Essay
on the topic of:
“The life and work of Bulat Okudzhava”
Completed by: Bastrygin Alexander,
student of class 6 "A"
Rossosh
2016
Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava (1924 - 1997) is one of the most original Russian poets of the 20th century, the recognized founder of the art song.
Until 1940 he lived on Arbat. Both the date and place of the poet’s birth acquired a symbolic character over time. May 9 was the day of the end of the most terrible and inhumane war, about which front-line soldier Okudzhava managed to say a new word in his songs. Arbat, in the poet’s lyrical system, became a symbol of peace, goodness, humanity, nobility, culture, historical memory - everything that opposes war, cruelty and violence. A significant part of Okudzhava’s lyrics were written under the impressions of the war years. But these songs and poems are not so much about war as against it: “War, you see, is an unnatural thing, taking away from a person the right to life given by nature. I am wounded by it for the rest of my life, and in my dreams I still often see dead comrades, ashes of houses, the earth torn apart by craters... I hate war.” Before last day, looking back, admiring the victory, proud of the participants in the Great Patriotic War, the poet never ceased to hope that we, people, will learn to do without blood when solving our earthly affairs. Okudzhava’s last poems contain the lines:
The soldier walks with a rifle, he is not afraid of the enemy.
But here’s the strange thing going on in his soul:
He hates guns, and he is not happy about wars...
Of course, if it’s not a bast shoe, but a soldier.
And yet: “The war has become so ingrained in me that it is difficult for me to get rid of it. We would all probably be glad to forget about the war forever, but, unfortunately, it does not subside, it follows on our heels... How long will we, people, defeat this war?
Bulat's life was not easy. In 1937, the poet's father, a major party worker, was arrested and then shot. The mother was sent to a camp. Bulat Okudzhava himself barely managed to avoid being sent to an orphanage as the son of an “enemy of the people.” From the ninth grade of a Moscow school, he went to the front, where he was a mortar man, a machine gunner, and, after being wounded, a heavy artillery radio operator. From 1945 to 1950, Okudzhava studied at the Faculty of Philology at Tbilisi University. That’s when his first song “Fierce and stubborn, burn, fire, burn...” was born.
In this small, but extremely dynamic and rich text, one can see a kind of grain of the genre, which will then receive widespread development. What is striking here is the combination of external simplicity, apparent artlessness with the depth of thought and experience. What is the song about? Yes, about everything in the world: about the inexhaustible mystery of life, about the fullness of being that we comprehend only on the path of tragic trials. The most serious things are spoken here with artistic ease, almost carelessness. The song creates an atmosphere of sincerity, trust, and inner freedom. The song was born among students, but its author was not yesterday’s schoolboy, but a man wise with life and military experience, who knew not from books what “the most terrible judgment” was. It is no coincidence that today, so many years later, Okudzhava’s first song is not at all outdated; its romantic and philosophical mood is still close to many. Both the poet himself and the knights of the author’s song who followed him carried this “fierce” and “stubborn” fire through the decades.
After graduating from university, Okudzhava worked as a teacher of Russian language and literature in a rural school near Kaluga. In 1956, his first poetry collection “Lyrics” was published in Kaluga. Okudzhava moves to Moscow, where his mother returned after rehabilitation. Soon, many of the poet's songs became famous among Moscow writers, which he first performed in a friendly circle, and from about 1959 - publicly. In the 60s, the need for a genre that would later be called the “art song” turned out to be extremely great. The pattern of its appearance, its natural entry into the culture of that time was accurately expressed by David Samoilov:
Former defenders of the state,
We missed Okudzhava.
Bulat Okudzhava is the recognized founder of the original song. Success came to Okudzhava because he addressed not the masses, but the individual, not everyone, but each individual. The subject of poetry in his world became ordinary, everyday life.
He began writing poetry in childhood. Okudzhava's poem was first published in 1945 in the newspaper of the Transcaucasian Military District "Fighter of the Red Army" (later "Lenin's Banner"), where his other poems were published during 1946. In 1953-1955, Okudzhav’s poems regularly appeared on the pages of Kaluga newspapers. In Kaluga, in 1956, the first collection of his poems, “Lyrics,” was published. In 1959, Okudzhava’s second collection of poetry, “Islands,” was published in Moscow. In subsequent years, Okudzhava’s poems were published in many periodicals and collections, books of his poems were published in Moscow and other cities.
Okudzhava owns more than 800 poems. Many of his poems are born together with music; there are already about 200 songs.
For the first time he tries himself in the song genre during the war. In 1946, as a student at Tbilisi University, he created the “Student Song” (“Furious and stubborn, burn, fire, burn...”). Since 1956, he was one of the first to act as the author of poetry and music, songs and their performer. Okudzhava’s songs attracted attention. Tape recordings of his performances appeared, which brought him wide popularity. Recordings of his songs were sold throughout the country in thousands of copies. His songs were heard in films and plays, in concert programs, on television and radio broadcasts. The first disc was released in Paris in 1968, despite the resistance of the Soviet authorities. Noticeably later, discs were released in the USSR.
Currently, the State Literary Museum in Moscow has created a collection of tape recordings of Okudzhava, numbering over 280 storage units.
Professional composers write music to Okudzhava’s poems. An example of luck is V. Levashov’s song to Okudzhava’s poems “Take your overcoat, let’s go home.” But the most fruitful was Okudzhava's collaboration with Isaac Schwartz ("Drops 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): "Lyrics" (Kaluga, 1956), "Islands" (M., 1959), "The Cheerful Drummer" (M., 1964), "On the Road to Tinatin" (Tbilisi, 1964), "Magnanimous March" (M., 1964) 1967), "Arbat, my Arbat" (M., 1976), "Poems" (M., 1984, 1985), "Dedicated to you" (M., 1988), "Favorites" (M., 1989), " Songs" (M., 1989), "Songs and Poems" (M., 1989), "Drops of the Danish King" (M., 1991), "Grace of Fate" (M., 1993), "Song about My Life" (M., 1995), "Tea Party on Arbat" (M., 1996), "Waiting Room" (Nizhny Novgorod, 1996).
Since the 1960s. Okudzhava works a lot in the prose genre. In 1961, his autobiographical story “Be Healthy, Schoolboy” (published as a separate edition in 1987), dedicated to yesterday’s schoolchildren who had to defend the country from fascism, was published in the almanac “Tarussky Pages”. The story received a negative assessment from supporters of official criticism, who accused Okudzhava of pacifism.
In subsequent years, Okudzhava constantly wrote autobiographical prose, compiling the collections “The Girl of My Dreams” and “The Visiting Musician” (14 short stories and novellas), as well as the novel “The Abolished Theater” (1993), which received the International Booker Prize in 1994 as the best novel of the year Russian language.
At the end of the 1960s. Okudzhava turns to historical prose. In 1970-80 The stories "Poor Avrosimov" ("A Sip of Freedom") (1969) about the tragic pages in the history of the Decembrist movement, "The Adventures of Shipov, or Ancient Vaudeville" (1971) and the novels "The Journey of Amateurs" (1971) were published in separate editions. Part 1. 1976; Part 2. 1978) and “Date with Bonaparte” (1983).
Books (prose): “The Front Comes to Us” (M., 1967), “A Breath of Freedom” (M., 1971), “Lovely Adventures” (Tbilisi, 1971; M., 1993), “The Adventures of Shipov, or Ancient Vaudeville” (M. , 1975, 1992), “Selected Prose” (M., 1979), “Travel of Amateurs” (M., 1979, 1980, 1986, 1990; Tallinn, 1987, 1988), “Date with Bonaparte” (M., 1985 , 1988), “Be healthy, schoolboy” (M., 1987), “The Girl of My Dreams” (M., 1988), “Selected Works” in 2 vols. (M., 1989), “The Adventures of a Secret Baptist” (M., 1991), “Tales and Stories” (M., 1992), “Visiting Musician” (M., 1993), “Abolished Theater” (M., 1993), 1995).
Okudzhava's performances took place in Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Great Britain, Hungary, Israel, Spain, Italy, Canada, Poland, USA, Finland, France, Germany, Sweden, Yugoslavia, Japan.
Okudzhava’s works have been translated into many languages and published in many countries around the world.
Books of poetry and prose published abroad (in Russian): "Song about Fools" (London, 1964), "Bless you, Schoolboy" (Frankfurt am Main, 1964, 1966), "The Merry Drummer" (London, 1966), "Prose and Poetry" (Frankfurt am Main) , 1968, 1977, 1982, 1984), “Two Novels” (Frankfurt am Main, 1970), “Poor Avrosimov” (Chicago, 1970; Paris, 1972), “Lovely Adventures” (Tel Aviv, 1975), "Songs" in 2 volumes (ARDIS, vol. 1, 1980; vol. 2, 1986 (1988).
Dramatic performances were staged based on Okudzhava’s play “A Sip of Freedom” (1966), as well as his prose, poetry and songs.
Productions : “A breath of freedom” (L., Youth Theater, 1967; Krasnoyarsk, Youth Theater named after the Lenin Komsomol, 1967; Chita, Drama Theater, 1971; M., Moscow Art Theater, 1980; Tashkent, Russian Drama Theater named after M. Gorky, 1986) ; "Mercy, or ancient vaudeville" (L., musical comedy theater, 1974); “Be healthy, schoolboy” (L., Youth Theater, 1980); "Music of the Arbat Courtyard" (Moscow, Chamber Musical Theatre, 1988). Films: cinema and television.
Since the mid-1960s. Okudzhava acts as a film playwright. Even earlier, his songs began to be heard in films: in more than 50 films, more than 70 songs based on Okudzhava’s poems were heard, of which more than 40 songs were based on his music. Sometimes Okudzhava acts in films himself.
Film scripts:
“Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha” (1967; co-authored with V. Motyl; Production: Lenfilm, 1967);
“The Private Life of Alexander Sergeich, or Pushkin in Odessa” (1966; co-authored with O. Artsimovich; film not produced);
Songs in films (most famous works):
to your own music:
"Sentimental March" ("Zastava Ilyich", 1963)
“We will not stand behind the price” (Belorussky Station, 1971)
"Wish to Friends" ("Untransferable Key", 1977)
"Song of the Moscow Militia" ("The Great Patriotic War", 1979)
"Happy Draw" ("Legitimate Marriage", 1985) to the music of I. Shvarts:
"Drops of the Danish King" ("Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha", 1967)
"Your Honor" ("White Sun of the Desert", 1970)
"Song of the Cavalry Guard" ("Star of Captivating Happiness", 1975) songs for the film "Straw Hat", 1975
"Road Song" ("We were not married in church", 1982) to the music of L. Schwartz
"The Cheerful Drummer" ("My Friend, Kolka", 1961) to the music of V. Geviksman
"Old pier" (" Chain reaction", 1963) to music by V. Levashov
“Take your overcoat, let’s go home” (“From Dawn to Dawn”, 1975; “Aty-Bati, the soldiers were walking...”, 1976).
Books:
"Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha..." (M., 1968)
"Drops of the Danish King". Film scripts and songs from films (M.: Kinotsentr, 1991).
Works in the frame:
Feature (fiction) films:
"Ilyich's Zastava" ("I am twenty years old"), Film Studio named after. M. Gorky, 1963
"The key without the right of transfer", Lenfilm, 1977
"Legitimate Marriage", Mosfilm, 1985
"Keep me safe, my talisman", Film Studio. A.P. Dovzhenko, 1986
"I remember wonderful moment" (Lenfilm)
"My contemporaries", Lenfilm, 1984
"Two hours with bards" ("Bards"), Mosfilm, 1988
"And don't forget about me", Russian television, 1992
His life became a legend. No tape recording will convey the full richness of the intonations of his wonderful voice, although, of course, there is nothing elaborate or pretentious in his voice. Bulat Okudzhava's poems and songs reflect Big world human values that exist both in time and in space; it would be more accurate to say - universal human values.
On June 12, 1997, tragic news came from France to Russia - Bulat Okudzhava died. A decade later, any brief Internet encyclopedia will give every curious person dry information: “Poet, prose writer, film scriptwriter. Author and performer of songs, founder of the art song movement.” But then it was immediately clear to several generations of people - another great era became only a "property".
Bulat Okudzhava pitied everyone in his songs: both good and bad. He felt sorry for himself, the tired travelers, the girls, the girls, married women and grandmothers, he felt sorry for the “blue ball”, the infantry, the boys, again himself, again the women, and finally, his soul.
According to short biography Bulat Okudzhava was born on May 9, 1924 in Moscow into a multinational family: his father, Shalva Okudzhava, was of Georgian blood, and his mother, Ashkhen Nalbadyan, was of Armenian blood.
Two years after the birth of their first child, the whole family moved to their father’s homeland - Tbilisi. There, Shalva Okudzhava, a convinced communist, simply rose through the ranks. First, he served as secretary of the Tbilisi city committee, and then in 1934 he was asked to accept the post of first secretary of the Nizhny Tagil city party committee.
However, in those years the Soviet repressive machine was already established and working non-stop. In 1937, Okudzhava's father was arrested and sentenced to death on the basis of false evidence. And Ashkhen was exiled to the Karaganda camp in 1938. She returned after 12 long years.
Okudzhava was raised by his grandmother, and in the 1940s he moved to relatives in the capital of Georgia.
War years
With the beginning of the war against the fascist invaders, Bulat Okudzhava decided to get to the front as soon as possible, no matter what. But my young age did not allow me to carry out my plans. Only in 1942 did he volunteer to serve straight from the ninth grade. First, two months of training, and then a mortarman in the 5th Guards Don Cavalry Cossack Corps.
Participated in the battles near Mozdok. But at the end of 1942 he was seriously wounded. It is worth briefly noting that, according to the poet himself, he was wounded out of stupidity - a stray bullet. It was insulting and bitter, because so many times under direct fire I remained unharmed, but here, one might say, in a calm environment, I received such an absurd injury.
After recovery, he never returned to the front. He served as a radio operator in a heavy artillery brigade. The first song in Okudzhava’s biography appears at the front - “We couldn’t sleep in the cold heated vehicles.”
Prose writer, poet and bard
IN post-war years Okudzhava returns to his native Tbilisi, takes high school exams and enters the specialty “philologist” at Tbilisi University. During his studies, he met Alexander Tsybulevsky, a student and aspiring lyricist, who largely influenced his development as a poet. In 1950 he received a diploma higher education and teaches Russian language and literature at a secondary school in the village of Shamordino, located near Kaluga. In 1956, the first collection of poems, Lyrics, was published.
Moscow
In the same year, 1956, the 20th Congress of the CPSU took place, the main result of which was the condemnation of Stalin’s personality cult.
It was after him that the poet’s mother was rehabilitated and the two of them were allowed to move to Moscow again. In the capital, Bulat Okudzhava first holds the position of deputy editor for the literature section at Komsomolskaya Pravda, then works as an editor at Young Guard, and finally moves to the Literary Gazette publication.
The work of the young poet and aspiring prose writer does not stand still either. In 1961, Konstantin Paustovsky published the collection “Tarussky Pages,” which included Okudzhava’s work “Be Healthy, Schoolboy.” Despite sharp negative criticism for its pacifist content, four years later the story was filmed under a new title - “Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha.” But it was not only the author’s prose that received criticism. In the 60s, the bard’s songs were also persecuted. According to the conclusion of the official commission, they could not fully express the mood and feelings of Soviet youth. However, the youth themselves did not know about this, and always tried to get to the concerts and recitals of the famous bard.
National fame came to Okudzhava after the release of the feature film “Belorussky Station”. It contains a powerful, deep and at the same time subtle song “The birds don’t sing here...”.
Personal life
On a personal level, the poet and bard was not and could not be alone: “he has two official marriages on the books.” Unfortunately, Bulat Shalvovich's first marriage to Galina Smolyaninova ended in divorce. The background was largely served by two tragedies that happened in the family: the daughter died at a very young age, and the son subsequently became addicted to drugs.
Olga Artsimovich, a physicist by profession, becomes Okudzhava’s second wife. This marriage was much happier. In it, a son, Anton, is born - a wonderful composer in the future.
Other biography options
- There were many legends about Bulat Shalvovich during his lifetime. For example, many believed that his talent was born and blossomed during the war. However, his wife Olga argued the opposite. At the front his lyrics were amateurish, and most of not preserved. The best works were created in the 50s.
- Creative people, as a rule, do not pay any attention to everyday life. But Bulat Okudzhava was not one of them. He knew how to do everything: wash dishes, cook, and work with a hammer. At the same time, the head of the family was still Olga Okudzhava. She decided how to act and when. He loved her and obeyed her.
- In 1991, Bulat Okudzhava was found to have serious illness heart. An operation was immediately required, which at that time cost tens of thousands of dollars. Of course, the family did not have such a sum. Best friend The poet Ernst Neizvestny was even planning to take out a loan against his house as collateral. But the money was collected by the whole world: some a dollar, some a hundred.
- Okudzhava was an atheist, and kept saying that he did not believe in God. But just before his death, at the insistence of his wife, he was baptized. She believed that a man of such a huge soul could not be an unbeliever.
Bulat Okudzhava has been the master of feelings for several generations now. His unique songs give the impression of trust and ease. However, Okudzhava’s spontaneity is not at all synonymous with simplicity. Okudzhava is a virtuoso of poetic style.
Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava - poet and prose writer - one of the founders of the bard song genre, was born and raised in Moscow.
My city bears the highest rank and title of Moscow,
But he always comes out to meet all the guests himself.
His childhood was spent in small cozy courtyards on quiet Arbat alleys. It was she, the Arbat children, who came up with the game “Arbatstvo” and the ritual of initiation into her “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.
In 1942, ninth-grader Okudzhava volunteered to go to the front. Instead of textbooks, he masters the science of infantry combat.
Ah, the war - it won’t last another year -
That's why it's war;
Many more kilometers of foot wraps
Cut from linen.
Private Bulat Okudzhava fought until the end of 1944. Injuries, hospitals... and we didn’t have to fight anymore. “Take your overcoat and let’s go home”... And now the long-awaited Victory in the cruel war has come, a worthwhile life millions of people, in a war that robbed a generation just entering adult life, four whole years of youth.
From the words of the poet himself, it is reliably known that his first song to his own melody, “We couldn’t sleep in the cold train cars...” appeared at the front in 1943. And if the first, front-line one, which the author himself considers weak, has long been forgotten, then the second has been preserved and is still heard today, although the year of its birth is 1946.
Fierce and stubborn
Burn, fire, burn!
To replace December
Januarys are coming.
After graduating from university, Okudzhava is assigned to work in one of the rural schools in the Kaluga region. New poems appear, which are published from time to time in Kaluga newspapers. In 1956, the first collection of poems, Lyrics, was published. He returns to Moscow, first works as an editor at the Molodaya Gvardiya publishing house, and later heads the poetry department at Literaturnaya Gazeta.
It was during these years that songs began to appear one after another: “About Lenka the Queen”, “The girl is crying - the ball has flown away”, “The last trolleybus”, “Goodbye, boys”. You can’t count them all, but you can’t help but linger on the Arbat melodies.
You flow like a river.
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 by knowing the truth about those years of separation and turmoil, “when the lead rains beat so hard on our backs that you couldn’t expect any mercy,” can you understand why Okudzhava’s beloved Arbat is both joy and misfortune. A year earlier, another “Arbat” song was written, less enthusiastic, but even 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.
A song or a romance is one thing, a poet with a guitar on the stage is quite another. It is curious that the author himself, at least before, did not consider his songs to be songs themselves. For him, they were and remained poems, only not written down on paper, but sung from the voice.
Okudzhava’s quiet, soulful voice attracted people and forced them to listen. He never wrote sonorous poems “to order.” “Social orders” were not for him. His soul and heart unmistakably defined themes that were important to his 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.
The call “Let’s compliment each other” is not just beautiful phrase, but a vital necessity for each of us. In a world of crumbling ideals, “hope is a small orchestra led by love” as a guiding star. The word love is used by the poet very often. After all, we are talking, in essence, about human life, the basic principle of his existence. Life can only happen if there is love: for the world around us, for people, for life in all its manifestations.
The unexpected death of Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava in 1997 shocked us, his contemporaries. He sang about eternal, true, truly important values for a person: “I will bury a grape seed in the warm earth...” Who among us did not feel sad under these piercing words, who did not wonder. “Otherwise, why do I live on this sinful earth?”
The profession of a poet is “dangerous and difficult.” The role of the poet in society, his purpose and fate - Bulat Okudzhava devoted many of his lines to this topic:
Poets were persecuted, taken at their word,
nets were woven for them; swaggered
they used to give them wings,
and they led to the wall...
Okudzhava has not changed since becoming famous: a modest appearance, a guitar, amazing delicacy and respect for listeners. One of his latest collections is called “Dedicated to you,” that is, to us, his admirers, grateful to his contemporaries.
The narrow genre specialization of the creators of the poetic word, as is well known, does not exist from the very beginning. Playwright A. Volodin very recently once again recalled this: “In ancient times, poets were called singers: they themselves composed poems and melody, sang them themselves and accompanied themselves. But gradually the need for personal performance disappeared, then melody disappeared, rhyme and meter became optional , and sometimes even a thought - poetry itself began to serve unworthy purposes... Then she came to her senses and demanded: reunite me! In our country, Okudzhava was the first to do this."
There is probably some degree of hyperbolization at the end of this statement. Probably not the very first. There were Vizbor and Ancharov. However, the fact remains that if primacy is considered not only according to the chronology of events, from his very first songs, but considering their number, which are famous in a wide variety of circles, as if according to the main peak of widest popularity, then the title of the First Bard rightfully belongs to Okudzhava.
Okudzhava wrote only about one and a half hundred wonderful songs about love and hope, about the meaninglessness of wars, about faith in triumph common sense and wisdom.
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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.
During his school years, from the age of 14, he was an extra and stagehand 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 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 the resistance of the 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 push 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.
Bulat Okudzhava was born on May 9, 1924 in Moscow. He studied at school, and a year after the start of the Great Patriotic War he volunteered for the front. After the war he graduated from Tbilisi State University, Faculty of Philology.
Difficult tests The war years had a decisive influence on the formation of B. Okudzhava as a poet.
The first collection “Lyrics” appeared in 1956.
The search for an original poetic form of expression and creative individuality clearly manifested itself in Okudzhava’s second book, “Islands” (1959). This collection was followed by “The Cheerful Drummer” (1964) and “On the Road to Tinatin” (1964), which were warmly received by poetry lovers. The book “Magnanimous March” (1967) turned out to be weaker than the previous ones: during its preparation, the poet uncritically approached the selection of poems previously published in periodicals. But even in the so-called “weak” poems of a true poet, the reader often finds the expression of the most intimate 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”, “The 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 a wide audience of readers and listeners. At the end of the 50s, Okudzhava was the first to take up a guitar to sing his poems to its accompaniment. Since then, the performance of one's own melody based on one's own poems has become widespread. The songs and poems of B. Okudzhava performed by him are heard on the radio, from the concert stage, from television and film screens.
Controversy has arisen around Okudzhava’s poems more than once. In these disputes, opponents tried to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of Okudzhava’s poems and understand the uniqueness of his poetic voice. Those critics are right who, when speaking about the popularity of Okudzhava’s poems and songs, put in the foreground not the melody of the song, but its content, lyricism, and sincerity.
The fact remains indisputable that B. Okudzhava is a lyric poet. An optimist and lover of life, he cannot remain indifferent to everything unpoetic in reality. This is one of the reasons that in his poetry, on the one hand, the intonations of human grief and sadness are so palpable, and on the other, irony and self-irony. So, in the piercing words “Oh, war, what have you done, vile,” one cannot help 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 dedicated many poems to Moscow. In one of them the poet exclaims:
My city bears the highest rank and title of Moscow,
But he always comes out to meet all the guests himself.
Okudzhava’s lyrical hero is somewhat similar in character to this city: “Oh, this city, it’s so similar to me...”
The poet's poems very often mention 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 connected with 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, concrete, and deeply truthful.
However, it would be erroneous to claim that his world is narrowed to the framework of the Arbat. Thus, in “Song of Sokolniki” the poet says:
We have grown like pine trees with our roots
To the country where we live.
In the lyrical world of Okudzhava’s poetry there is a lot of conventional, fairy-tale elements: here are the elements of the game, which are sprinkled throughout individual stanzas, here are also unusual characters - the Merry Drummer, the Blue Man, ants, crickets. But in these poems there is a palpable inextricable connection with reality, with modern life. It is carried out through a variety of motives (the motive of hope is one of the most dear to the poet). Okudzhava’s poetry is characterized by the widespread use of introductory words, interjections, conjunctions, and words of contrasting meaning (“laughing and crying,” “difficult and easy”).
