Once he admitted: “All my life I have been doing what gave me pleasure - prose, poetry, songs. Some process ended - I moved on to another. So he was in love - sincere, not tolerating falsehood, not knowing how to lie. Bulat Okudzhava, a remarkable poet and bard, would have turned 88 this spring.
Two eternal roads - love and separation - pass through my heart ... "These lines Bulat Okudzhava wrote, being wise by life experience, having managed to kindle and extinguish repeatedly the fire of love in his heart. In a heart that did not know how to lie in anything - neither in actions, nor in poetry, and even more so 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 the Woman, as he wrote in his poems ...
First love came early. Bulat was barely 11 years old. He was a 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 It was in his mature years that he seemed withdrawn and reserved.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. With Lelya, he studied at the Nizhny Tagil school in the fourth grade. Lessons ended in the evening, it got dark early, and the lights were often turned off at school. As soon as the light went out, Bulat rushed headlong to Lyolya's desk, sat down next to her and, while no one saw, pressed his shoulder against her. And he was silent.
He was transferred to another school. But he did not forget about his love. Once Lyolya's mother received a letter, and in it - a photograph of the boy. On the reverse side was written: "Lele from Bulat." He was waiting for her answer. And without waiting, he ran away from the lessons and came to school, to Olya. After school he walked her home. Their next meeting took place 60 years later! Lyolya 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 from school hobbies. He was impressed by her rosy cheeks and slanted Tatar eyes. At first they just exchanged glances with Sarah, and then they began to walk together. She was the first to take his hand, which finally conquered him ...
In 1942, as a 17-year-old boy, Bulat went to the front as a volunteer. And, sitting in the trenches, he yearned for the girl with whom he lived in the same Arbat courtyard. He even burned her initial on her hand - the letter "K". 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 rope. She did not recognize Bulat. He left, realizing that in love you can never go back to the past.
In post-war Moscow, his next novel happened. Valya lived on the Arbat. She studied at the Moscow Art Theater School when she met a short guy. He seemed to her not very handsome, and he did not come out tall. But he was funny and smart.
The guy wrote her amazing poems. Then he left for Leningrad, and she was in the direction - to the Tambov theater. When Valya became the famous TV presenter Valentina Leontyeva, and Bulat Okudzhava became the symbol of the generation, they met again.
Leontieva called him to invite him to her program "From the bottom of my heart." He refused, and then the TV presenter read him that very poem. He never published it. As he later explained, the poems were too personal. On his last book, Okudzhava wrote to her: “We met after 50 years. I am terribly sorry now that we lost these years without seeing each other - how much could have been otherwise!
Bulat lost his family early - his father was shot on a false denunciation, and his mother was exiled to Karlag. Perhaps that is why he got married so early - in his second year, apparently, he was in great need of family warmth. With Galya, his future wife, they studied together at the university. After graduating from it, 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 the son Igor was born. But the marriage has already cracked. In the late 50s, they felt each other as strangers. 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 "The Song of the Moscow Ant",
"And when surprisingly close." And although his relationship with his wife was cracking at the seams, he behaved indecisively with Olga - she was fourteen years younger than him. He arranged her for Litgazeta, where he worked himself, took her to visit friends. But he did not dare to marry. 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 a package. On the volume of 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, the actress Zhanna Bolotova turned out to be his queen, he dedicated the song “Along the Smolensk Road” to her. And immediately after he started a relationship with another actress - Larisa Luzhina. This novel lasted for a whole year. But Larisa preferred another ...
A company of academicians invited him to an apartment at Pekhotnaya, 26. In this community, he was especially favored. Among the guests were Pyotr Kapitsa and Artem Alikhanyan, one of their students, fifteen in all. 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.
Olga Artsimovich, the niece of famous physicist and a physicist by training. At that time she was already married. But, noticing the interest in herself from the famous poet, she reciprocated. True, I did not 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 procuress. It was she who asked her to call to the phone at the request of Bulat. He invited Olga to meet at the Central House of Writers. They talked for three hours. Artsimovich later admitted that she had never been so comfortable with anyone else. She felt an absolute kinship with the poet. Only at 12 o'clock at night they left the House of Writers. Okudzhava hugged her and timidly asked: “Will you marry me?” She agreed. She had to return home to her husband, to explain to him. Soon Okudzhava arrived in Leningrad, stayed at a hotel and a month later moved to Olga completely.
A year later, his first wife, Galina, died of acute heart failure. She had a heart defect from a young age.
In appearance, she calmly reacted to the final break with her husband. But it seems that this external calm was given to her with difficulty. Okudzhava considered himself guilty of her premature departure. Blamed himself and tragic fate son Igor.
After the death of his mother, the boy lived in the family of her relatives. Okudzhava wanted to take his son to himself, to a new family, but they lived with Olga in a cramped apartment, they had a child - Bulat Jr., and Galina's relatives protested.
However, Okudzhava did not show much perseverance. Igor later began to see his father regularly. He grew up kind, gentle, but weak-willed. I never found myself in my life. He was either a musician or a butcher. And then he got drunk, hippo, used drugs, got into a criminal history, lost his leg. He died early, at 43. 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 girlfriends praised her bard: “You should have listened 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 allegedly for a walk with a dog. And in 1984 they started performing together. They sang "Grape Seed" and "After the Rain" in two voices. According to Natalya, there was a period when Bulat Shalvovich left home and they lived together. And then they decided to leave. But we met again and again...
Olga could not stand the gossip and demanded that Okudzhava leave the family. The bard admitted that it is difficult for him to live a double life. But he could not make a final decision. In May 1997, Bulat and Olga went on their last trip abroad. First to Germany, where he was treated, and then to Paris. There, Bulat Shalvovich developed an ulcer, the bleeding did not stop, he was transferred to intensive care. On June 11, doctors warned that his condition was very serious.
His wife decided to baptize him, giving him the name John. He was unconscious.
Soviet and Russian poet and prose writer, composer Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava was born on May 9, 1924 in Moscow into a family of party workers. His father, Shalva Okudzhava, was Georgian by nationality, and his mother, Ashkhen Nalbandyan, was Armenian.
In 1934, he moved with his parents to Nizhny Tagil, where his father was appointed first secretary of the city party committee, and his mother was appointed secretary of the district committee.
In 1937, Okudzhava's parents were arrested. On August 4, 1937, Shalva Okudzhava was shot on false charges, Ashkhen Nalbandyan was exiled to the Karaganda camp, from where she returned only in 1955.
After the arrest of his parents, Bulat lived with his grandmother in Moscow. In 1940 he moved to live with relatives in Tbilisi.
Since 1941, since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, worked as a turner at a defense plant.
In 1942, after finishing the ninth grade, he volunteered for the front. Served on North Caucasian Front mortar, then radio operator. He was wounded near Mozdok.
Being a regimental leader, in 1943 at the front he composed his first song "We couldn't sleep in cold cars ...", the text of which has not been preserved.
In 1945, Okudzhava was demobilized and returned to Tbilisi, where he passed the secondary school exams as an external student.
In 1950 he graduated from the Faculty of Philology of the Tbilisi state university, worked as a teacher - first in a rural school in the village of Shamordino, Kaluga Region and in the district center of Vysokinichi, then in Kaluga. He worked as a correspondent and literary employee of the Kaluga regional newspapers "Znamya" and "Young Leninist".
In 1946, Okudzhava wrote the first surviving song, Furious and Stubborn.
In 1956, after the release of the first collection of poems "Lyrika" in Kaluga, Bulat Okudzhava returned to Moscow, worked as deputy editor for the literature department in the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, editor in the Young Guard publishing house, then head of the poetry department in the Literary Newspaper ". He took part in the work of the "Magistral" literary association.
In 1959, the second poetic collection of the poet "Islands" was published in Moscow.
In 1962, having become a member of the Union of Writers of the USSR, Okudzhava left the service and devoted himself entirely to creative activity.
In 1996, Okudzhava's last poetry collection, Tea Party on the Arbat, was published.
Since the 1960s, Okudzhava has worked extensively in the prose genre. In 1961, his autobiographical story "Be Healthy, Schoolboy" was published in the anthology Tarusa Pages (published as a separate edition in 1987), dedicated to yesterday's schoolchildren who had to defend the country from fascism. The story received a negative assessment of official criticism, which accused Okudzhava of pacifism.
In 1965, Vladimir Motyl managed to film this story, giving the film the name - "Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha". In subsequent years, Okudzhava wrote autobiographical prose, which compiled the collections of stories "The Girl of My Dreams" and "Visiting Musician", as well as the novel "Abolished theater" (1993).
In the late 1960s, Okudzhava turned to historical prose. The stories "Poor Avrosimov" (1969) about the tragic pages in the history of the Decembrist movement, "The Adventures of Shipov, or Old Vaudeville" (1971) and written on historical material were published as separate editions. early XIX century novels "Journey of Amateurs" (1976 - the first part; 1978 - the second part) and "Date with Bonaparte" (1983).
Poetic and prose works of Okudzhava have been translated into many languages and published in many countries of the world.
From the second half of the 1950s, Bulat Okudzhava began to act as an author of poetry and music for songs and their performer, becoming one of the universally recognized founders of the author's song. He is the author of over 200 songs.
The earliest known songs of Okudzhava date back to 1957-1967 ("On Tverskoy Boulevard", "Song about Lyonka Korolyov", "Song about the blue ball", "Sentimental march", "Song about the midnight trolleybus", "Not tramps, not drunkards", "Moscow ant", "Song about the Komsomol goddess", etc.). Tape recordings of his speeches instantly spread throughout the country. Okudzhava's songs were heard on radio, television, in films and performances.
Okudzhava's concerts were held in Bulgaria, Austria, Great Britain, Hungary, Australia, Israel, Spain, Italy, Canada, France, Germany, Poland, USA, Finland, Sweden, Yugoslavia and Japan.
In 1968, the first disc with Okudzhava's songs was released in Paris. Since the mid-1970s, his CDs have also been released in the USSR. In addition to songs based on his own poems, Okudzhava wrote a number of songs based on poems by the Polish poetess Agnieszka Osiecka, which he himself translated into Russian.
Andrei Smirnov's film "Belarusian Station" (1970) brought national fame to the performer, in which a song was performed to the words of the poet "Birds do not sing here ...".
Okudzhava is also the author of other popular songs for such films as "Straw Hat" (1975), "Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha" (1967), "White Sun of the Desert" (1970), "Star of Captivating Happiness" (1975). in total, Okudzhava's songs and his poems are heard in more than 80 films.
In 1994, Okudzhava wrote his last song - "Departure".
In the second half of the 1960s, Bulat Okudzhava acted as a co-author of the script for the films Loyalty (1965) and Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha (1967).
In 1966 he wrote the play "A Sip of Freedom", which a year later was staged in several theaters at once.
AT last years Bulat Okudzhava was a member of the founding board of the Moskovskiye Novosti newspaper, Obshchaya Gazeta, a member of the editorial board of the Evening Club newspaper, a member of the Council of the Memorial Society, vice president of the Russian PEN Center, a member of the pardon commission under the President of the Russian Federation (since 1992 ), a member of the Commission on State Prizes of the Russian Federation (since 1994).
On June 12, 1997, Bulat Okudzhava died in a clinic in Paris. According to the will, he was buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery in Moscow.
Okudzhava was married twice.
From his first marriage to Galina Smolyaninova, the poet had a son, Igor Okudzhava (1954-1997).
In 1961, he met his second wife, the niece of the famous physicist Lev Artsimovich, Olga Artsimovich. The son from his second marriage Anton Okudzhava (born in 1965) is a composer, father's accompanist at creative evenings of recent years.
In 1997, in memory of the poet, by decree of the President of the Russian Federation, the regulation on the Bulat Okudzhava Prize was approved, awarded for the creation of works in the genre of author's song and poetry that contribute to Russian culture.
In October 1999, the State Memorial Museum of Bulat Okudzhava was opened in Peredelkino.
In May 2002, the first and most famous monument to Bulat Okudzhava was opened in Moscow near house 43 on the Arbat.
The Bulat Okudzhava Foundation annually holds an evening "Visiting Musician" in the Concert Hall named after P.I. Tchaikovsky in Moscow. Festivals named after Bulat Okudzhava are held in Kolontaevo (Moscow region), on Lake Baikal, in Poland and in Israel.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources
Bulat Okudzhava was a soldier, Russian teacher and editor. He wrote poetry and prose, film scripts and children's books. But Okudzhava considered the happiest day of his life when he composed his first verse.
"Arbat, forty-four, apartment twenty-two"
When Andrei Smirnov, the director of the film, asked him to write a song, the poet initially refused. Only after looking at the picture, he agreed to compose a text and a melody for it.
“Suddenly I remembered the front. It was as if I saw with my own eyes this amateur front-line poet thinking about fellow soldiers in a trench. And then the words arose by themselves: “We will not stand up for the price ...”
Bulat Okudzhava spent the last years of his life in Paris, where on June 25, 1995, his last concert took place at UNESCO Headquarters. In 1997, the bard died. In the same year, by decree of the President of Russia, the Bulat Okudzhava Prize was approved, which is awarded to poets and performers of author's songs. Five years later, a monument to the "singing poet" was opened on the Arbat.
Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava was born on May 9, 1924 in Moscow. He is widely known as one of the most talented Soviet bards, composers and poets. Bulat Okudzhava performed songs based on his own poems. With his work, he forever left his mark on the history of the author's song. The bard and the poet have been dead for almost 20 years, but his songs and poems are still popular among lovers of bard songs.
After Okudzhava's father was shot in the camp, and his mother was arrested and exiled to the camp for 9 years, Bulat lived in Tbilisi with relatives. Bulat studied at school, then got a job as a turner at the plant. In 1943, participating in the battles near Mozdok, he was wounded. It was at this time that one of his first songs was released.
In 1950, Okudzhava received the profession of a teacher, graduating from the University of Tbilisi. After working as a teacher in a rural school, Bulat ended up in the village of Shamordino, Kaluga Region, where he wrote many poems that later became songs.
Okudzhava's literary career begins in 1954. For 40 years, about 15 collections with poems by Bulat Okudzhava were born. Stories, including for children, the play also took place in the work of the author.
In 1958, Okudzhava began to perform songs written by him, and over a fairly short period of time won the hearts of millions of people living in the Soviet Union. His work had a strong influence on the formation of bard songs.
Bulat Okudzhava was noted not only for his participation in episodic roles in Soviet cinema, but also wrote many famous compositions for films, and also visited the role of a screenwriter.
In the period from 1967 to 1985, five records were released with Okudzhava's author's songs (one in France, the rest in the USSR).
During his life, the bard and composer was awarded many awards, prizes and honorary titles.
As for the personal life of the bard, he had two wives. With the first wife, Galina Smolyaninova, they divorced in 1964, their son and daughter died. With his second wife, Olga Artsimovich, he lived in marriage until the end of his days, their son became a musician and composer.
Bulat Okudzhava. Biography
Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava - musical and literary figure Soviet period. He was born on May 9, 1924 in Moscow and died on June 12, 1997 in Clamart (France). His work is still known, every Soviet person loved his songs and poems.
His father is Georgian (Mingrelian) by nationality, and his mother is from Armenia. Mother and father lived in Tiflis, but they left for Moscow to study, Bulat was also born there. Then, with his father, little Bulat went to live in Tbilisi, and his mother worked in the city of Moscow. As participants in the assassination attempt on the director of the Uralvagonstroy plant, his father and his two brothers were shot in 1937. Therefore, Bulat was returned to Moscow to his mother and grandmother, where they lived on Arbat Street. But in 1938 his mother was arrested, she was exiled to Karlag. She returned from the Gulag only in 1947.
Bulat Okudzhava was mobilized into the army in August 1942, since he only then turned 18. In 1944 he was demobilized, because his health deteriorated after being wounded. In 1985 he was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class. Bulat was enrolled after the war at the University of Tbilisi as a philologist, and at the end he worked as a teacher for several years.
Poetic and singing activity
In 1956, the debut collection of Bulat Okudzhava was released, where his poems were collected. At the same time, he moved to Moscow and became popular thanks to his songs. At the same time, his most famous songs were written, such as "Sentimental March" and others. In 1962, he was approved for a small role in "The Chain Reaction", where he was the performer of his own song "Midnight Trolley". In 1968, his record appeared in France, he also recorded songs for this record in France. In 1970, his song also plays in the film "Belarusian Station". The songs of his authorship were played in the cinema more than 80 times. Already in the mid-70s, his records began to appear on the shelves of the Soviet space.
In addition to working on his works, he took up translation activities. Studied poetry and prose by various authors different countries. Together with Isaac Schwartz, he created a huge number of popular songs. Also, in one almanac, an autobiography was published, stories were printed on historical themes. He also wrote war stories for children and worked as an editor for a well-known publishing house.
Bulat Shalvovich recent times lived in the Moscow region, performed with his works in different cities Soviet Union and in the West. He completed his performances in Paris.
Okudzhava died in 1997 due to complications from pneumonia in France, but his body was moved to Moscow and buried.
