Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava (1924–1997) is a famous Russian, Soviet writer, poet, translator, playwright, composer and performer of his own songs. He has about two hundred original songs in his creative collection and is one of the founders of the genre of modern art song.
The material was prepared jointly with a teacher of the highest category
Kuchmina Nadezhda Vladimirovna.
Experience as a teacher of Russian language and literature - 27 years.
Childhood
According to a brief 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.
"Arbat, forty-four, apartment twenty-two"
Bulat Okudzhava was born in Moscow in 1924. The family moved often, but most of Okudzhava’s childhood was spent in the center of the capital, on Arbat. “The little Arbat courtyard” will forever become a separate topic in his poetry. Researchers of the poet’s work have calculated that his home street is mentioned in 36 of Okudzhava’s poems. Many of these works later became songs.
“The space of the Arbat courtyard was vast and familiar. Together with everything that it contained, with the walls of the houses that surrounded it, with the windows, with the trash heap in the middle, with skinny trees, with aromas, with the Arbat dialect - all this was part of the blood and did not require comprehension.”
Bulat Okudzhava
In 1937, Bulat Okudzhava’s father was shot after a false denunciation, and his mother was soon sent to the camps. He himself went to his relatives in Tbilisi, attended school there, worked at a factory and wrote poetry.
“This was long before the war. 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. They loved me very much and every time they listened to a new poem, they enthusiastically exclaimed: “Brilliant!”
Bulat Okudzhava
Bulat Okudzhava in childhood. Photo: kstolica.ru
Bulat Okudzhava during the war years. Photo: chtoby-pomnili.com
Bulat Okudzhava. Photo: libsoub.ru
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.”
Biography
Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava, whose biography deserves great attention, was a famous Soviet singer, composer, and poet.
The talented performer himself wrote songs based on his poems, being one of the most famous representatives in the genre of art songs. His work spanned an entire era. The poet and composer has long been dead, but Bulat Okudzhava’s poems and songs are still heard in companies and on TV screens. Bulat Okudzhava lived a difficult but interesting life. He was born on May 9, 1924 in Moscow into the family of Georgian Shalva Stepanovich Okudzhava and Armenian Ashkhen Stepanovna Nalbandyan. His parents were communists by conviction: his father was a prominent party leader, and his mother also found a place in the party apparatus.
When Bulat was two years old, the family moved to Tbilisi, then to Nizhny Tagil. They always followed their father, who was rapidly making a party career. Shalva Stepanovich held important positions until a quarrel with Beria and a false denunciation turned his life upside down. Okudzhava Sr. was arrested, sent to a camp and shot there. For a year Bulat, his mother and grandmother lived in Moscow, in a communal apartment on Arbat. In 1938, Bulat’s mother was sent to a camp in Karaganda as the wife of a traitor to the motherland, and Ashkhen was able to return from there only in 1947.
After his mother's arrest, Bulat lived with relatives in Tbilisi. The boy studied at school, then entered the factory as a turner. In 1942, the young man volunteered for the front and took part in many fierce battles. In 1943 he was wounded near Mozdok. During this period, Okudzhava wrote his first song, “We Couldn’t Sleep in the Cold Warehouses.”
When the war ended, Bulat Shalvovich entered Tbilisi State University at the Faculty of Pedagogy. He graduated from university in 1950 and began working as a teacher in a rural school. According to the distribution for two and a half years, the future bard ended up in the village of Shamordino, Kaluga region. At this time, Okudzhava constantly wrote poetry, many of which later became songs.
Prose writer, poet and bard
In the post-war years, Okudzhava returned to his native Tbilisi, took exams for high school and entered 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 of higher education and taught Russian language and literature at a high school in the village of Shamordino, located near Kaluga. In 1956, the first collection of poems, Lyrics, was published.
Creative path
In 1950, having received a diploma and assignment, Bulat and his wife Galya went to the village of Shamordino, Kaluga region, and were sent there to teach at a rural school. He didn’t like working at school at all, and Okudzhava suffered from it. But he didn’t have to work in the village for long: he was soon transferred to Kaluga. After working there as a school teacher for a while, Bulat got a job at a local newspaper.
In 1956, N.S. Khrushchev came to power, many were rehabilitated, including Bulat’s parents. Dad was posthumous, and mom returned from Siberia to Moscow and received a two-room apartment on Krasnopresnenskaya embankment. Bulat, his wife and younger brother went to visit their mother in Moscow.
There he began his career at the Molodaya Gvardiya publishing house, then headed the poetry department at Literaturnaya Gazeta. At evenings at Literaturka, Bulat performed songs based on his own poems with a guitar for a close circle. Colleagues predicted a great future for him and repeatedly persuaded him to go on stage. But he didn't attach much importance to their words.
Soon Bulat Okudzhava’s family was given a dacha in Sheremetyevo. Living at the dacha, they developed a certain ritual: in the evenings, neighbors, colleagues and friends gathered around the fire and listened to the poet’s poems and songs. The Moscow intelligentsia began vying with each other to invite him to their homes for evenings, and songs were recorded on tape reels. So the author and performer of songs came out to the people. Okudzhava himself was still poorly known, but half the country was already singing the songs. “The Grape Seed” and “The Prayer” were copied on paper by hand from each other.
Only in 1961 Okudzhava’s first solo concert took place. The Leningrad Hall was overcrowded.
In 1965, the first record with Bulat's songs was released.
In 1967, Bulat received the Golden Crown at a poetry festival in Yugoslavia for the poem “My Son’s Tin Soldier.” His performances in Paris and Germany were a great success, but in the Soviet Union he did not give big concerts, he performed in cultural centers, institutes and libraries.
But in 1970, Okudzhava received all-Union fame after the release of the film “Belorussky Station”, where his song “The birds don’t sing here...” During his creative life, Bulat wrote songs for many popular Soviet and Russian films:
- “Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha”;
- "White Sun of the Desert";
- "Straw Hat";
- “Aty-baty, the soldiers were coming”;
- "Star of Captivating Happiness";
- "The Pokrovsky Gate";
- "Legitimate marriage";
- "Turkish gambit".
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 strived to attend 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...”.
Literature and music
In 1954, a year after Stalin’s death, Bulat Okudzhava read his poems at one of the creative evenings. His works received good reviews, as a result of which the young poet began to be published in the local newspaper.
Bulat Okudzhava on stage
In 1956 Bulat published a poetry collection “Lyrics”. 5 years later, his story “Be Healthy, Student” was published, which contained many fragments from Okudzhava’s biography.
Over the 40 years of his creative activity, he published about 15 poetry collections, including “65 Songs,” “Dedicated to You,” and “Waiting Room.”
During the biography period 1970-1990. Okudzhava published dozens of prose works. In addition, several historical novels came from his pen, including “The Journey of Amateurs,” “A Date with Bonaparte,” and “The Photographer Zhora.”
It is interesting that Bulat Okudzhava also wrote for children. The most famous fairy tale is “Charming Adventures,” which has been translated into many languages.
It is worth noting that in addition to his writing activities, Bulat Okudzhava also translated poetry from Arabic, Finnish and Swedish. In addition, until 1961 he was the editor of the Molodaya Gvardiya publishing house, and also headed the poetry department at Literaturnaya Gazeta.
However, having gained fame and felt confident in his own abilities, Okudzhava quit, after which he was engaged only in creative activities.
In the early 60s, Okudzhava gained particular popularity as a bard. He often gave concerts, which always attracted a lot of people.
Soon he visited many Soviet cities, performing his own songs.
The work of Bulat Okudzhava seriously influenced such famous artists as Vladimir Vysotsky, Yuri Vizbor and Alexander Galich. The entire Soviet Union knew and sang his songs.
Vladimir Vysotsky and Bulat Okudzhava
The most famous compositions of the bard Okudzhava are:
- Let's join hands, friends;
- Prayer by François Villon;
- Take your overcoat, let's go home;
- Song of the fox Alice and the cat Basilio;
- A song about dashed hopes;
- Your Honor, Lady Luck.
In parallel with this, Bulat Shalvovich wrote songs for films. The most popular song was “We Need Victory,” which was performed in the film “Belorussky Station.” This composition was greatly loved by his compatriots, and especially by former front-line soldiers.
In total, Okudzhava’s songs were performed in more than 70 films.
At the end of the 60s, Okudzhava visited France, where he recorded a record with his own compositions. After that, he released several more albums in the USSR.
During his biography, Okudzhava starred in 8 films, playing both himself and minor characters. In addition, he wrote scripts for four films.
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.
Interesting Facts
- 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 them have not survived. 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 diagnosed with a serious heart disease. 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. The poet's best friend Ernst Neizvestny was even going 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.
