Bulat Okudzhava

Bulat Okudzhava was a Soviet and Russian poet, writer, musician, novelist, and singer-songwriter of Georgian-Armenian ancestry. He was one of the founders of the Soviet genre called "author song" ( авторская песня, avtorskaya pesnya ), or "guitar song", and the author of about 200 songs, set to his own poetry. His songs are a mixture of Russian poetic and folk song traditions and the French chansonnier style represented by such contemporaries of Okudzhava as Georges Brassens. Though his songs were never overtly political, the freshness and independence of Okudzhava's artistic voice presented a subtle challenge to Soviet cultural authorities, who were thus hesitant for many years to give him official recognition. [1] Okudzhava was born on May 9, 1924, in Moscow, into a family of communists who had come from Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, to study and to work for the Communist Party. The son of a Georgian father, Shalva Okudzhava, and an Armenian mother, Ashkhen Nalbandyan, Bulat Okudzhava spoke and wrote only in Russian. Okudzhava's mother was the niece of a well-known Armenian poet, Vahan Terian. His father served as a political commissar during the Civil War and as a high-ranking Communist Party member thereafter, under the protection of Sergo Ordzhonikidze (1886-1937). His uncle Vladimir Okudzhava was an anarchist and terrorist who left the Russian Empire after a failed attempt to assassinate the Kutaisi governor. [2] Vladimir was listed among the passengers of the infamous sealed train that delivered Vladimir Lenin, Grigory Zinoviev and other revolutionary leaders from Switzerland to Russia in 1917. [3] Shalva Okudzhava was arrested in February 1937 during the Great Purge, accused of Trotskyism and wrecking. He was shot on 4 August, along with his two brothers. His wife was arrested in 1939 "for anti-Soviet deeds" and sent to the Gulag. Bulat returned to Tbilisi to live with his relatives. His mother was released in 1946, but arrested for the second time in 1949, spending another 5 years in labor camps. She was fully released in 1954 and rehabilitated in 1956, along with her husband. [4] In 1941, at the age of 17, one year before his scheduled school graduation, Bulat Okudzhava volunteered for the Red Army infantry, and from 1942 he participated in the war against Nazi Germany. After his discharge from the service in 1944, he returned to Tbilisi where he passed his high school graduation exams and enrolled at Tbilisi State University, graduating in 1950. In 1956, he moved to Moscow, where he worked as a school teacher, a magazine editor, and a song writer for several films. He also began to perform his songs in public, mostly at the gatherings of the young intelligentsia. His songs were recorded and distributed unofficially, through magnitizdat, and became very popular among the Soviet youth. Okudzhava's songs dealt with such themes as love, friendship, human dignity, history, and patriotism. He avoided the pompous and bombastic style of the official Soviet art, and used simple and clear language that appealed to the common people. He also wrote several novels and short stories, such as The Show is Over (1969), Nocturnal Voices (1974), and A Taste of Liberty (1987). Okudzhava was one of the leading figures of the Soviet dissident movement, along with Andrei Sakharov, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and others. He participated in the human rights campaigns and signed various petitions in defense of the persecuted writers and activists. He was also a friend and supporter of Boris Pasternak, the author of Doctor Zhivago, who was denounced and ostracized by the Soviet regime. Okudzhava wrote a poem dedicated to Pasternak, in which he praised his courage and honesty. In 1986, Okudzhava joined the editorial board of the newly founded literary magazine Oktyabr (October), where he worked until his death. He also performed in various countries, such as France, Germany, Italy, Canada, and the United States, and received several international awards and honors for his artistic achievements. He died on June 12, 1997, in Paris, from kidney failure, and was buried in the Cimetière de Bagneux in Hauts-de-Seine, France. His songs are still widely performed and appreciated by many Russians and people around the world.