Okudzhava Bulat: biography, personal life, creativity, memory. Bulat Okudzhava - biography, photo, personal life: visiting musician Poetic and singing activities

A master of poetic language, master of the feelings of several generations, who gave us an amazing song word of great confidence and naturalness Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava was born in Moscow on May 9, 1924 in a family of Bolsheviks who came from Tiflis for party studies in Moscow. His father Shalva Stepanovich was Georgian, and his mother Ashkhen Stepanovna Nalbandyan was Armenian, and a relative of the famous Armenian poet Vahan Teryan. Soon after Bulat's birth, his father was sent to the Caucasus as a commissar of the Georgian division, and his mother remained in Moscow and worked in the party apparatus. Therefore, Bulat spent his childhood in Moscow, where his family was allocated two rooms in a communal apartment at house 43 on Arbat. The attitude towards Moscow was later reflected in Okudzhava’s poems.

My city wears highest rank and the title Moscow,
But he always comes out to meet all the guests himself.

Okudzhava also described how, in the small courtyards of the quiet Arbat alleys, the children came up with a game of “Arbatism” and a ritual of initiation into their “class.”

Even though my love is as old as the world,
He served and trusted only her alone,
I, a nobleman from the Arbat courtyard,
Inducted into the nobility by his court.

Bulat was the eldest of two sons. At home, the parents spoke Russian with their sons, often took them to the opera and concerts, Bulat knew the repertoire from a young age opera house , and early began to write poetry and prose himself. Bulat Okudzhava later said: “This was long before the war. In the summer I lived with my aunt in Tbilisi. I was twelve years old. Like almost everyone else in childhood and adolescence, I wrote poetry. Every poem seemed wonderful to me. Each time I read what I had written again to my uncle and aunt. They were not very knowledgeable in poetry, to say the least. My uncle worked as an accountant, my aunt was an enlightened housewife. But they loved me very much and every time they listened to a new poem, they enthusiastically exclaimed: “Brilliant!” Aunt shouted to uncle: “He’s a genius!” The uncle happily agreed: “Of course, dear. A true genius!" And this was all in my presence, and I felt dizzy. And then one day my uncle asked me: “Why don’t you have a single book of your poems? Pushkin had so many of them... and Bezymensky... And you didn’t have one...” Indeed, I thought, not one, but why? And this sad injustice excited me so much that I went to the Writers' Union, on Machabeli Street. It was monstrously hot, there was no one in the Writers' Union, and only one of the most important secretary, fortunately for me, showed up in his office. He stopped by for a minute to pick up some papers, and at that moment I entered. “Hello,” I said. “Oh, hello, hello,” he said, smiling widely, “Are you coming to see me?” I nodded. “Oh, sit down, please, sit down, I’m listening to you...” I was not surprised either by his friendly smile or his exclamations and said: “You know, the fact is that I write poetry...” - “Oh! » - he whispered, “And I want... I thought: why don’t I publish a collection of poems? Like Pushkin or Bezymensky...” He looked at me strangely. Now, after so many years, I perfectly understand the nature of this look and what he was thinking about, but then... He stood motionless, and some strange smile twisted his face. Then he shook his head slightly and exclaimed: “A book?!” Yours?! Oh, that’s wonderful!.. That would be wonderful!” Then he paused, the smile disappeared, and he said sadly: “But, you see, we have difficulties with this... with paper... that's the very thing... we've run out of paper... well, it's just not there. .. finita...” “Ah-ah,” I drawled, not really understanding, “Maybe I’ll consult with my uncle?” He walked me to the door. At home at the dinner table, I said casually: “And I was in the Writers’ Union. They were all very happy there and said that they would be happy to publish my book... but they have difficulties with paper... it just doesn’t exist...” “Idlers,” said the aunt. “How much of this paper do you need?” - Uncle asked in a businesslike manner. “I don’t know,” I said, “I don’t know that.” “Well,” he said, “I have about one and a half kilograms. Well, maybe two...” I shrugged. The next day I ran to the Writers' Union, but there was no one there. And that same chief secretary, fortunately for him, was also absent.”

When Okudzhava’s father, who by that time had become the secretary of the Tbilisi City Committee, had a conflict with Lavrentiy Beria, Shalva Okudzhava turned to Sergo Ordzhonikidze with a request to be transferred to party work in Russia, and was sent to the Urals as a party organizer for the construction of a carriage factory in Nizhny Tagil, where he became the first secretary of the Nizhny Tagil city party committee. He sent the family to live with him in the Urals, but in 1937 Bulat’s parents were arrested, his father was shot on false charges, and his mother was exiled to the Karaganda camp, from where she returned only in 1955. After the arrest of his parents, Bulat and his grandmother returned to Moscow, and rarely spoke about the fate of his parents, only towards the end of his life did he describe the events that befell his family in the autobiographical novel “The Abolished Theater”. Later, Bulat Shalvovich always kept in his desk drawer a copy of his father’s file, issued to him in Sverdlovsk in 1989.

The orphaned brothers began to live in Moscow with their grandmother, and from the age of 14 Bulat worked as an extra and stagehand in the theater, and also worked as a mechanic, but in 1940 his relatives took him to Tbilisi. At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Bulat worked as a turner at a defense plant, and in the spring of 1942, after finishing ninth grade, Bulat volunteered for the army, where he was sent to the North Caucasus Front and served in a mortar division. Later he became a radio operator and was wounded near Mozdok. Bulat Okudzhava later wrote: “I finished ninth grade when the war began. Like many of his peers, he was desperately eager to go to the front. My friend and I visited the military registration and enlistment office every day. They handed us summonses and said: “You take them home, and tomorrow we will send you away.” This went on for six months... Finally, broken by our stubbornness, the captain could not stand it and said: “Write your agendas yourself, I don’t have the courage to do it.” We filled out the forms and took them home: he to me, I to him. It’s somehow funny for me to remember myself and see myself - in bandages, with bow legs, with a thin neck, with a large cap on my head, who dreamed throughout the war of having boots and never received them... When I got to the front line on the first day, both I and several of my comrades - seventeen years old like me - looked very cheerful and happy. We had machine guns hanging on our chests, and we walked forward to the location of our battery, and each of us already imagined in our imagination how we would now fight and fight wonderfully. And at that very moment, when our fantasies reached their climax, a mine suddenly exploded, and we all fell to the ground, because we were supposed to fall. Well, we fell as expected, but the mine fell half a kilometer away from us. Everyone who was nearby walked past us, and we lay there. Then we heard ourselves laughing. They got up and went too. This was our first baptism of fire... War is an unnatural thing, taking away from a person by nature this right for life. I am wounded by it for life and I still often see in my dreams dead comrades, ashes of houses, the earth torn up by craters... I hate war... Then, later, when I began to write poetry, my first poems were on military theme. There were many poems - From them songs were made... From some. These were mostly sad songs. Because, I’ll tell you, there’s nothing fun about war.”

In the spring of 1944, Okudzhava was demobilized after being wounded and settled in Tbilisi with his aunt. He graduated from school as an external student, entered the philological department of Tbilisi University, wrote a lot and read his lyrics in a literary circle that developed around the poet Georgiy Kreitan. In 1945, Okudzhava’s military-patriotic poems were published in the newspaper of the Transcaucasian Front, and he wrote his first song, “We couldn’t sleep in the cold train cars,” back in 1943 at the front, but apart from the first line, the text of this song has not been preserved. In 1946, he composed the “Student Song” in the assembly hall of Tbilisi University, where Bulat was selecting a melody on the piano for a recently written poem.

Fierce and stubborn
Burn, fire, burn.
To replace December
Januarys are coming.

Everything has been given to us in full -
And joy and laughter.
One moon for all,
Spring is the same for everyone.

Live through the summer
And let them lead there
For all your deeds
To the worst judgment...

The shock of the war was later described by Okudzhava in the story “Be Healthy, Schoolboy,” written by him in 1960-1961, and military service after the hospital was described in the story “The Adventures of the Secret Baptist” in 1984. After graduating from university, from 1950 to 1955, Bulat Okudzhava worked as an assigned teacher in the village of Shamordino and the regional center of Vysokinichi Kaluga region, then - in one of the secondary schools in the city of Kaluga. There, in Kaluga, he was a correspondent and literary contributor to the regional newspapers “Znamya” and “Young Leninist”. In 1955, Bulat Shalvovich’s parents were rehabilitated, and in 1956 he returned to Moscow, where he became a member of the Magistral literary association, worked as an editor at the Molodaya Gvardiya publishing house, and then as head of the poetry department at Literaturnaya Gazeta. Bulat Okudzhava said: “My friend Boris Balter then worked as a consultant at Literaturnaya Gazeta.” One day he said: “Listen, I want to show your work to the Old Man.” That’s what we called Konstantin Georgievich Paustovsky. “Show me,” I say, “if you want, it’s just scary.” And indeed, it was scary. K.G. I always considered Paustovsky a master and tried to look through his eyes at what was intended only for close people. But Balter left with the manuscript for Tarusa. He returned and said: “The old man asked me to bring you.” We spent three days visiting Konstantin Georgievich. He was already ill then, and his relatives, naturally, tried to protect him from unnecessary meetings and conversations. There were a lot of young people around him anyway. He was ready to support everyone who was looking for their path in art. I remember a barn, a guitar that came from somewhere, hastily cut sandwiches. Konstantin Georgievich secretly ran away from home... I can’t remember what I sang then, but the very atmosphere of goodwill and kindness gave birth to songs.”

At the end of the 1950s, Okudzhava’s songs gained wide popularity due to their unique language, musicality, trust and lack of falsehood. Having become a cult sign of the times, the original song rallied people around it. During these years, Okudzhava wrote the songs “About Lenka the Queen”, “The girl is crying - the ball has flown away”, “The last trolleybus”, “Goodbye, boys” and other works.

You flow like a river. Strange name!
And the asphalt is transparent, like water in a river.
Ah, Arbat, my Arbat, you are my calling.
You are both my joy and my misfortune.

Only knowing the truth about the years of separation and turmoil, “when the lead rains beat so hard on our backs that we couldn’t expect any mercy,” can one understand why Arbat is both joy and misfortune for Okudzhava. And understand why he wrote a different “Arbat” song, less enthusiastic, but more biographical.

What did you change your mind about, my father, who was shot,
When I walked out with the guitar, confused but alive?
It’s as if I stepped from the stage into the midnight comfort of Moscow,
Where the old Arbat boys are given their fate for free...

Okudzhava himself did not consider such a unique phenomenon in modern poetry as a poet with a guitar to be something special. He never wrote poems “to order.” Okudzhava’s quiet, sincere voice attracted and forced listeners to listen, because his soul and heart unmistakably defined important topics for contemporaries.

In our life, beautiful and strange and short,
like the stroke of a pen over a smoking fresh wound
it’s time to think about it, really...

Playwright Alexander Volodin wrote: “I saw him at the Oktyabrskaya Hotel in the company of Moscow poets. He put his foot on the chair, the guitar on his knee, tightened the strings and began. What did you start? Then they began to call it Okudzhava’s songs. And then it was still unclear what it was. How to name? How to tell about this, what happened at the Oktyabrskaya Hotel? Okudzhava left for Moscow. And I talked and talked about it until the director of the House of Arts became curious about what kind of songs they were. I have put them in my own words. And soon Okudzhava’s first public evening was planned in the Leningrad House of Arts. I called everyone, persuading them to come. “What, good voice?” - they asked me. “That’s not the point, he makes up the words himself!” - “Are they good poems?” “That’s not the point, he composes the music himself!” - “Good melodies?” - “That’s not the point!..” Before I had to introduce him to the listeners, he asked: “Just don’t say that these are songs. It's a poetry". Apparently he wasn't sure of the musical merits of what he was doing. At Okudzhava’s next evening there was a crowd at the House of Arts. “What’s wrong here?” - asked passers-by. “Adzhubey has arrived,” they answered.”

In 1961, Okudzhava’s story “Be Healthy, Schoolboy” was included by Paustovsky in the almanac “Tarussky Pages”, but official criticism did not accept this story for pacifist motives in assessing experiences young man at war. And in 1965, director Vladimir Motyl filmed it, giving the film a different name - “Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha.” At the same time, in 1961 - 1962, official criticism condemned many of Okudzhava’s songs. According to the leadership of the Writers' Union of Russia, “most of these songs did not express the moods, thoughts, and aspirations of our heroic youth.” In the mid and late 1960s, the writer more than once flaunted his independence, signed letters in defense of Yu. Daniel and A. Sinyavsky, and published abroad. Okudzhava, in collaboration with Pyotr Todorovsky, wrote the script for the film “Loyalty”, and two scripts with Olga Artsimovich for the films “ Private life Alexander Sergeich, or Pushkin in Odessa” and “We loved Melpomene...”, but both of these paintings were never staged.

Okudzhava's songs began to be heard in films. Professional composers wrote music to his poems. The song based on Okudzhava’s poems “Take your overcoat, let’s go home” quickly became incredibly popular. And the most fruitful was Okudzhava’s collaboration with Isaac Schwartz, which resulted in the songs “Drops of the Danish King”, “Your Honor”, ​​“Song of the Cavalry Guard”, “Road Song”, songs for the television film “Straw Hat” and many other works.

In the 1960s, Okudzhava worked a lot in the prose genre. He said: “I express myself in prose and poetry. In poetry - using rhyme and rhythm, in prose - differently. The only difference is in the form...” In total, during Bulat Okudzhava’s work in cinema, more than 70 of his songs were performed in 50 films, of which more than 40 songs were based on his music.

At the end of the 1960s, Okudzhava turned to historical prose. In 1970-1980, his stories “Poor Avrosimov” about the tragic pages in the history of the Decembrist movement, “The Adventures of Shilov, or Ancient Vaudeville” and written on historical material were published in separate editions early XIX century novels “The Journey of Amateurs” and “A Date with Bonaparte”. Okudzhava continued to write autobiographical prose, included in the collections “The Girl of My Dreams” and “The Visiting Musician,” as well as the novel “The Abolished Theater,” which received the International Booker Prize in 1994 as the best novel of the year in Russian.

Okudzhava always kept himself aloof from the literary and bard circles and, as a matter of principle, did not attend PCB meetings, despite numerous invitations. Very rarely, in exceptional cases, he agreed to be the chairman or member of the jury. At art song rallies, he was extremely upset by the “secondary nature, plagiarism, drunken choral songs and cries like: “Come on Vysotsky!” Bulat Okudzhava said: “Now I don’t think much about the original song: in my opinion, today it no longer exists. There is a mass phenomenon that has lost the main attractive features that made it at one time the “ruler of the thoughts” of so many people. Nowadays everyone plays guitars, writes poetry (mostly bad), and sings them. The public has already become accustomed to a man with a guitar. And everyone who picks up a guitar is called a bard, and I like that name too. I personally have no interest in all this. I think the genre is dead. He left behind a good memory, left behind the names and works of several true poets; as it always happens, the weak is gone, the strong remains, well, we must appreciate and remember what was born and existed within the framework of a given genre... For me, the Poet is, first of all, important. A poet who performs some of his poems to his own melody. That is why I am ignorant of what was previously called the KSP, and now the art song movement. Ninety percent of them are just performers (very good ones, by the way); there are people who write music based on other people’s poems; there are those who write poetry, but, in my opinion, more often they are weak (because there is never too much good). I have never been particularly associated with this movement, although I have always respected people who sing... I don’t know what a bard is. For me, anyway, first of all, there are poems, and I can only talk about poetry only then - about everything else... I repeat, for me there is a Poet who reads his poems and sings them...”

In 1970, Okudzhava completed work on two novels, “Mercy, or the Adventures of Shilov” and “Old Vaudeville.” In the same year, the film “White Sun of the Desert” was released, in which the song “Your Honor, Lady Separation” was written to Okudzhava’s poems. And in 1971, the film “Belorussky Station” was released, in which another of Bulat Shalvovich’s famous songs “We will not stand for the price” was performed. Okudzhava “forgot” some of his songs, never performed them, and forbade them to include them in collections. One such comic song was written by him in 1957: “Marya Petrovna goes for a herring, lives near the market, and a brand new satellite floats above Moscow like a silver boat.” Another song “What is your fault?” Bulat Okudzhava wrote after separating from his first wife Galina Smolyaninova in 1964. Exactly a year after the divorce, to the day, she died at 39 from a broken heart. For Okudzhava, this was one of the hardest blows in his life. His second wife Olga Artsimovich became his caring and true friend on long years their difficult life together.

In 1976, a collection of Okudzhava’s poems entitled “Arbat, my Arbat” was published, in 1977 he wrote the novel “The Journey of an Amateur”, in 1983 the novel “A Date with Bonaparte”, and since the mid-1980s, Okudzhava’s work has become extremely popular. During the years of perestroika, the authorities did not persecute his work, but, on the contrary, encouraged it in every possible way. Okudzhava joined the Presidential Pardon Commission Russian Federation, in 1984 he became a Knight of the Order of Friendship of Peoples. About Okudzhava’s 60th anniversary, Yuliy Kim wrote: “In May 1984, Bulat turned 60. As usual, not wanting any boom, he disappeared into the wilds of the Kaluga province, but guests still came to him - and how many! And How! Armed with a video camera, Olga, his wife, together with Bulat Jr., secretly from the hero of the day, visited about a hundred friends and acquaintances, asking everyone to raise a glass in honor of the birthday boy with a short monologue appropriate to the occasion. It turned out to be a three-hour congratulation, and thus no one came to Bulat in his Kaluga wilderness. Venya Smekhov, for example, spoke his monologue with his legs dangling from the stage of the old Taganka. Two of Yuri's sidekicks - Karyakin and Davydov - raised their glasses of vodka, spreading a newspaper with sausage on a park bench. Alla Borisovna, in a golden jacket, at home at the white piano, sang something about autumn to Bulat, beautifully and simply. It was a wonderful celebration. But it turned out even more remarkable a month and a half later in the hall of the Gorbunov House of Culture in Fili - the only place where Bulat agreed to meet, so to speak, with the people in the form of Moscow cadet soldiers, with whom he had long been friends. The thousand-seat hall with a balcony was packed. Bulat was sitting in the second row. He showed up, despite the temperature of 38 degrees, and heroically spent the entire evening - both the concert part and the feast backstage for about 80 people. And there was such a spontaneous action there, at the finale of the concert. The hero of the occasion himself had already sung the funeral service on stage, the final applause had already thundered - and then people reached out to Bulat with flowers. He stood and accepted bouquet after bouquet, putting them on a chair, and they no longer fit, another chair was needed, and this mountain of flowers grew and grew... Zhvanetsky - later, at the table - still could not stand it and, getting up, raised his glass. - Dear Bulat, I drink to the fact that you received all this during your lifetime. But one special gift was dearer to him than all the flowers. Suddenly, a man came out onto the stage from behind the scenes, leaning back under the weight of a whole column of books, which he carried in front of him: 11 volumes of samizdat - beautifully bound, a printed complete collection of works, and not only works, but also all criticism , including the evil one! The only multi-volume work of his lifetime, “The Soul in the Treasured Lyre...” 160 years ago, his beloved Pushkin already wrote about him, immediately in the first person:

And for a long time I will be so kind to the people,
That I awakened good feelings with my lyre,
That in my cruel age I glorified freedom
And he called for mercy for the fallen.

The genius guessed everything: the song, the guitar, and even participation in the Pardon Commission.” And on May 9, 1994, Okudzhava celebrated his 70th birthday - in a small cozy hall, surrounded by fans and friends, and in the presence of some government members sympathetic to Bulat. Greetings, speeches and songs sounded natural for such an occasion. At the end, Okudzhava took the stage. He looked confused, tired and sick. After waiting for silence, he quietly thanked the audience and added, guiltily: “Forgive me, but all this is deeply alien to me...”

In the 1990s, Okudzhava’s work was recognized with a large number of prizes and awards. In 1990, Norwich University in the USA awarded Okudzhava the honorary degree of Doctor of Humanities, in 1991 he was awarded the USSR State Prize, and in the same year he received the Sakharov Award for Courage in Literature from the independent writers' association "April". In 1994, for the biographical novel “The Abolished Theater,” written a year earlier, Bulat Shalvovich received the Booker Prize in the category “Best Novel of the Year in Russian.” In the same year, Okudzhava himself joined the Commission on State Prizes of the Russian Federation. During these years, Bulat Shalvovich often gave concerts in Moscow, St. Petersburg, the USA, Germany and Israel. In 1997, “Autobiographical Anecdotes” by Bulat Okudzhava was published in the New World magazine, and this was his last lifetime publication of prose. A few months before his death, Okudzhava experienced tragic death his eldest son Igor, before whom he felt guilty all his life and about whom he wrote the following lines in the poem “Results”:

My son was born in the fifties,
my sad eldest,
tired early, fallen into the ground...
And don't pick it up...

After the death of his son, Okudzhava’s health deteriorated sharply. On June 25, 1995, his last concert took place at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. While in Paris on a private visit to visit Anatoly Gladilin, Bulat Okudzhava fell ill with the flu and was admitted to the hospital. Complications caused by asthma and stomach diseases followed, and later kidney failure began to develop, and doctors said that it was impossible to expect improvement, since Okudzhava’s immune system was very weakened. Although Bulat Shalvovich was not a religious person, he was baptized in Paris just a few hours before his death, and received the blessing of one of the elders Pskov-Pechora Lavra, receiving the name John at baptism. By strange coincidence in autobiographical prose he preferred to call himself Ivan Ivanovich. Bulat Okudzhava died on June 12, 1997 in a Paris military hospital and was buried at the Vagankovskoye cemetery in Moscow.

On the third day after Okudzhava’s death, in the studio of the Ekho Moskvy radio station, Ilya Milstein said: “For at least three generations of Russian people, he was their poet, an exponent of the most cherished feelings and the most hard-fought convictions. His death - for those who lived to see this death - became a personal loss. Irreplaceable, heavy and sorrowful... He had an amazing face: childishly trusting eyes, contemptuous, mocking lips. The eyes reflected the poet as he was intended, pure, sublime and romantic. People and years have worked on the hard folds around the mouth. Thus, in his poems and melodies, the unique intonations of his voice and those incompatible features were combined: carelessness and suffering, naivety and melancholy, defenselessness and wisdom... Okudzhava’s very presence in the city, in the country, on the planet, slightly ennobled reality. Not much, per milligram. But for now it was enough. With Okudzhava’s departure, now beyond any doubt, real, adult life begins in Russia. Without Paper Soldiers, Merciful Sisters and Green-Eyed God. Without pity, without hope and without mercy. And our simple-minded wisdom, childish gullibility and mocking love died on the 12th... in a French military hospital...”

Several documentaries have been made about the life and work of Bulat Okudzhava.

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Text prepared by Tatyana Halina

Used materials:

Text of the article by Vitaly Orlov
Materials from the Wikipedia site
Text of the article “Bulat Okudzhava in cinema and in life” on the website www.bokudjava.ru
Materials from the site www.megabook.ru
Materials from the site www.museum.ru
Materials from the site www.belopolye.narod.ru

Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava. Born May 9, 1924 in Moscow - died June 12, 1997 in Clamart, France. Soviet and Russian poet, bard, prose writer and screenwriter, composer. The author of about two hundred original and pop songs, written to his own poems, one of the most prominent representatives of the art song genre in the 1950s-1980s.

Bulat Okudzhava was born in Moscow on May 9, 1924 into a family of Bolsheviks who came from Tiflis to study at the Communist Academy.

At birth he was named Dorian by his parents, in honor of Dorian Gray.

Father - Shalva Stepanovich Okudzhava, Georgian, party leader, mother - Ashkhen Stepanovna Nalbandyan, Armenian, relative of the Armenian poet Vahan Teryan.

My paternal great-grandfather's name was Pavel Peremushev. He came to Georgia in the middle of the 19th century, having previously served 25 years as a recruit and received a land plot in Kutaisi for this. “Who he was - either a native Russian, or a Mordvin, or a Jew from the cantonists - no information has been preserved, nor are there any daguerreotypes.” He worked as a tailor and was married to a Georgian woman, Salome Medzmariashvili. The marriage produced three daughters. The eldest of them, Elizaveta, married the Georgian Stepan Okudzhav, a clerk, with whom she had eight children, including Shalva Stepanovich.

Soon after Bulat's birth, his father was sent to the Caucasus as a commissar of the Georgian division. Mother remained in Moscow, worked in the party apparatus. Bulat was sent to Tiflis to study and studied in a Russian class.

Father was promoted to secretary of the Tiflis city committee. Because of the conflict with Beria, he asked Ordzhonikidze to send him to party work in Russia, and was sent to the Urals as a party organizer to build a carriage factory in the city of Nizhny Tagil. Then he became the 1st secretary of the Nizhny Tagil city party committee and soon sent his family to live with him in the Urals. Bulat began studying at school No. 32.

In 1937, Okudzhava’s father was arrested in connection with the Trotskyist case at Uralvagonstroy. The arrested director of the plant, L.M. Maryasin, gave “testimony” that in August 1934, he and Okudzhava, during the visit of People’s Commissar of Heavy Industry Ordzhonikidze to Uralvagonstroy, tried to organize an assassination attempt on him.

On August 4, 1937, Sh. S. Okudzhava was shot. My father's two brothers were also shot as supporters of Trotsky.

Soon after his father's arrest, in February 1937, his mother, grandmother and Bulat moved to Moscow. First place of residence in Moscow - Arbat street, building 43, apt. 12, Communal apartment on the fourth floor.

Okudzhava's mother was arrested in Moscow in 1938 and exiled to Karlag, from where she returned in 1947. Father's sister Olga Okudzhava (wife of the poet Galaktion Tabidze) was shot near Orel in 1941.

In 1940, Bulat Okudzhava moved to relatives in Tbilisi. He studied and then worked at a factory as a turner's apprentice.

In April 1942, Bulat Okudzhava sought early conscription into the army. He was called up after turning eighteen in August 1942 and assigned to the 10th separate reserve mortar division.

After two months of training from October 1942 on the Transcaucasian Front, he became a mortarman in the cavalry regiment of the 5th Guards Don Cavalry Cossack Corps. On December 16, 1942, he was wounded near Mozdok.

After the hospital in active army didn't return. From January 1943, he served in the 124th reserve rifle regiment in Batumi and later as a radio operator in the 126th high-power howitzer artillery brigade of the Transcaucasian Front, which covered the border with Turkey and Iran during this period.

Demobilized for health reasons in March 1944 with the rank of guard private. He was awarded the medals “For the Defense of the Caucasus” and “For the Victory over Germany”, and in 1985 - the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree.

After demobilization he returned to Tbilisi. On June 20, 1944, he received a certificate of secondary education. In 1945 he entered the philological faculty of Tbilisi University.

Having received his diploma in 1950, he worked as a teacher in the Kaluga region for 2 and a half years.

Okudzhava’s first song, “We couldn’t sleep in the cold heated vehicles,” dates back to his period of service in an artillery brigade; the lyrics of the song have not been preserved.

The second was written in 1946 - “Ancient student song” (“Frantic and stubborn ...”). Okudzhava’s poems first appeared in the garrison newspaper of the Transcaucasian Front “Fighter of the Red Army” (later “Lenin’s Banner”), first under the pseudonym A. Dolzhenov.

While working in the Kaluga region, Okudzhava collaborated with the newspaper “Young Leninist”. In 1956 he released his first collection “Lyrics”.

In 1956, after the rehabilitation of both parents and the 20th Congress of the CPSU, Okudzhava joined the party.

In 1959 he moved to Moscow and began performing with his songs, quickly gaining popularity. The composition of many of Okudzhava’s famous songs dates back to this period (1956-1967): “On Tverskoy Boulevard”, “Song about Lyonka Korolev”, “Song about the Blue Ball”, “Sentimental March”, “Song about the Midnight Trolleybus”, “Not Vagabonds” , not drunkards”, “Moscow Ant”, “Song about the Komsomol goddess”, etc.

In 1961, the first official evening of Okudzhava’s original song in the USSR took place in Kharkov. In 1962, he made his first screen appearance in the film Chain Reaction, in which he sang the song “Midnight Trolleybus.”

In 1970, the film “Belorussky Station” was released, in which Bulat Okudzhava’s song “We need one victory” was performed. Okudzhava is the author of other popular songs for such films as “Straw Hat”, “Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha” (Okudzhava sings with a guitar in a cameo role), etc. In total, Okudzhava’s songs and his poems sound more than 80 films.

Okudzhava became one of the most prominent representatives of the genre of Russian art song (along with A. A. Galich), which gained enormous popularity with the advent of tape recorders. Okudzhava formed his own direction in this genre. In 1967, during a trip to Paris, he recorded 20 songs at the Le Chant du Monde studio. Based on these recordings, the first album with Okudzhava’s songs was released in Paris in 1968 under the title “Le Soldat en Papier”. In the same year, a record with Okudzhava’s songs performed by Polish artists was released in Poland, and one song in it - “Farewell to Poland” - was performed by the author.

Since the mid-1970s, Okudzhava’s records were also released in the USSR. In 1974-1975, a long-playing record was recorded, his first recorded in the USSR, it was released in 1976. It was followed by the second Soviet giant disc in 1978. In the mid-1980s, Okudzhava recorded two more giant discs: “Songs and Poems about War” and “The Author Performs New Songs.”

The songs of Bulat Okudzhava, spreading in tape recordings, quickly gained popularity, primarily among the intelligentsia: first in the USSR, then among the Russian emigration. The songs “Let’s join hands, friends...”, “While the Earth is still spinning...” (“Prayer of François Villon”) have become the anthem of many PCB rallies and festivals.

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. Together with composer Isaac Schwartz, Okudzhava created 32 songs. The most famous are the song “Your Honor, Lady Luck” (“White Sun of the Desert”), the cavalry guard’s song from the movie “Star of Captivating Happiness”, the romance “Love and Separation” (“We were not married in church”), as well as songs from the movie "Straw Hat"

In the 1990s, Okudzhava mainly lived at his dacha in Peredelkino. At this time he performed concerts in Moscow and St. Petersburg, in the USA, Canada, Germany and Israel.

He was a member of the founding board of the newspapers “Moskovskie Novosti” and “Obshchaya Gazeta”, and a member of the editorial board of the newspaper “Evening Club”.

Okudzhava’s works have been translated into many languages ​​and published in many countries around the world, and his books have also been published abroad in Russian.

Among his favorite writers Bulat Okudzhava named A.S. Pushkin, E.T. A. Hoffman and.

With the beginning of perestroika, Bulat Okudzhava began to accept Active participation V political life countries, taking an active democratic position.

Since 1989, Okudzhava has been a founding member of the Russian PEN Center. In 1990 he left the CPSU. Since 1992, member of the commission on pardons under the President of the Russian Federation, since 1994, member of the commission on State Prizes of the Russian Federation. He was also a member of the Memorial Society Council.

He had a negative attitude towards Stalin and Lenin.

In an interview with the magazine “Capital” in 1992, Okudzhava said: “Take our disputes with my mother, who, despite the fact that she spent nineteen years in the camps, remained a convinced Bolshevik-Leninist. Well, for some time I myself believed that it was Stalin who ruined everything.” In an interview with Novaya Gazeta, he expressed the idea of ​​​​the similarities between the fascist and Stalinist regimes.

In 1993, he signed the “Letter of the 42” demanding a ban on “communist and nationalist parties, fronts and associations”, recognition of the Congress of People’s Deputies and the Supreme Council as illegitimate, and a trial of the organizers and participants in the events of October 1993 in Moscow.

He spoke negatively about supporters of the Supreme Council (Khasbulatov, Makashov, Rutskoi) in an interview with the newspaper Podmoskovnye Izvestia on December 11, 1993.

On June 12, 1997, Bulat Okudzhava died in Paris (in the suburb of Clamart), in a military hospital. Just before his death, he was baptized with the name John in memory of the holy martyr John the Warrior. This happened in Paris with the blessing of one of the elders of the Pskov-Pechersk Monastery.

He was buried at the Vagankovskoye cemetery.

Family of Bulat Okudzhava:

Father - Shalva Stepanovich Okudzhava, party worker.

Mother - Ashkhen Stepanovna Nalbandyan, a relative of the Armenian poet Vahan Teryan.

First wife - Galina Vasilievna Smolyaninova (1926-1965).

Son - Igor Okudzhava (1954-1997).

Daughter - died in early infancy.

The second wife is Olga Vladimirovna Okudzhava (nee Artsimovich), niece of Lev Artsimovich.

Son - Bulat (Anton) Bulatovich Okudzhava (b. 1965), musician, composer.

Filmography of Bulat Okudzhava:

Film roles:

1962 - Chain Reaction - Bus Passenger
1963 - Zastava Ilyich (“I’m twenty years old”) - participant in a poetry evening (uncredited)
1967 - Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha - a military man at the New Year's Eve (uncredited)
1975 - Star of Captivating Happiness - bandmaster at the ball (uncredited)
1976 - Non-transferable key - reciter of poems about Pushkin
1976 - Strogoffs - officer
1985 - Legal marriage - passenger on a train
1986 - Guard me, my talisman - cameo

Okudzhava's songs in films:

1961 - “Horizon” - lyrics
1961 - “My friend, Kolka” - lyrics
1962 - “Chain Reaction” - first appearance on screen
1963 - “Ilyich’s Outpost” (“I’m twenty years old”)
1967 - “Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha” (co-author of the script, cameo role)
1970 - “Theft” - song “Forest Waltz” (“A musician plays a waltz in the forest under a tree”)
1970 - “Belorussky Station” - author of the song “We need one victory” (orchestration by Alfred Schnittke)
1970 - “White Sun of the Desert” - lyrics of the song “Your Honor, Lady Luck”
1973 - “Dirk” - lyrics of “Songs of the Red Army Soldier” (“The cannon hits blindly”) and “Songs of a homeless child” (“At the Kursk Station”)
1974 - “Bronze Bird” - lyrics of the song “You burn, burn, my fire”
1974 - “Straw Hat” - lyrics
1975 - “The Adventures of Pinocchio” - lyrics of some songs
1977 - “Aty-Bati, the soldiers were coming” - the song “Take your overcoat, let’s go home”
1977 - “Untransferable Key”
1979 - “The wife left” - the song “Another Romance”
1981 - “Mushroom Rain” - song “Old Soldier’s Song”
1982 - “Pokrovsky Gate” - songs “Painters”, “Song about Arbat”, “Sentries of Love”
1982 - “Leave a trace” - author of the song “There is torment by the fire”
1983 - “From the life of the head of the criminal investigation department” - songs “Pirate Lyric” and “Song about Fools”
1984 - Captain Frakass - song “Autumn Rain”, “Hope’s Painted Door”, “Oh, How the Days Fly by Days” (music by Isaac Schwartz), “Here’s Some Horse”
1984 - “Darling, dear, beloved, only” - song “Someone strives to become richer”
1985 - “Non-professionals” - songs “Painters”, “Let’s join hands, friends”
1985 - “Legitimate Marriage” - songs “After the rain, the skies are more spacious...”, “This woman in the window (“Long winters and summers will never merge...”)”
1986 - “The Secrets of Madame Wong”, author of the song “The sun is shining, the music is playing”
1993 - This woman in the window... - the song of the same name sounds
1999 - TV series “Happy New Happiness!” - song “Autumn Rain” (music by Isaac Schwartz)
2005 - “Turkish Gambit” - song “Autumn Rain” (music by Isaac Schwartz, performance by Olga Krasko)
2013 - “Goodbye, boys” - song “Oh, war, what have you done, vile one.”

He once admitted: “All my life I have been doing what gave me pleasure - prose, poetry, songs. When some process ended, I moved on to another.” He was like that in love - sincere, intolerant of falsehood, unable to lie. This spring Bulat Okudzhava, a wonderful poet and bard, would have turned 88 years old.

Two eternal roads - love and separation - pass through my heart...” These lines Bulat Okudzhava I wrote, being wise from life experience, having repeatedly ignited and extinguished the fire of love in my heart. In a heart that did not know how to lie in anything - not in actions, not in poetry, and especially in love... Perhaps there are more of them - the heroines of his novels. But this is not the main thing. Each of them was His Majesty a Woman, as he wrote in his poems...

First love came early. Bulat was barely 11 years old. He was handsome boy with huge brown eyes and thick curly hair. It was in his mature years that he seemed withdrawn and reserved. And then he was known as a ringleader and a favorite of girls. He and Lelya studied at a Nizhny Tagil school in the fourth grade. Lessons ended in the evening, it got dark early, and the lights at school were often turned off. As soon as the light went out, Bulat rushed headlong to Lyola’s desk, sat down next to her and, while no one was looking, pressed his shoulder to her. And he was silent.

He was transferred to another school. But he did not forget about his love. One day, Lelya’s mother received a letter, and in it was a photograph of a boy. On back side it was written: “Lele from Bulat.” He was waiting for an answer from her. And without waiting, he ran away from classes and came to school, to Olya. After class, I walked her home. Their next meeting took place 60 years later! Lelya kept his photo all these years. They met again in 1994. For three years, until his death, he wrote letters to her.

Sara Mizitova is also one of her school hobbies. He was impressed by her rosy cheeks and slanting Tatar eyes. At first they just looked at each other with Sarah, and then they began to walk together. She was the first to take his hand, which completely conquered him...

In 1942, as a 17-year-old boy, Bulat volunteered for the front. And, sitting in the trenches, he yearned for the girl with whom he lived in the same Arbat courtyard. He even burned her initial – the letter “K” – on his hand. When the war ended, he returned to Moscow and wanted to see her. He came to that same yard and met a fat, unkempt woman hanging laundry on a line. She did not recognize Bulat. He left, realizing that in love one can never return to the past.

His next novel took place in post-war Moscow. Valya lived on Arbat. She was studying at the Moscow Art Theater School when she met a short guy. He didn't seem very handsome to her, and he wasn't tall enough either. But he was cheerful and smart.

The guy wrote her amazing poems. Then he left for Leningrad, and she was sent to the Tambov theater. When Valya became the famous TV presenter Valentina Leontyeva, and Bulat Okudzhava became a symbol of the generation, they met again.

Leontyeva called him to invite him to her program “With all my heart.” He refused, and then the TV presenter read him that same poem. He never published it. As he later explained, the poems were too personal. On his last book, Okudzhava wrote to her: “We met 50 years later. I now terribly regret that we lost these years without seeing each other - how many things could have been different!”

Bulat lost his family early - his father was shot on a false denunciation, and his mother was exiled to Karlag. This is probably why he got married so early - in his second year, apparently, he was in great need of family warmth. He and Galya, his future wife, studied at the university together. After graduating, we went together to teach in the Kaluga region, in the village of Shamordino. Galina was simple, sincere and loved Bulat recklessly. Their first child, a girl, died as soon as she was born.

Then a son, Igor, was born. But the marriage has already cracked. In the late 50s, they felt like strangers to each other. But Okudzhava did not dare to divorce for a long time - he felt like a traitor. When the family moved to Moscow, he met Olga Batrakova. It was to her that he dedicated “Song about the Moscow Ant”,

"And when surprisingly close." And although his relationship with his wife was bursting at the seams, he behaved indecisively with Olga - she was fourteen years younger than him. He got her a job at Litgazeta, where he worked and took her to visit friends. But he never decided to get married. She married someone else, but their romance continued for several more years... In 1989, Okudzhava accidentally met her and found out that she did not have his “Chosen One”. Soon Batrakova received the parcel. On the volume with poems it was written: “Ole with thirty years of love.” For the sake of truth, it must be said that in 1960 Okudzhava experienced another love. This time his queen was actress Zhanna Bolotova, he dedicated the song “On the Smolensk Road” to her. And immediately after he began a relationship with another actress, Larisa Luzhina. This romance lasted for a whole year. But Larisa chose someone else...

A company of academicians invited him to the apartment on Pekhotnaya, 26. In this community he was especially favored. Among the guests were Pyotr Kapitsa and Artem Alikhanyan, some of their students, about fifteen people in total. Okudzhava came with his wife Galina. At that time, they already lived in different apartments, but maintained a relationship, the bard took her with him to performances.

In this company was Olga Artsimovich, the niece of a famous physicist and herself a physicist by training. At that time she was already married. But, noticing the famous poet’s interest in herself, she reciprocated. True, I didn’t think that the acquaintance would continue. Okudzhava called the next morning her uncle, with whom Olga was staying in Moscow, because she lived in Leningrad. By chance, Bella Akhmadulina became their pimp. It was she who asked her to call her to the phone at Bulat’s request. He invited Olga to meet at the Central House of Writers. They talked for three hours. Artsimovich later admitted that she had never felt so comfortable with anyone. She felt an absolute kinship with the poet. Only at 12 o'clock at night did they leave the House of Writers. Okudzhava hugged her and timidly asked: “Will you marry me?” She agreed. She had to return home to her husband and explain to him. Soon Okudzhava arrived in Leningrad, stayed at a hotel and a month later moved to Olga for good.

A year later, his first wife, Galina, died of acute heart failure. She had a heart defect since her youth.

In appearance, she calmly reacted to the final break with her husband. But it seems that this external calm was difficult for her. Okudzhava considered himself guilty of her premature departure. He blamed himself for tragic fate son Igor.

After the death of his mother, the boy lived with her relatives. Okudzhava wanted to take his son to live with him, new family, but with Olga they lived in a cramped apartment, they had a child, Bulat Jr., and Galina’s relatives protested.

However, Okudzhava did not show much persistence. Igor later began to see his father regularly. He grew up kind, soft, but weak-willed. I never found myself in life. He was either a musician or a butcher. And then he started drinking, became a hippie, used drugs, got into a criminal history, and lost his leg. He died early, at 43 years old. And all the time he was the inconsolable pain of his father.

...It happened on April 3, 1981. Okudzhava was invited to speak at the Institute of Soviet Legislation. Natasha Gorlenko, who was barely 26 years old, worked there after graduating from MGIMO. She loved his songs since childhood.

Especially "Prayer". After the concert, they drank tea, and Natasha’s friends praised her to the bard: “You should listen to how she sings!” The girl came out to see him off. Her husband was waiting for her; she was pregnant. They exchanged phone numbers. But her child died as soon as he was born. Natalya and Bulat have not seen each other for a year. Gorlenko called Okudzhava herself. Thus began their secret meetings. He was encrypted - he left the house supposedly to walk the dog. And in 1984 they began performing together. They sang “Grape Seed” and “After the Rain” in two voices. As Natalya assures, there was a period when Bulat Shalvovich left home and they lived together. And then they decided to break up. But we met again and again...

Olga could not stand the gossip and demanded that Okudzhava leave his family. The bard admitted that it was difficult for him to live double life. But accept final decision I couldn't. In May 1997, Bulat and Olga went on their last trip abroad. First to Germany, where he received treatment, and then to Paris. There, Bulat Shalvovich developed an ulcer, the bleeding did not stop, and he was transferred to intensive care. On June 11, doctors warned that his situation was very serious.

His wife decided to baptize him, giving him the name John. He was unconscious.

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Biography, life story of Okudzhava Bulat Shalvovich

Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava (May 9, 1924 - June 12, 1997) - poet, novelist, film screenwriter. The founder of the art song direction.

Childhood and adolescence

Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava was born on May 9, 1924 in Moscow into a family of party workers (father – Georgian, mother – Armenian). When the boy was born, his parents named him Dorian (in honor of the hero of Oscar Wilde's novel Dorian Gray). However, a month later, when it was time to register the child, the father decided that this name did not really suit his son. He invited his wife to register the boy under the name Bulat. She, after thinking a little, agreed.

Lived on Arbat. 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; the father was shot, the mother was exiled to the Karaganda camp. Okudzhava returned to Moscow, where he and his brother were raised by their grandmother. In 1940 he moved to relatives in Tbilisi.

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

Education and work

Graduated as an external student high school 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 was assigned to teach in the village of Shamordino and the regional center of Vysokinichi, Kaluga region, then at one of the secondary schools in Kaluga. There, in Kaluga, he was a correspondent and literary contributor to the regional newspapers "Znamya" and "Young Leninist".

CONTINUED BELOW

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

Personal life

The first wife is Galina Vasilievna Smolyaninova. Children from his first marriage - son Igor (born in 1954, died at the age of 43), daughter (the girl died immediately after birth). Bulat broke up with Galina in 1964, and a year after the divorce, the woman died of a heart attack.

The second wife is Olga Vladimirovna Artsimovich, a physicist by training. Son - Bulat (Anton) Bulatovich Okudzhava (born in 1965), musician, composer.

In the early 1980s, Bulat Okudzhava had a serious affair with singer Natalya Gorlenko (his lover was 31 years younger than him).

Death

Bulat Okudzhava underwent heart surgery in the USA. He died on June 12, 1997 after a short serious illness in Paris. Before his death he was baptized under the name John. He was buried at the Vagankovskoye cemetery in Moscow.

Poetry and songs

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, Okudzhava’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 were born along with music; there are about 200 songs. He first tried 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, Okudzhava was one of the first to act as the author of poetry and song music and their performer. Okudzhava’s songs attracted attention. Tape recordings of his performances appeared, which brought Okudzhava wide popularity. Recordings of Okudzhava's songs were sold throughout the country in thousands of copies. His songs were heard in films and plays, in concert programs, on television and radio broadcasts. The first professionally recorded disc was released in Paris in 1968, despite resistance Soviet authorities. Noticeably later, discs were released in the USSR.

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 of the 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)

Sheet music editions of songs

The first musical edition of B. Okudzhava's songs, known to us, was published in Krakow in 1970 (there were repeated editions in later years). Musicologist V. Frumkin was unable to “pull through” the release of the collection in the USSR, but, having left for the USA, he released it there. In 1989, a large collection of songs was released in our country. Individual songs were published many times in mass collections of songs.

Prose

Since the 1960s, Okudzhava has worked 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 turned 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 novels written on historical material of the early 19th century were published in separate editions “The Journey of Amateurs” (part 1, 1976; part 2, 1978) and “Date with Bonaparte” (1983).

Abroad

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.

Theater

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

Films: Film and Television

Since the mid-1960s, Okudzhava has been acting 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 acted in films himself.

Film scripts

Bulat Okudzhava created four scripts for films, but only two films were shot - “Loyalty” (1965) and “Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha” (1967).

Awards and prizes

Bulat Shalvovich was awarded more than 20 different awards. Among them are medals for courage during the war, and prizes for incomparable writing talent.

In 1997, the State Literary Prize named after Bulat Okudzhava was established.

The name of Bulat Okudzhava is known to many former Soviet citizens, because he was a singer and composer of that time, who created an incredible atmosphere and became a symbol of his era.

Bulat Okudzhava was born on May 9, 1924 in Moscow, but his relatives were from Armenia and Georgia, which is why Bulat had a non-Russian surname. Bulat Okudzhava’s childhood did not take place in the capital of the USSR, but in the city of Tbilisi. In Tbilisi, Bulat Okudzhava’s father was lucky, because he got a place in the party and became one of the most successful party leaders. Bulat’s family moved very often, but this did not last too long, because, unfortunately, following a denunciation, Bulat’s father ended up in the camps and was then sentenced to death (that’s the party system).

At first Bulat stayed with his mother, they tried to escape by returning back to Moscow, however, this did not save them and Bulat’s mother also ended up in a camp for wives who were married to traitors to the motherland. Bulat Okudzhava’s mother stayed in the camp for twelve years, and all this time the boy stayed with relatives in Tbilisi.

Bulat Okudzhav’s career began with working as a turner at a factory. For the average Soviet man– it was a completely normal and ordinary job. In 1942, he decided to volunteer for the front. In 1943 he was wounded, but still, having recovered, he went to the front line. Bulat Okudzhava wrote his first song at the front. It became quite popular, but after which he did not have a creative takeoff, but rather, on the contrary, a decline. The title of this song is “We couldn’t sleep in the cold heated cars.”

After the war, Okudzhava decided to study at the University of Tbilisi, and after receiving his diploma, he managed to work as a rural teacher. But my creative activity Bulat Okudzhava did not give up; he continued to write poetry, which he later used as musical texts.

The first poems of Bulat Okudzhava were published in the newspaper “Young Leninist” after very interesting events. The start of his career and recognition was made when, at a performance by famous writers Nikolai Panchenko and Vladimir Koblikov, Bulat Okudzhava simply approached them and offered to read his poems and give them an assessment. Apparently, such a talent of the young poet could not be hidden, so recognition came very quickly.

In 1955, Bulat Okudzhava began earning money as a songwriter. His first creative successes were “Sentimental March”, “On Tverskoy Boulevard” and others, which brought him enormous popularity. Already in 1961, Bulat Okudzhava had his first concert in Kharkov. The public appreciated his work well. After this, concerts became a common occurrence in the life of Bulat Okudzhava, and his work began to be recognized everywhere.

Bulat Okudzhava also gave concerts in many European countries, this happened especially often after the collapse Soviet Union. Last years Bulat spent his life in Paris, where he died in 1997 due to his long illness; however, he was buried in his homeland, in Moscow, at the Vagankovsky cemetery.

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