 1962, having become a member of the Union of Writers of the USSR, Okudzhava left the service and devoted himself entirely to creative activity.
Author of lyric collections The Cheerful Drummer (1964), On the Road to Tinatin (1964), Generous March (1967), Arbat, My Arbat (1976) and others.

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

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

In 1965, Vladimir Motyl managed to film this story, giving the film the name - "Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha". In subsequent years, Okudzhava wrote autobiographical prose, which compiled the collections of stories The Girl of My Dreams and The Visiting Musician, as well as the novel Abolished Theater (1993).
In the late 1960s, Okudzhava turned to historical prose. The novels 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 Voyage of Amateurs (1976 - the first part; 1978) written on the historical material of the early 19th century were published in separate editions. - the second part) and "Date with Bonaparte" (1983).

Poetic and prose works of Okudzhava have been translated into many languages ​​and published in many countries of the world.

From the second half of the 1950s, Bulat Okudzhava began to act as an author of poetry and music for songs and their performer, becoming one of the universally recognized founders of the author's song.
Okudzhava 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 Korolyov”, “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 speeches instantly spread throughout the country. Okudzhava's songs were heard on radio, television, in films and performances.

Okudzhava's concerts were held 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 CDs 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.
Okudzhava's concerts were held in Europe, USA, Canada and Japan
Andrei Smirnov's film "Belarusian Station" (1970) brought national fame to the performer, in which a song was performed to the words of the poet "Birds do not sing here ...".

Okudzhava is also 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 featured 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 Sip of Freedom, which a year later was staged in several theaters at once.

In the last years of his life, Bulat Okudzhava was a member of the founding board of the Moscow News newspaper, Obshchaya Gazeta, a member of the editorial board of the Evening Club newspaper, a member of the Council of the Memorial Society, vice president of the Russian PEN Center, a member of the pardon commission under the President of the Russian Federation ( since 1992), a member of the Commission on State Prizes of the Russian Federation (since 1994).

On June 23, 1995, Okudzhava's last concert took place at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

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

Okudzhava was married twice.

From his first marriage with 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, father's accompanist at creative evenings of recent years.

In 1997, in memory of the poet, by decree of the President of the Russian Federation, the regulation on the Bulat Okudzhava Prize was approved, awarded for the creation of works in the genre of author's song and poetry that contribute to Russian culture.

In October 1999, the State Memorial Museum of Bulat Okudzhava was opened in Peredelkino.

In May 2002, the first and most famous monument to Bulat Okudzhava was opened in Moscow near house 43 on the Arbat.

The Bulat Okudzhava Foundation annually hosts the “Visiting Musician” evening at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow. Festivals named after Bulat Okudzhava are held in Kolontaevo (Moscow region), on Lake Baikal, in Poland and in Israel.